Hand crank grinders - suitable for making bread flour

Jon, milling by hand is going to take a great deal of effort. Many bakers think, “no problem, I can handle it”. I thought the same and bought a Wondermill Wonder Junior Deluxe. It has both steel and stone wheels, which is a super nice benefit.  Milling wheat grain is doable, but most people will prefer an electric mill. BUT, forget about their claim that it makes peanut butter. I’ve tried several times or more and it was a mess. The larger flywheel type manual hand mills require less work, but they cost much more.

I have a KoMo Fidibus and am completely satisfied. If you have not baked with whole grains, it would be good to buy some whole grain flour and give it a try.

Dave (idaveindy) s using an alternate method to mill flour. I’ll ask him to reply.

"... would it work to use one of those grinders that clip onto the edge of your table and that have a hand crank to grind wheat berries?"

Yes, but one of those that actually makes _flour_ (such as the Wondermill Jr. Deluxe) is going to cost as much as the lesser-expensive electric ones:  $250. 

Anything cheaper than that price is going to merely make cracked grain, not _flour_.  

Don't believe the hype of brands like Shule, Marcato, or Victorio -- they lie.  Read the Amazon reviews -- and believe the negative reviews. They crack the grain. They don't make actual flour, unless you count the "fines" that come out, and make up maybe 5% of the output -- and you'd have to sift to get them separated from the chunks.

--

I bought a cheap Asian knock-off of the Shule mill, which is similar to the Marcato, and learned the hard way. Though I do use it to make cracked grain.

Fortunateiy,  I have a Vitamix blender (regular container/blade, not the grains container/blade). And I run 1/2 pound (8oz by weight) of cracked wheat berries (that I cracked in the Shule) in the Vitamix for 30 seconds and it makes a coarse flour that I can make bread with.

But the Vitamix heats up the flour. So if I want fine flour, I have to run it for 30 seconds in the first Vitamix  pass, cool that flour in the fridge, then run it through the Vitamix for a 2nd 30-second pass.

Net.... I bake with the coarse flour: one pass in the Shule, and one 30-second pass in the Vitamix.  And I still chill the chunks in the fridge after the Shule, before the Vitamix.

--

I tried running whole berries through the Vitamix and they scratched up the container to the point of making it cloudy.

--

I also have a Wondermill Jr. Deluxe. But it takes so much effort/strength to turn the handle, I have to make two passes on it too. One pass to crack the grain, and a second pass to make flour. If you have a lot of arm/upper-body strength, you could do it on one pass.

You do want to get the Deluxe version in order to get the clamp. Otherwise you have to screw the mill to a board, and then use 2 C clamps to clamp it to your counter or table.

--

"... is an electric coffee grinder (with spinning blade, like a MagiMix) usable?"

No.   For hard wheat, it will over-heat itself and the wheat before it turns all the wheat berry chunks into fine flour. If you stop before it over-heats, the wheat will just be a mix of chunks and fines.

And it will dull the blade.

Also, on my coffee grinder, which I use to grind spices, chia seed, and flaxseed, is a plastic part on top of the blade spindle. After the time I tried to grind hard wheat in it, there was a chunk of that plastic part missing, which I didn't notice until the next time I went to use it.

A whirly blade coffee grinder _might_ work better on soft (pastry) wheat. But I have not tried that.

Dan has a good point: Be sure you like whole grains first.

Though, there are plenty of home-millers who use, say, 30% home-milled flour in their bread, and the rest commercially milled flour.

--

Anticipating your next question:  Sifting home milled flour is tedious, and you can't get all of the bran out anyway.  You can get _some_ bran out.  You'll never make white flour, anywhere near store-bought flour, at home.  There's plenty of prior discussion of that. So please use the search box to read up if you want more info.

Dan and Dave both describe my experience to a T. We already had one of these, and I briefly used it to mill flour. It produces coarser flour than I get with my Mockmill, but was better than nothing. I found it to be kind of a pain in the rear to have to set up every time I needed flour (we don't have room anywhere to leave it clamped in place full time). It does take more time to mill than I expected, definitely longer than an electric mill. While it was a good intro to home milling, I was glad I hadn't spent extra money to figure things out. 

I leave the Mockmill on the counter full time, and think I use it more because it is convenient. And I still break out either the hand mill (above) or my Mercado flaker to crack/flake grain for porridge, bread inclusions, etc.

And agreed, there are a lot of fun whole grain flours available to try before entering the world of home milling. Baking with whole grain has a learning curve, baking with home milled grain has an additional learning curve. Dave has some great info here.

All that said, I don't regret milling my own grains at all, I'm really quite glad to be able to do so. Everything tastes so much better, and for our purposes it's worth the effort and investment.

Good luck with whatever you decide! 

Mary

I've owned my GrainMaker 99 for about 10 months or so.  I usually mill about 600g of wheat a week, sometimes more. 

I typically grind for three minutes, rest for two. Usually double-handed.  Total time is about 10 minutes.

And yes, I half-jokingly say I get my upper-body exercise from milling wheat.

Regarding peanut butter, I respectfully disagree with Dan and here's the video to prove it.

https://youtu.be/MWpb5dWvKmo

Assuming, of course, you motorized your mill.  In my experience, hand-milling peanuts is actually a bit easier than the harder wheats, although I've only done it for one sandwich in order to prove the concept.

If I ever do motorize my GM then I would grind my own PB.  Cleanup is simply scrubbing the burrs under running water with a Scotch-brite pad.  But be certain to_thoroughly_ dry the burrs so they don't rust.

The one that is a cleanup mess is milling sesame seeds into tahini paste for hummus.

The one arduous thing to grind is dent corn for corn bread.  I can only feed 1/8-cup through at a tme before it becomes too hard to grind.

Dave is spot-on regarding sieving out the bran.   I end up filtering out about 50% of grain. Instead, I'm planning to buy a "rice polisher" that gently abrades the bran off the endosperm before I mill it.  I will report my results in a future post.

Finally, my interest in home milling is driven in part by my quest to become as self-sufficent as possible. However, what I also discovered was a whole new world of grains and flavors not available elsewhere.  For these reasons and more, I don't see myself returning to refined flour, especially if the rice polisher performs as expected and I eventually motorize my mill.

My $0.02.

JonJ: I just checked your user page and was reminded you're in Cape Town, S.A.

How much does a set-up like this cost?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0JLvm5IUMk

There's your upper-body work-out. Almost whole-body it you get your legs in motion too. ;-)

--

And what is the availability of whole wheat berries there?   Is S.A. a wheat-growing country?  And if so, do the whole berries make their way into retail distriution channels, or can only commercial millers get a hold of the berries?

I assume S.A has a climate similar to North America, so if the soil is good for wheat, I hope they're growing it aplenty.

If you have to import retail quantities of wheat berries, I could see how it would be prohibitively expensive.