A Few Grain Mill Questions

[Country Girl]

Does anyone have a hand cranked grain mill? I'm just not sure I want to shell out the money on the more expensive ones that are motorized. But, if the hand one will be basically useless, it isn't worth it no matter how much I save.

 

How many pounds of wheat berries do you typically go through in a given amount of time (say a year, month, whatever)? And how much do you typically bake?

 

How do you store your wheat berries and for how long?

 

 

Thanks!

[Forget-Me-Not]

Does anyone have a hand cranked grain mill? I'm just not sure I want to shell out the money on the more expensive ones that are motorized. But, if the hand one will be basically useless, it isn't worth it no matter how much I save.

 

How many pounds of wheat berries do you typically go through in a given amount of time (say a year, month, whatever)? And how much do you typically bake?

 

How do you store your wheat berries and for how long?

 

 

Thanks!

 

I'd say a lot depends on what you want to use it for. If you want whole wheat flour to make bread and you're baking frequently, electric is the way to go, hands down. My dad has a hand-crank and has to run the batch through twice to get anything worth baking with, and even then it's fairly course. I have a NutriMill and it puts out nice, fine, fluffy flour.

 

I bake bread/rolls/pizza dough/etc fairly frequently. I don't know how much wheat I go through in a year, but I store in #10 cans and I'd guess I go through 4-6 of them a year probably, for our family of 5.

 

If wheat berries are stored properly, you can keep them indefinitely.

HTH

[Amira]

Home-ground whole wheat flour is all we use and I bake everything from scratch. We're a family of five and we easily go through 25 pounds of wheat a month. I just buy a few 25-pound bags a few times a year and stick them under someone's bed till we need them. I've never had any problems with that system, but we obviously rotate through it quickly.

 

I use our hand-cranked mill only for cracking grain. Even cracking two cups of grain takes a long time. If you're thinking about baking with your wheat, I highly recommend an electric grinder.

Edited January 10, 2011 by Amira

[In the Rain]

I'd say a lot depends on what you want to use it for. If you want whole wheat flour to make bread and you're baking frequently, electric is the way to go, hands down. My dad has a hand-crank and has to run the batch through twice to get anything worth baking with, and even then it's fairly course. I have a NutriMill and it puts out nice, fine, fluffy flour.

 

 

:iagree: The flour from our hand crank mill is pretty course. I think it is from Lehman's. I didn't use it for long before deciding to buy a Nutrimill. I still keep it around though, in case of a major power outage.

[mom4him]

I would purchase the electric. They are fast, do a great job and I am basically lazy.:lol:

I don't use wheat flour right now because of our SCDiet but when we did I could go through 20-25 # of wheat berries in a month. I used it for everything, bread, cakes, cookies, pizza, gravies, noodles, pies, everything. I would grind what I needed for what ever I was doing at the time and then grind extra for small jobs. I put the extra in the freezer and it kept great.

To keep wheat berries you need them to be kept dry, cool and in a tight container if you will have them long term. I would purchase several bags, 50#, and until I opened the bag I simply kept the bag in the basement where it was cool and dry. Once I opened the bag I always put it in tuper ware or something else that sealed well.

I have owned 3 and this is the one that I liked the best.

The Nutrimill Grain Mill

 

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