Monday, January 26, 2009

I've Got A Grain Mill!


Well actually, I purchased it back in November, but am only now starting to use it.

I saved all year for this purchase so it was really special to finally buy and receive it. I eventually decided on the Nutrimill and purchased from Pleasant Hill Grain. Other than the fact that the Nutrimill has a larger storage capacity for ground flour and can be switched from fine to coarse for grinding, what really sold me on this mill in the end was that it is made by Bosch. I have a Bosch mixer and have always been pleased with it. Bosch is known for a very good heavy duty product, so I felt comfortable buying a grain mill that was made by them as well.

I ordered my wheat from Azure Standard as I couldn't find any locally. Since then, I've noticed that my health food store does carry two varieties of wheat berries. Soft white and hard red. After reading different blogs and googling about what kind of flour to use for grinding, I ordered soft white wheat(for pastries, muffins, cookies, etc.) and hard white wheat for breads. I only got a 5 pound bag of each so I could try them out and not be stuck with 50 pounds if I didn't like them!

For my next grain purchase, I'm going to check and see if I can order a large bag from the local health food store. I've known some stores to offer a ten or fifteen percent off for bulk orders. I'd like to buy locally; shipping gets very expensive!

Anyways, so far the Nutrimill works great! It took a little time to figure out how everything fit together. Several times I didn't have everything locked in and the flour came squirting out!

Fortunately, Rock was nearby to help with clean up.


A general rule is to not clean the kitchen until after grinding the grain. Even with everything together the right way, there was quite a bit of flour floating around, especially when I was cleaning the equipment off!

I made bread, breakfast cookies and banana-carrot muffins with the freshly ground flour and had good success with each one. I even soaked the flour for the bread for the first time using the above recipe link and the bread was delicious!

I'll be sharing more as I use my grain mill and learn more about soaking and using natural sweeteners. Stay tuned!

4 comments:

Debbie J said...

I am impressed with your grain mill and the work you are doing with it. This is an area that I'm unfamilar with. Maybe I can learn something from your posts!

Wendi said...

Yeah! I know that you worked hard to save for this. Have fun!

gail said...

how exciting! i'm so happy for you. i would love a grain mill, but don't have room to store much here. maybe in the future ...

Monica Wilkinson said...

Yeah! I thought I had one from a friend lined up but that fell through. I am looking at the Nutrimill for many of the same reasons you listed - but the seller for me was that it is compact and doesn't take tons of room to store! I can hardly wait to get those nutrients we've been missing out on! :)