Grain Mill Recommendations, Please

[tlrnnp67]

I am thinking of investing in a grain mill for grinding fresh flour for breadmaking. What should I look for as far as features in the various mills available? For those of you who have them, what are the pros and cons of the kind you have? Thanks in advance for the information.

[Rcrewofmany]

I would highly recommend a NutriMill over a Whisper/Wonder mill. I have owned both. The Nutrimill you can mill more wheat berries per batch. You can stop the milling process in mid stream if you need to. With the Wonder/Whisper mill you can not do that. Plus the Whisper mill just changed hands/company and have read they are not honoring some of the warranty work.

The Whisper/Wonder mill is smaller vs the Nutrimill. If I had to buy another one I would buy a Nutrimill.

HTH

Michele
Crew mom to 11 plus 3 temps

[Madame]

Michelle,

Will the Nutrimill grind stuff other than wheat berries? Is it electric or manual?

[fretti]

I bought a Family Grain Mill and love it! I got it from Pleasant Hill Grain. Not only was their price the best I found, but they have free shipping, I got a reply email (I ordered by phone) within hours, they shipped the very same day, got it in 2 days, AND got a free hand base when I ordered the electric base unit. Those folks were awesome (I had never ordered from them before but will again).

The electric mill is very quiet and does not put dust into the air, both of which were of very high importance to me. You can grind to virtually any desired coarseness because of the way it's designed and it grinds almost anything except popcorn and oily herbs and spices. It's made in Germany of sturdy Lexan. It's simple to dismantle and put back together for cleaning (I haven't done this yet). It has a high-quality Bosch electric motor and can fit on Kitchen Aid too.

http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/fam...ain_mills.aspx

Second, I would get the book Flour Power. It is superb! It tells you everything you need to know about grinding grain and how to choose a mill. It also has all those secrets to making great bread. It's one cookbook I read from cover to cover. Amazon sells it.

[Tracy Rimmer]

Hey Tim!! I was where you are a couple of years ago... there are so many options out there, and honestly, if you don't have any experience with milling, it's hard to really tell what you need until you've got it.

I did a LOT of research, and ended up investing in the Retsel MilRite with both stone and steel burrs. It's AMAZING, a true workhorse -- I couldn't be happier with it. It will grind ANYTHING from rice to chick peas, and the steel burrs allow you to grind nuts and oily seeds as well.

It is a bit pricier than some of the others, but there is NO plastic on this thing. It's solid and metal, and would probably survive a nuclear attack. You can buy a conversion kit to make it a hand grinder, too, just in case.

It's kind of loud, but I have mine set up in my cold storage room, and I set it to grind there. It's out of the way and always set up, so I don't put off baking because I have to grind wheat and get everything out to do that. I have my big bins of grain right under the table it sits on, and scoop right out of them into the hopper. It holds a LOT.

There was a problem when I ordered it -- I ordered the Steel/stone package, and they didn't ship the steel burrs. One phone call, and I had the burrs shipped to me within days. Customer service at Retsel is wonderful.

I couldn't be happier with this mill

[turtlehead]

I, too, selected the Retsel Mill-Rite after much research and deliberation. I love it! Warning - it took a LONG time to get it once I ordered it. These things are hand made and the company is small, so expect delays and slow communications. The product is excellent.

These were on my list of "things to look for" in a grinder; your list may vary:
Low grinding temperature
Coarse to fine grind
Low dust
Low noise
Electric or Hand operated
Grind a variety of items

I have pics and a review on my blog if you're interested:
http://gardenplotter.com/rospo/blog/...om-retsel.html

[joseph97297]

We choose the Country Living Mill both for price and durability. It is a solid construction and MADE IN THE USA so that helped our decision.

It grinds a nice fine flour and will even do beans and corn (with the additional auger). It is primarily (in our house) a hand operated one. I designed a stand out of 2 inch tubing and added a nice little 60 to 1 gearbox I had around and then hooked that up to a 12 volt motor from one of my old key machines. I use this setup for the chicken feed (small amounts for protein) and if I need to grind copious amounts of flour (like when my wife needed 24 dozen cookies for her classroom).

By hand it takes maybe 10 minutes to grind out 5 cups of flour, and that is not hard grinding, really slow and easy.

We looked at the other mills, but wanted a manual and electric one. This mill, for us was a great buy and gets used daily.

Joseph

[Little House]

I have used or own the Nutrimill, the Whisper Mill, and the Family Grain Mill.

The best thing about the Nutrimill (electric) is that it is all one piece. If you plan on keeping it on the counter, it will take up less space than the Whisper Mill. You can turn it off mid-stream and it won't plug it up. It also grinds a lot of wheat quickly.

The best thing about the Whisper Mill (electric) is that it is a little quieter than the NutriMill, and it seems faster than the Nutrimill I used, but you can't put quite as much wheat in it at one time. (I regularly put 4 cups at a time though mine.)

Both the Nutrimill and the Whisper/wonder mill are good machines.

I would put the Family grain mill in another category. It is a good machine. When using the Electric base, it is much quieter than the Whisper Mill, but I always put the wheat through the machine twice to get it as fine as I want it. It takes 10-15 min. to grind 4 cups of wheat. (2-3 min. for the Whisper Mill.) I let my 6yo use the Family grain mill to make bread. I don't let her use the Whisper Mill because it is too loud, and I don't think that she could connect the pieces without help, and if the pieces are not connected correctly you get flour everywhere. (Don't ask how I know that one. ) We also have the flaker attachment for the Family Grain mill, (The real reason that we bought it.) and it makes great oatmeal from oat groats. We got the hand crank free with our package. The only time that we used the hand crank was when we were camping, but it seemed to work just fine.

All of the machines have their downside, but if I had to pick just one it would be the Family Grain Mill because it is so versatile. There are several attachments that you can get and it is easily converted to hand crank (just in case). If I had to pick between the Nutrimill and the Wonder Mill I would probably go with the Nutrimill. I like that the Wonder Mill is in two separate pieces, easier to store in the cabinet, but there were some design flaws with it. I don't know if they have been fixed, but the special piece that connects the two pieces was prone to cracking. Happened to my first lid. (Before the company went out of business and then opened under a new name.) I got a replacement, but I don't think the new company has as good of a replacement policy. The Nutrimill is bigger, but more compact.

Well, thats my experience, hope it is helpful.

[avandris]

I also have the Family Grain Mill. I will second the good service at Pleasant Hill. I chose the FGM over the Country living because of size and price.

I only run my wheat through it once usually, but run my corn two or three times to get the fineness that I like.

[akhomesteader]

We have the Country Living Grain Mill that we purchased from Kansas Wind Power about ten years ago. It's a wonderful, sturdy manual grain mill. Sounds like you're probably looking for electric, though? Any manual mill is going to be quite a bit of work. When we were looking at different mills, I spoke with a man at Lehman's. He tried out both the Country Living mill and another one that I think is called Diamante (or something like that --- it's been so long I can't remember). He said the Country Living mill was a little more work than the other one, but the other one was much more expensive. He said that even with his discount, he didn't think the Diamante (or whatever it's called) was worth the price. He said he purchased the Country Living and thought that was the best of all the manual mills, if you consider the price. Someday I'd like to put a belt on it and attach it to a bicycle (make it into a stationary bicycle). Then it might me kind of fun to mill instead of it being a chore.

That said, if we had electricity, I'm sure I'd buy an electric one (probably the Retsel MilRite if I could), and keep the Country Living mill packed away "just in case".

Jenny
Frontier Freedom Online Magazine