April 14, 2011 - 5:24am
decent inexpensive grain mill
I just got some fresh wheat berries and I want to grind them into flour. I tried using my beer grinders but they didn't work at all so I had to use my coffee grinder.
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I just made some fresh wheat bread, it's awesome! But the coffee grinder takes forever..
Anyways, back to my question, where can I get an inexpensive but good grinder for my wheat? any suggestions for good brands? I was thinking about the kitchen aid attachment for grinding flour, it's only about 120$..
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K-Tec (now called Blendtec) grain mill for $180. It produces various degrees of flour down to really fine but cannot crack or make coarse meal. I use it weekly and like the product.
I would like to buy the Kitchenaid attachment for coarse grains as well, but my primary need is flour.
FF
No, not the beer. Corona mills won't at first give you wheat flour that you'd want to bake into a loaf by itself, but they'll do okay if you grind the flour a couple of times and are willing to at least partially supplement with some regular AP or bread flour. I think that you could get acceptable loaves up to maybe 50% of the flour ground in this way.
Corona mills are really common in the brewing community, and can occasionally be had for just $20 or so if you look for a while. Generally though, you find them for around $25 (e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Grizzly-H7775-Cast-Iron-Grain/dp/B000E34C5M). At their best, they give a product that is about the consistency of corn meal or polenta.
That was my first beer mill, the Corona mill. It didn't work at all. I tried to get a fine ground and it started grinding off the metallic coating on the teeth. I only noticed it because the flour started to become shiny with metal.
And the second grinder I have is called the Barley Crusher, and it couldn't grind anything fine.
I think the Blendtec will get you fine flour for not much money and not much work.
If you want to grind by hand the Retsel Uni-Ark with stone grinding wheels will do great flour for about $137. It's a lot of work to hand-grind flour though.
I believe, I got it for $99.