What's the best Grain Mill?

[Mrs._B]

I've been looking through the web for the best manual grain mill that will do everything from fine flour for breads to cracked cereals. It seems the one that will do everything I'm looking for is the Diamante (sp?) but the cost is way too much than I can afford.

What do you folks use? What would you recommend?

Mrs. B.

[Shamrock1121]

I've been looking through the web for the best manual grain mill that will do everything from fine flour for breads to cracked cereals. *It seems the one that will do everything I'm looking for is the Diamante (sp?) but the cost is way too much than I can afford.

What do you folks use? *What would you recommend?

Mrs. B.

Mrs. B. - There are no "perfect mills" - each class of mills have their drawbacks. Manual mills are really pretty slow, and if you mill as much flour as I do, you'd really appreciate an electric option. Just last night I milled spelt, hard winter white wheat, and rye for baking with today.

I'm not all that fond of steel and stone burrs or plates, but I do use mills that have them, but not for fine flour for bread. With both steel and stone burrs/plates, they can chip and flake into your flour.

Electric stone mills are great, but most stone mills grind coarser than the impact (or micronizers) mills. And the grain needs to be VERY dry or you'll glaze up the stones - 10% moisture or less. Not all mills will do large items (like soy or garbanzo) and only seed mills will do tiny seeds. Not all mills will do oily grains/beans/seeds.

From personal experience, I can recommend a Family Grain Mill (http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/family_grain_mills.asp) because you can use it with or without electricity (if you purchase the attachment) and it has a number of other attachments for it which makes it a little more virsitile - but each attachment will cost.

It's difficult to find one machine that does it all, which is why I have an assortment of mills.

My Family Grain Mill is my back-up mill - in case the electricity goes out. You need to put flour through twice to get a fairly fine flour (okay for bread, but not fine enough for cake). Milling the flour twice is often the best option with most hand mills.

When it comes to fine flour, nothing matches the impact mills (unfortunately, they are electric). I have an "old" electric Whisper Mill (now called a Wonder Mill) that makes excellent fine flour. If this mill dies, then I'd get a Nutrimill because it will mill corn into a fine corn meal.

Fine flour is VERY important for not only bread making, but for making cake flour as well (I use a 3:1 ratio of soft white wheat and oats to make "cake flour"). If flour is coarse, you will get coarse bread - and don't even try to make a cake if all you have is coarse flour.

For cracked cereal I use a Marga Flaker Mill (http://www.kitchenkneads.com/index.php?module=store_listings&action=view_listin g&listing=63) as well as for making flakes, and a very coarse flour. I mill durum wheat into a coarse flour similar to simolina using the Marga Flaker Mill, and I use this for pasta/noodles.

For corn meal I use a Corona Corn Mill (hand crank). I can adjust the grind for fine to coarse corn meal. I got this mill from Lehman's (www.lehmans.com), and it is similar to the Victoria Corn Mill they carry.

For tiny grains/seeds I use a seed mill. It's the only mill that will grind things like Tef and Amaranth, as well as poppyseeds, flax, and sesame - etc. (see: http://www.lehmans.com/jump.jsp?itemType=PRODUCT&itemID=2975)

I'm sorry I don't know about the type of mill you are looking at.

-Karen

[Mrs._B]

Shamrock, you're the greatest. This is terrific information. I'd also like to personally thank you. There have been other times where you have posted responses to my questions. All of your answers (whether to me or to others) have been a wealth of information. Thank you, you're teaching me many things.

Susan (Mrs. B)

[Shamrock1121]

Mrs. B - Thanks for your kind words :D.

I should have asked you what kind of baking you'd be doing and how often you would need to mill? I'd have different suggestions for someone who's crazy like me - multiple mills and a selection of 27 grains/beans/seeds that I mill - or if you want a useful mill for an emergency situation - or something inbetween.

I checked the information about the Diamant Grain Mill in Lehman's catalog (had to rush my original answer because I was supposed to be getting supper made ;) - and you're right - it's expensive. Even with my penchant for mills, I'd hesitate purchasing one that expensive for home use unless you were milling for a mob. You'd have to mill a heck of a lot of grain to get your money out of it.

The first thing I see (besides the price) is that it needs to be mounted onto something very stable. It's not very portable because of that. It's made out of steel and iron, so you're going to have to make sure it's in a dry place or you'll find it may rust. I'm going to bet it takes a fair amount of maintanance before/after each use; unlike my Whisper Mill which has a self-cleaning grinding chamber (stainless steel teeth that pass within a fraction of each other and literally explodes the grain into fine particles - nothing ever grinds together or needs replaced) and it is very portable (the Nutrimill is very similar to the Whisper Mill in that respect).

The replacement burrs for the Diamant are also really expensive - plus you need different burrs for different application$$$$$. I do have replacement burrs for my corn mill, but they cost less than $20 and after many years of use, I've never needed to replace the original ones.

I think the Diamant would probably do a great job, but at a great expense, and not without it's drawbacks - which you'd have to decide if you'd like to contend with.

Here's approximately what my mills would cost today (I just looked in Lehman's, and some can be much less if you look on the Internet):

Corn mill: $ 45
Seed mill: 40
Nutrimill: 290 (Wonder Mill - around $220)
Flaker/Roller 80
----------------------
Total $455

Unless you were into the small grains, you could easily live without a seed mill. I usually mill my flax in a coffee/spice mill, and you can mill small amounts of many grains in a coffee/spice mill.

My first mill was the useless "Basic Mill" which isn't good for much more than coarse flour that takes forever to mill. My next mill was an electric "Regal" (got it from King Arthur Flour), and it was only slightly better at milling flour than the Basic Mill. It was so loud I had to wear ear plugs. Since it didn't make fine flour, I didn't use it all that often.

Once I got the impact mill, I was so much happier with the flour and I've been making all our breads ever since - using a wide varieties of grains/seeds/beans in them. I use my mills once or twice a week - at least.

I didn't buy my mills all at once, but over several years. I'm a gadget person, so one good thing leads to another :D.

-Karen

[Mrs._B]

My DH and I are looking around for land back home (too expensive so far) and want to have a small homestead (get out of the city).

We're relearning old skills our folks taught us and we have forgotten. My job is the "cooking stuff" :D

In a case when we're w/o electricity, I envision hand milling various grains (red winter wheat, other grains..) from the local Amish farmers and making breads, maybe crackers, perhaps some cereal.

Coffee -- I'll probably get a littlle coffee mill for that.

Peanut butter is nice... but, I'll stick to the basics of breads to start us off.

That's our little dream... we're working hard. I've even joined the pistol club with my husband.. we have a meet on Saturday.

Susan (Mrs. B)

PS: I actually save some of your posts -- they have SO MUCh KNOWLEDGE! So, on your really crummy days... tell yourself "at least someone appreciates me!" :D