There would be rare people who would not have tasted the Roti with Tadka in a Punjabi Dhaba. The taste of the North Indian food item is simply is subtly sumptuous. The Roti is certainly a bit different from the ones we have at our homes. We know about the use of wheat in the Rotis we are talking about. However, the process how the wheat reaches our homes is something that most of the people are unaware of. Wheat flour is even used in Biscuit making plants and in other food industry units.
The Role that the Mills Play:
What would have made our main diet had the flour mills not existed? It would not be fair, however, to associate these mills only with wheat. There are other cereals like the corn, oats, rice, maize, millet, etc. that are used in extracting flours. The flour varieties extracted from Bajra, Makka, Gehu, Suji, Rawa etc. are the staple components of Indian kitchens. These are used to prepare items like Chapati, Dosa, Halwa, bakery items, etc. that form the greater part of food habits of our folks. Apart from kitchen the leftover bran, separated after milling can be used as a feed for cattle.
Why Commercial Mills?
Mills have evolved the way of extracting flour, compared to the techniques that were used in older times. The millers in old era used things like stone grinders to execute the milling 
process. But now, we have modern machineries at plants to process the cereals to derive flour. There are flour mills which can be installed in your kitchen too. But that demands substantial time for which commercial mills are preferred to supply the desired material. Getting a supply of flour from these manufacturing units would save time needed for sieving, cleaning, etc. required in the process.
The Things that Happen at the Commercial Mills
The flour mills involve a set of meticulous methods for complete processing of grains. These are grading, a few stages of ‘destoning’ and cleaning of the grains, conditioning or tempering, grinding, processing, stages of sieving, etc. Let’s go take a look at each of this process:-
- Purifying:
The cleaning or purifying process is carried more than once to ensure that the product obtained is fine. The foreign, as well as any unwanted particles have to be removed beforehand, so that the impure grains are not brought for grinding. The purified raw material is inspected and cleaned again if required. The devices required in this case are separator, aspirator, disc separator, magnets, scourers, etc. Then the cleaned material is washed and dried, after which moisture content is controlled through conditioning or tempering.
- Grading & Blending:
The next step after the refining of the raw material is the distinction. The grading of wheat classifies the wheat categories, based on a few characteristics. This is important before moving forward to the purification process. The next step after grading is blending of two or more varieties to obtain the right quality. It is this step, on the basis of which, it is decided which type will be sent for which purpose.
- Conditioning or Tempering:
Subsequently after the purification, grading and blending, controlling the amount of moisture, usually by adding more moisture is important, so that while grinding, the bran gets removed conveniently. Warm or hot water or steam conditioning is done at various temperatures to get the results. Soaking for 2-3 days can be involved in this procedure. In case of excess moisture, use of vacuum cleaners can be made to withdraw the extra amount.
- Grinding:
Next and the almost the final stage is to grind the solid material and produce the flour. The grains are allowed to pass through metal rollers called Breaker Rolls in this stage. Then they are transferred through metal sieves to divide them into three categories. If required, the finished product is aged, for e.g., in case of sending to biscuit making plants, Atta needs aging. And after this the final product is supplied to the destinations where they are supposed to reach.