February 6, 2013 - 8:08am
Making nut flours? Attachement for the Electrolux assistent mixer?
I haven't been here in a LONG time, but I'm still baking up a storm.
I'm getting more and more into using nut flours as I can't tolerate simple flours and sugars. Problem is, nut flour is very expensive.
When I bake for cakes, I just grind nuts in my food processor with sugar, but when my recipe doesn't call for sugar, I'm up a creek. I started looking and I see that there are two kinds of nut grinders for the DLX mixer - which I have. However, does it just make an nut meal or does it actually turn it into a flour? I want to make the flour.
Has anyone done this?
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grinding makes nut butter...
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/4440/walnut-flour
You probably have an attachment already!
Mini :)
Actually, no I don't but I've been wanting to get the meat grinder attachment for my DLX mixer for eons, now with perhaps it being able to make nut flours too, It's with the cost? Here's a link that shows what they have - basically it seems there is either an attachment for the food processor or the meat grinder that do about the same thing?
http://www.breadbeckers.com/store/pc/Nut-Grater-for-the-Magic-Mill-Electrolux-Assistent-attaches-to-meat-grinder-p1838.htm
http://www.everythingkitchens.com/dlx-electrolux-meat-grinder-accessory-el0607.html
Here's a video of it - a nut flour? or a nut meal?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEA1KxO3rgs
That grater is $45 to $55 depending on where I buy it. Seriously expensive for a grater????? I can understand "a bit" that the meat grinder costs a bit as there's something mechanical to it, but gee whiz, $225 to grind my own nuts! I scoff, but a pound of almonds costs about $5-$6 a pound. A pound of almond flour costs $9 AND it will not be as fresh. That's $4 (about) a pound difference. But it would still take me 13 batches to just pay for the grater attachment!
I won't factor in the meat grinder part as I've wanted to grind my own meat for awhile. Store bought ground meat can be dodgy.
I also find myself using the mixer macine and a grater machine at the same time. I often will be using the mixer with a dough or batter in there and discover I need more grated nuts. Then I pull out the small electric grater, weigh and grate what I need. There are many small food processors at reasonable prices. I do like those with a barrel when compared to a disk. Mine also is a meat grinder that gets used. The other parts sit in a box somewhere.
What do you think of THIS ONE. You could even have it "pimped." (Pimp my Grinder) I can'r really see how tiny the holes are in the barrel.
Ok... so another option (supposedly) is to get the dry blade carafe for the vitamix mixer (which I already have). I still can't see how that would work and you need to control the bursts of power to avoid turning it into a butter.
A food processor just doesn't work. They heat up the oils too much and turn it into a butter almost immediately.
For some odd reason, making nut flours in the US is uncommon, but I know that in Croatia at least, it's common. They use it all the time for cakes and such, but they would (at least in the olden days) would have it done at the store for them and would buy by the kilo how much they wanted.
But the North American market looks rather limited, lots of whirling disks and blades. Probably because of the 110 voltage. Not your fault. I can locate a variety of food processors with barrel attachments but all with 220-240 volt. I do have a hand turn Zyliss cheese grater (smaller than it looks) but that really works slow for nuts. I remember trying it once and gave up. Those little nuts are harder than they look. Chopped just isn't the same. And any kind of machine that chops will not work well. In looking at hand crank models, the longer the crank handle extention, the easier to grate. Guess they are called rotary graters now.
This is nice but like I said 220 volt
Jupiter makes one as well.
My Mother in law has ha hand held thing that looks like a cheese grater for nuts. Works OK on walnuts (which are softer nuts), but I tried it on almonds and gave up after a couple minutes. No way.
It seems like the DLX meat grinder with the grater attachment does approximately what these machines are doing.
I got several responses when asking vitamix about using their dry carafe blade with the blender that they do make a flour, but I just find that hard to believe as it's whirling it ALLLLL around and some will have to get over processed while leaving bigger pieces - kind of like a food processor does (which only has those blades).
This is what the vitamix does:
https://www.vitamix.com/Discover-Vitamix/What-You-Can-Make#flours
grinding. Um... but grains are not as fatty as nuts. Did you see the "nut butter" square link? Does not sound good for nut flours.
Yep, the nut grater with DLX meat grinder is doing the right kind of job. Can you ask for a discount? Or do you have any coupons in the purchasing material on your DLX that you could use?