April 15, 2017 - 3:19pm
Best mill for regular home use
Hi all! Sorry if this has been asked before but I just watched a video on youtube where this baker milled his own flour prior to making his dough, and it got me thinking about doing the same. Can anyone recommend some good mills for home use that won't take up too much counter space, and more importantly where in the US (new england specifically) a home baker could purchase said grains to mill?
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It depends somewhat on what you want to grind, and how much. I have a Wondermill Jr. which is a hand-operated mill. It comes with stones and steel burrs and you can grind just about anything (including, apparently, lobster shells, though I don't know why you would want to!). The nice thing with the steel burrs is that you can grind wet stuff like peanuts or sunflower seeds for nut butter without messing up your stones. It's built like a tank and I don't think any part of it will ever break.
I buy sacks of grain (Red Fife, Kamut, spelt, rye, barley, etc.) and mill flour from all of those, and I bake quite a bit (I have a little community micro-bakery). I purchase my unbleached bread flour but most everything else I mill my own, and all that by hand, so it's not too much work. But if you want, there are many ways to hook it up (to a bike, a motor or even a heavy-duty drill) to automate it but I haven't found it necessary to do that. Given that I live in Western Canada I can't help much with suggesting where you could buy grain, but maybe you could look around for local farmers.
Hey lazy, I just ran across this old thread while googling for flour mills.
Could you tell me a little detail about how your community micro bakery works?
Thanks much!
Well, at the moment it's on hold as our house is for sale and I needed to put away all my bread-making 'clutter'. But in a nutshell, I was baking for a list of subscribers (people in my neighbourhood) 3 or 4 days a week. I would decide what I was going to bake, send out a note a couple of days ahead and take orders. I'd bake however many were ordered and then people would come and pick up their bread on baking day. Also, for several years I had a little shop in a corner of my garage that was open half a day a week (Saturday afternoon). I'd bake everything fresh that morning and open at noon. Any bread left at 4:00 PM was offered to my subscribers through email (and always sold). I had a couple of regular gluten-free customers for whom I baked once a week and a couple other customers who ordered Deli Rye bread about every five weeks (a batch of 10 or 12 for the two of them). And I made Hot Cross buns at Easter and Plum Puddings at Christmas. :)
Wendy
That sounds so cool. I like it. Bet it was a fun operation.
There's a lack of good jewish rye here, other than the usual commercial junk, and I'm working on a small list of folks in my area.
Thanks for the information! I really appreciate it!
I can happily cast a vote for Komo (purchased from Pleasant Hill -- they have lots of different mills to choose from). Their products are well engineered and the electric mill of theirs that we have has served us very well for the two years we've been using it, multiple times every week. Like Lazy Loafer above, we only buy AP and mill everything else. There are lots of places to obtain grain for milling, depending on where you live. We are fortunate in the SF bay area as there are many healthy markets with bulk food sections and staff willing to place special orders for 25# or 50# sacks of grain. I would recommend sourcing it that way since shipping grain gets expensive. But Pleasant Hill, Giustos, Breadtopia and other online sources probably have a greater variety of grains than your local coop or market. We buy and cook all organic, and such grains are no harder to find than conventional.
Happy Milling...and Easter,
Tom
I'm a relative newbie to home milling but I've been doing the home-based microbakery thing for a few years now. I think it's fair to say that the mill I have, and most of the ones aimed at home use would not be up to the demands of even a small bake operation, but are good for very small numbers of home made loaves or to make lightly milled toppings and inclusions.
Mine is the Hawos Oktagon1 and takes a minute or so to mill 100g of grains. I can use over 20Kg of flour in an evenings mix, so it would simply not be practical for that, but for small stuff to mill for yourself for bread, biscuits, etc. then a home mill will be fine.
It seems that a lot of them come from Germany and the surrounds and you have 3 basic categories - hand-cranked, ones that fit onto the power drive of a stand mixer and stand-alone ones. (The Oktagon is the latter)
I live in in old england, so probably not in the best position to recommend grain suppliers in new england...
-Gordon
Chasenpace, here is a discussion of 3 basic electric mills, http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/44909/electric-grain-mills-mockmill-lee-s700-komo-or if you have a kitchenaid, the mockmill would be the most compact and cheapest. Here are the reviews of the mockmill. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/43020/anyone-received-their-mockmill-yet
In terms of buying berries, many of us buy in bulk either 25 pounds or 50 pounds. Check out any nearby organic food stores, though you may have to special order them. Whole Foods also offers berries in their bulk food area, you scoop out as much as you want. I don't have one near me, but I understand that the Later Day Saints offer berries in their food stores, and I just checked and it looks like they have one in Worcester.
I opted for a Mock Mill and have been using it for 6 months or so. It is an accessory for KitchenAid mixers and offers compact storage in a cabinet or pantry when not in use. It has composite stone burrs and that limits the materials that can be ground by it to dry, non-oily grains which is no problem for me because I'm using it for wheat and plan on adding rye berries and dent corn to its tasks. I've purchased hard white Augason Farm's wheat from Walmart's website which offers fairly inexpensive shipping to your home or free shipping to a nearby store for your pickup. I've also purchased grain from a local Whole Foods store. So far I'm pleased with my foray into home milling and the only problem I've found is a difference in the performance of the gluten in fresh flour.
Check out these links
https://youtu.be/41k2xqlEwrA
https://youtu.be/4sJNijrNrf8
https://youtu.be/2biIDfbWRIk
Thanks everyone for the info! I do have a kitchenaid so the mockmill seems like a no brainer, and I don't think I'd be passing any oily items through it so no worries there.
Justanoldguy - How is the gluten different, and how much fresh flour are you using in your formulas?
My understanding is that freshly milled flour contains a compound, if I recall (quite an accomplishment at my age) known as thiol. They interfere with the bonding of the proteins that must join to form gluten. So, even with a high protein flour you won't get the strongest gluten structure until they either age out of the flour, a process that will take so much time that it's likely the oils in the germ will turn rancid, or they are neutralized by the addition of an acid to the dough. I experienced quite a few loaves that partially collapsed as they baked. Part of that might have been overproofing but I was using timings that had worked successfully with commercial flours so I looked around for another reason. I found the information about thiols in a thread on here and it explained that commercial flours are either aged with the germ removed or an acidic additive is introduced when they are 'enriched'. I experimented with vital wheat gluten (VWG) added to the dough and that seemed to resolve the issue (fingers crossed here). Reading the label on the VWG I noticed that it included ascorbic acid, vitamin C, and I decided to use just ascorbic acid powder instead of the VWG. It seems to be working (fingers still crossed and that's making it hard to typpeee) and I can use significantly less ascorbic acid, about 1/2 tsp, than VWG at 4 TBS per loaf. For most loaves I have used as much as 60% freshly milled flour. I just finished a loaf that was all freshly milled Kamut and for it I went with VWG and got a very nice loaf. The next loaf will be all hard white wheat, all the Kamut is gone, and I'll try just the ascorbic acid. By the way I went with ascorbic acid powder instead of crushed Vitamin C tablets because the tables contained some things other than ascorbic acid.
Interesting, I did not know that! I mainly use sourdough and I do have some ascorbic acid lying around so perhaps those in addition to a long autolyse may help with the gluten formation?
I didn't seem to have any problem when I used sourdough and that probably was because of the lactic acid it produces. One thing I didn't mention was fresh flour does seem to need a longer autolyze because it absorbs water differently than store-bought and for me it seemed to make a 'stickier' dough if I went with the shorter timing I was used too. With fresh flour in my yeasted breads I eventually went with 45 minutes before I began to knead and add in salt. Have fun with it. The bran will be much more obvious than it is in store whole wheat flour. One nice thing about the mockmill, it appears to be much quieter, not silent mind you, just quieter than some other designs.
I've had my Komo for a month (Fidibus Classic), and I couldn't be happier. I can't compare it to others in practice, but I do know that it's very solid and attractive, and has a long warranty. Pleasant Hill did tell me that as opposed to some of the less expensive models, Komo mills can be disassembled and cleaned more. At the same time they told me it doesn't really need to be cleaned, except by occasionally milling rice.
I've always been a little sceptical of this - mostly because I'm fairly sure the un-treated flour I buy was only milled a few days before it was shipped to me. I very much doubt the mills have the capacity to store tonnes of flour for months on end to provide any sort of ageing process (and big commercial bakery plants making a million loaves day more or less mill to order - however they do add a huge cocktail of other additives).
But I've not yet ground and sifted out some wheat to make a whitish flour to try to make bread with. Might give it a go soon, but the commercial stoneground and sifted flour I have used seems just fine (Stoates/Cann Mill) with regular yeasted recipes - I made all my seasonal hot cross buns this year with it - fairly standard yeasted enriched dough recipe.
Due to supply issues I am currently using a commercial flour with vit.c added (Doves Farm "Biobake" flour) but it goes against the ethos of the real bread campaign, so am currently looking for alternatives, but it performs identically to the un-treated flour I was using prior to switching to that brand.
Anyway, just found this online: http://muehlenchemie.de/downloads-future-of-flour/FoF_Kap_18-3.pdf which makes an interesting read - in-particular the actual dosage of vit.c 0.5 to 3g per 100Kg. Overdosage produces a soft crumb which may not be desirable.
-Gordon
I opted for a Mock Mill and have had it for a few months now. I love the ease of use and for a home baker it's a great machine for the price.
I also have a KoMo Classic from Pleasant Hill and LOVE it. I've had it since late 2013 and it gets regular use, 1-3 times per week. It always sits out on my counter and is a really beautiful kitchen tool. I mostly grind hard white wheat (for breads and anything that I want to form more gluten and structure) and occasionally soft white wheat for some lighter pastries like scones or pie crust. I like to mill each batch twice: once through on a coarse setting, and then again on the finest setting.
I order my wheat in bulk from WinCo, which unfortunately isn't in the New England area... but you might try any store with a bulk section and asking if they could order a 25-lb bag of wheat berries for you. I highly recommend Wheat Montana Prairie Gold if you can get your hands on it - I consistently get great results and flavor with it.
One of my goals when I started baking bread with my mill was to learn how to do it with 100% whole grain wheat flour and no special additives. Instead, I like to use ingredients like milk, oil, or yogurt to tenderize the wheat, and techniques like long knead times, high hydration, or stretch and folds (courtesy Peter Reinhart's instruction) to help develop the gluten. I have several recipes for breads + pizza dough and sweets that fit this requirement, and recently collected them into Kindle book along with tips and techniques I've learned along the way in my experiments with baking with homemade flour.
Hope this helps! If you're interested in checking the book out let me know and I'll provide a link :)
For anyone else shopping for a grain mill, and comparing the differences between the various types, this Grain Mill Buying Guide on the Pleasant Hill Grain website could be helpful!
There are plenty of options in the market when your going to purchase different grinder for your home. But before that you should compare the pros and cons of different products. Then you can find the best product for your kitchen.
Here a website which provides the different <a href=" http://monlock.com/corn-grinder/"> Grain Grinder Reviews </a>
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