Hand Crank Grain Mills

What do you have?
What do you suggest?

Best one out there?

-Todd

I want to be able to make FLOUR to make bread as well as use it for corn bread, cereal, etc. If I need 2 different ones then so be it.

I just want the BEST. Something that will last, and that requires no power.

Country Living Grain Mill ? Anyone have one.

Also, does anyone know a good source for whole yellow or white dried/dehydrated corn in #10 cans?

I have never done the mill thing, but I have had pretty good luck buying from Emergency Essentials, Inc before. They have several mills, this is just one they sell...

Whatever you buy, make sure it has a fly wheel. This will make milling a lot easier since it will build and hold inertia from cranking instead of having to apply the same amount of force every crank.

Hi Todd,

From everything I have ever studied on grain mills, the Country Living Grain Mill is supposed to be the best. I wanted to get one, but it was too expensive for me at the time I bought mine.

I have a Family Grain Mill, which probably isn't strong enough for what you seem to be looking for. I am going to start using mine soon. I want to experiment with it. I bought it back in 1999.

Here is a page that has several grain mills and a comparison of them at the bottom of the the page. I like this company. I have ordered from them and they were promt and I had no problems with them. http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/index.aspx#Nutrimill

Be sure to let us know which one you decide to get and why?

Joy

From what I understand, some of the grain mills don't grind corn. So make sure the one you get does since you want to make things like corn bread.

Joy

I agree that the Country Living grain mill seems to be the most rugged one out there and the easist if you gring huge amounts, however, I bought the Family Grain Mill and could not be happier with it.

I really like the modular nature of the unit, I have the grain mill as well as the oat flaker. It also has a powered base and a converter so that you can put it on any KitchenAid mixer with a PTO unit.

There are also numerous other attachments for it including a hand crank base, vegetable processor and a meat grinder. Quality is excellent and mine has seen a lot of use with no issues. I would recommend it to any one looking for a good grain mill with a lot of value and expandability to it.

I bought mine at Pleasant Hill Grain, good prices and great customer service.

http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/index.aspx#Nutrimill

From their description:
"Mills approximately 1/2 cup of flour per minute"

Is that a norm?

I have the Country Living Grain Mill and use it almost weekly. We also just harvested our first crop of red spring wheat that I am still threshing.

The Mill works very well - on only one occasion when the wheat had a higher moisture content did it fail to perform very efficiently. The available crank handle extension is worth it, unless you can 'belt' the flywheel to a stationary bike - which is an option.

The Country Living Grain Mill does have an auger for corn, although we have not tried it yet. We are still waiting to harvest our first dent corn crop, and will try it out then.

We use the wheat flour mostly for sourdough bread and pancakes - and both are awesome!!! You can easily create your own sourdough starter in about three days from your flour and some water.

Best of Luck to you!

YouTube instructions on handgrinding flour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diFj0JSvXo8

great. something else to add to my want list.

I have recently thought a lot about this sort of thing, so its really timely for me. Thanks.

I got a country living mill. The wait on them are between 2-4 weeks and I could not find anyone who had it in stock. I bought mine thru homestead products. I was curious about the price and if it was really a coutnry living mill so I called them. They said that homestead products is a big dealer for them. I ordered it about 2 months ago. GREAT. I purchased the "king aurther wholegrain cook book" a few other bread books like the bread makers apprentice and the cornbread gospels. I purchased everything but power bar for a good price as you can see from their website. True maybe it would be easier to spin with the bar, but slower going. I said screw it, mounted it, and just go to town on it. Impressed and sure it will last with intermittant uses, but after turnning out some of the things I did, maybe Ill get fatter and keep making some dam good breads/ pancakes (orange blueberry corn bread pancakes are AWESOME) and other stuff.

http://www.homestead-products.com/mills-countryliving.htm

THANKS!

Hey Neighbor, How's life upstream?

We have a Country living mill (CLM) at home. When you consider the price at ordering time also consider all the accessories. I found a few places that had cheaper mills but more expensive add ons. Send me message via the forum if you would like to know where I sourced ours (I don't like to plug vendors on the forum outside of the marketplace . The CLM is built like a tank and I would recommend the power bar or the motor if you get it...otherwise you may be the only one with the strength to turn the wheel and I like to share that task with the DW personally .

I have also heard great things about the Wondermill Jr. hand crank mills...they are more designed for family use instead of the industrial grade Country living mill (CLM)and are easier to use with a wider application of tasks (e.g. I think it does coffee, peanut butter and oily seeds as well). Thus if you are running a business with it (e.g. a bakery) go with the CLM otherwise its been a bit overkill for us and we lament we probably should have gone with the Wondermill for our personal use.

Cheers,
Logan.

Okay, this may be a wiseguy question, but ... how would you turn a standard 3.5 HP lawnmower into a reasonably effective grain mill? Mills are few, mowers are ubiquitous. I know the results will be crude, you may need to run it through many times, but a cupful of gas could do a lot.

Thoughts?

Using the blade? I don't see how that could work.

Two flat rocks can make a mill. No gas needed. LOL

One of these would use even less gas!

We ended up getting the County Living Grain Mill!
Works good, but needs to be hard mounted or its a big workout!

Tears in my eyes, reading the post previous to yours, Todd.

Congratulations on getting your Country Living Mill.

Wow Todd, I was reading this and say.... this thread sounds familiar... and it was.. a year ago. Congrats on the new purchase, enjoy the healthier eating.. also something I have been playing with the last year is whole grain foods... not grinding it but cooking it whole and adding it to reciepes. wheat, with sausage, kale (or spinach or broccoli) sun dried tomatoes, topped with parmasan or balsamic. Good healthy and filling.

Did you end up getting the power bar? Since my last post I used the CLM to grind coffee beans and it worked great. It was a bit over kill of course but it worked beautifully!

Cheers,
Logan.

I read your blog entry, nice job Todd.

Yup, grinding grain is a lot of work. That is why it was one of the first things to get mechanized.
You might rig up a solid mount and possibly even a type of bicycle drive. Bigger cranks, flywheels and even pedals so you can use your legs instead of your arms make it easier, but it will still be work even with some type of bicycle arrangement. Of course the more machinery you attach to it the more permanent, bulky, ugly and awkward to move around it, it becomes.

It will grind quite a bit faster than your results though. As you say it might be because you didn't have it bolted down securely.

Added:
I had some friends that were using a similar grinder and they bolted it to a good solid board and clamped the board onto their kitchen table with two great big C-clamps when they wanted to grind flour.

About cooking bread, it does not have to be baked. A lot of breads can be fried, steamed or grilled.
Boiled breads are not to my taste unless they are fried afterwards like bagels are. I just find boiled bread too slimy on the outside.
Fried bread can be very nice. You make it about a half inch thick and fry it like a pancake but a bit slower.
I then to put a lid over it when I fry it.
If you have a covered barbecue you can use it as an oven.
Steamed bread is usually bun size. Chinese buns like they have in Chinese bakeries are usually steamed buns.

Todd, Glad to hear you purchased the Country Living Grain Mill!

I too would like to know if you included the hand crank extension - I believe it does make the milling alot easier.

Have you tried creating your own Starter/Sponge for sour dough bread yet? You'll be amazed what great bread you can create with nothing but your flour, water, a pinch of salt, and a touch of olive oil.

Keep up the great work!

We have the extension, but due to it not being mounted it would topple the mill! When we get it mounted we will surely use it

Nope, where can I find the info on the Starter/sponge for sour dough??


Thanks!
-Todd

Starter depends on the spores in the air at your location, which is why bread varies from town to town, country to country, and places that tranfer part of their "mother" have to continually re-supply remote locations or the strain changes.

Just make bread dough and keep part of the unbaked dough as your "mother." Some say divide out part before salt is added.

Edit: http://www.baking911.com/bread/starters101howto.htm

Sweet! Thanks for that info and URL.

Congrats on getting your Country Living Grain Mill.

I've had mine for a couple of years now, and am very pleased with it.
Mine is permanently mounted to a counter in our laundry room; and I have the extension "power bar" for the handle... nice!

Before "moving up" to the Country Living Mill, I used one of the cheap Back to Basics mills. I think that mill can be a good way for someone to get some inexpensive experience with grinding/using grains... but the Country Living Mill is a huge difference in speed and convenience.