I'm curious if getting a home flour mill is worth it. I'm looking at something like Komo Classic or Komo 21. What are the advantages with freshly ground flour, and does it really make a big difference?
I have a hand mill (Wondermill Jr.), and do a lot of my own milling. I bake a lot of bread (sometimes more than 70 a week; selling in a little shop and market), so I buy 20 kg sacks of bread flour and whole wheat flour. I mill most everything else though (Kamut, spelt, rye, Red Fife, hull-less barley, soft white wheat and some others) by hand. I even mill specialty malts for some breads.
What I like the most is that I know exactly what is in this flour. It's not processed, sifted and then reconstituted (i.e. some bran and germ added back in). There are no additives. I can sift it if I want, or leave it coarse (or even cracked grain). For example, the Kamut is a very hard, large grain and is like milling rocks. The bran cracks into fairly large bits. I can leave this as is for coarse milled Kamut, or sift it then re-mill the big bits for finer flour. Plus, it's easier to store whole grains for long periods of time, than milled whole grain flour. I can mill as much as I want, when I want.
Milling flour for 70 loaves a week - that's about 500 grams of flour x 70 loaves = about 35 kilos of flour per week! Wow.. I'm tired just thinking about it! Three words - buy a motor! :)
As I said, I buy 20 kg sacks of bread flour and whole wheat flour. It's only the 'special' flours that I mill by hand, and I don't make a lot of 100% spelt loaves or anything like that. In fact, if I'm going to do a large batch of rye bread I will buy a bag of rye flour and use the whole, hand-milled rye flour for the starters. I don't actually spend a lot of time milling. :)
I agree that home milled flour tastes much better than commercially milled whole grain flour. I don't taste as much of a difference with rye, but with wheat and spelt, I find the difference is pronounced -- the commercial stuff either has a bitter taste or no taste, but the fresh stuff has _flavor_. Not sure how to characterize it better than that. Freshly milled organic whole grains are also awesome for starter feeding -- even grain I've had in buckets for months seems to give my culture a little extra kick every time.
I have two motorized mills - the steel buhr mill that attaches to the Electrolux DLX (or whatever they're calling it this week) and a Nutrimill. I use the Nutrimill more but the DLX attachment is more versatile.
I bought the Nutrimill because producing fine flour with the DLX mill attachment required multiple passes and produced a lot of heat. Not great for the flour and slow. The Nutrimill has the opposite problem: it simply cannot make coarse grinds! But it (and similar hammer-style mills) is basically the best thing going for producing fine wholegrain flour for general baking. It even separates some of the bran by an accident of how it operates -- the bran takes longer to settle out at the edges of the collector bucket so if you don't want it all you can scoop around it when taking the finished flour out.
I still use the DLX for producing coarse flour, cracked wheat/spelt or rye "chops", but that's only occasional. The DLX will also pre-grind extremely hard grains like rice which I once in a blue moon need to do; broken up by the DLX they go through the Nutrimill much more quickly.
If you're milling soft wheat and want whole-grain pastry flour, turn the Nutrimill all the way up and let it rip. For bread, I recommend setting the "Motor" dial so it points at the "r" and the "Feed Rate" dial so it points at the "e".
Personally, I think home milled flour tastes better. Whatever I don't use the day I mill, I keep in the freezer till I use it . I find that commercial wheat tastes flat, though again, not sure everyone would agree.
as an anniversary present. I just love it. It is so much quieter and faster than the Kitchenaid attachment was using.
Now why do I want to mill my own grains? The simple answer is flavour. I took an Artisan Bread baking course a few months ago and for laughs, the instructor had us make pitas from flour that was fresh milled and flour that came out of the bag. And the flour that was out of the bag wasn't cheap flour! Well, the side by side difference in taste was simply mind blowing. You knew right away when you bit into the freshly milled pita compared to the other. I always thought privately that the die hards here that used fresh milled flour were a bit eccentric and that it couldn't make that much of a difference. Well, let me tell you that it makes a huge difference! That's why I decided to join the bunch of eccentrics!
Thanks for all the answers - it definitely seems to be worth it in terms of flavour. Another question though - do you use store bought white flour, or do you sift the whole wheat flour that comes out of the mill?
I use an unbleached no additives flour (it says no additives but certain additions are mandated by the Canadian government). I am not sure I could get screens fine enough to sift out sufficient bran to end up with a white flour. It would be a lot of work for sure!
How long does store bought organic stone ground whole wheat flour keep? I have a bag which was produced in January, and I made a loaf with it and it doesn't have much flavour unfortunately, although it looks nice. It is with 25% whole wheat flour. I am not sure if it was due to the flour being old, or something else.. It doesn't smell rancid when you smell the bag.
White is usually up to a year if you keep it cool (just cool, not fridge or freezer) wholemeal 6 months - the reason being the oils in the wheatgerm which will go rancid.
Your January wholemeal flour should be fine if it doesn't smell rancid.
It's so worth it! yes, the flavor is better, my research indicates it's healthier (depending on grain quality) when freshly ground and soaked. I'm able to mix my own multi-grain flours to my own specifications. I love being able to produce my own wheat fiber, corn meal, grits, rice flour, etc. Then there's the satisfaction factor (huge!) and the brag factor (and I do). There is a learning curve bit not you'll have fun with it.
I have an an original Golden Grain grinder--don't think they make them any more. My husband surprised me one Mother's Day. Which brings up the husband's happiness factor when I tell him "Honey, I'm so glad you got this for me!"
germ removed and some of the bran is added back in.so it isn't as nutritious and has much of the minerals and essential vitamins removed. It also isn't fresh and there is nothing as good as fresh ground flour when it it comes to taste. I used my Krupps coffee grinder for many months to prove to myself that fresh ground flour was worth the money and there is no question it is. Also If you ever get into sprouting your own grains to get fresh milled sprouted flour then a mill is a must. As the whole grain bread god Peter Reinhart says.... sprouted grains are a Bread Revolution and a huge step up the bread ladder above fresh milled grains.
I have never head of a person who bought a mill and was disappointed that the bread wasn't better enough to justify the cost and time to mill.
I have a used a Wonder Mill and and now have a Nutrimill and both do what ever I need to do when it comes to flour and breads and Lucy and I have made about every kind of bread there is to make using all kinds of grains and grinds. They sound like a jet taking off tough but make great flour of all sizes and types.
Commercial white patent flours are made from what millers call 'straight flour' - 72% extraction where all of the germ and bran is removed. This straight flour is further milled and sifted to get the flour in the bag. They can do this because their computer controlled, multi million dollar roller mills and sifters are designed ti do it but us poor home millers can never get the bread or AP flour like that with our $200 mills and screens. 80% high extraction fresh flour is the norm with one pass through my one sieve after milling and the resulting white bread is just killer. Use the sifted out 20% bran extraction for the levain build and you have a great whole grain bread of your choosing that can't be beat.
We only make 1 loaf of bread a week now a days and only mill exactly what we are using using and use it all immediately within 12- 24 hours.
Still the first loaf of bread costs an additional $200 which is a lot......but what is a bit of money for us crazy addicted home bakers:-) I've got my mill cost down to about 30 cents a loaf now and I sleep better at night! When you taste your first 50% - 7 sprouted grain sourdough or 100% whole grain wheat SD bread - you will feel better too! Just tell your significant other that a mill makes for one fine present for any occasion. It is great to share home made bread with family and friends
I have a hand mill (Wondermill Jr.), and do a lot of my own milling. I bake a lot of bread (sometimes more than 70 a week; selling in a little shop and market), so I buy 20 kg sacks of bread flour and whole wheat flour. I mill most everything else though (Kamut, spelt, rye, Red Fife, hull-less barley, soft white wheat and some others) by hand. I even mill specialty malts for some breads.
What I like the most is that I know exactly what is in this flour. It's not processed, sifted and then reconstituted (i.e. some bran and germ added back in). There are no additives. I can sift it if I want, or leave it coarse (or even cracked grain). For example, the Kamut is a very hard, large grain and is like milling rocks. The bran cracks into fairly large bits. I can leave this as is for coarse milled Kamut, or sift it then re-mill the big bits for finer flour. Plus, it's easier to store whole grains for long periods of time, than milled whole grain flour. I can mill as much as I want, when I want.
Milling flour for 70 loaves a week - that's about 500 grams of flour x 70 loaves = about 35 kilos of flour per week! Wow.. I'm tired just thinking about it! Three words - buy a motor! :)
As I said, I buy 20 kg sacks of bread flour and whole wheat flour. It's only the 'special' flours that I mill by hand, and I don't make a lot of 100% spelt loaves or anything like that. In fact, if I'm going to do a large batch of rye bread I will buy a bag of rye flour and use the whole, hand-milled rye flour for the starters. I don't actually spend a lot of time milling. :)
I agree that home milled flour tastes much better than commercially milled whole grain flour. I don't taste as much of a difference with rye, but with wheat and spelt, I find the difference is pronounced -- the commercial stuff either has a bitter taste or no taste, but the fresh stuff has _flavor_. Not sure how to characterize it better than that. Freshly milled organic whole grains are also awesome for starter feeding -- even grain I've had in buckets for months seems to give my culture a little extra kick every time.
I have two motorized mills - the steel buhr mill that attaches to the Electrolux DLX (or whatever they're calling it this week) and a Nutrimill. I use the Nutrimill more but the DLX attachment is more versatile.
I bought the Nutrimill because producing fine flour with the DLX mill attachment required multiple passes and produced a lot of heat. Not great for the flour and slow. The Nutrimill has the opposite problem: it simply cannot make coarse grinds! But it (and similar hammer-style mills) is basically the best thing going for producing fine wholegrain flour for general baking. It even separates some of the bran by an accident of how it operates -- the bran takes longer to settle out at the edges of the collector bucket so if you don't want it all you can scoop around it when taking the finished flour out.
I still use the DLX for producing coarse flour, cracked wheat/spelt or rye "chops", but that's only occasional. The DLX will also pre-grind extremely hard grains like rice which I once in a blue moon need to do; broken up by the DLX they go through the Nutrimill much more quickly.
If you're milling soft wheat and want whole-grain pastry flour, turn the Nutrimill all the way up and let it rip. For bread, I recommend setting the "Motor" dial so it points at the "r" and the "Feed Rate" dial so it points at the "e".
the new Mockmill 100 & 200 too. They will be out next month. I have pre-ordered a 100.
Personally, I think home milled flour tastes better. Whatever I don't use the day I mill, I keep in the freezer till I use it . I find that commercial wheat tastes flat, though again, not sure everyone would agree.
as an anniversary present. I just love it. It is so much quieter and faster than the Kitchenaid attachment was using.
Now why do I want to mill my own grains? The simple answer is flavour. I took an Artisan Bread baking course a few months ago and for laughs, the instructor had us make pitas from flour that was fresh milled and flour that came out of the bag. And the flour that was out of the bag wasn't cheap flour! Well, the side by side difference in taste was simply mind blowing. You knew right away when you bit into the freshly milled pita compared to the other. I always thought privately that the die hards here that used fresh milled flour were a bit eccentric and that it couldn't make that much of a difference. Well, let me tell you that it makes a huge difference! That's why I decided to join the bunch of eccentrics!
Thanks for all the answers - it definitely seems to be worth it in terms of flavour. Another question though - do you use store bought white flour, or do you sift the whole wheat flour that comes out of the mill?
The Mockmill 100 looks very interesting!
I use an unbleached no additives flour (it says no additives but certain additions are mandated by the Canadian government). I am not sure I could get screens fine enough to sift out sufficient bran to end up with a white flour. It would be a lot of work for sure!
How long does store bought organic stone ground whole wheat flour keep? I have a bag which was produced in January, and I made a loaf with it and it doesn't have much flavour unfortunately, although it looks nice. It is with 25% whole wheat flour. I am not sure if it was due to the flour being old, or something else.. It doesn't smell rancid when you smell the bag.
White is usually up to a year if you keep it cool (just cool, not fridge or freezer) wholemeal 6 months - the reason being the oils in the wheatgerm which will go rancid.
Your January wholemeal flour should be fine if it doesn't smell rancid.
-Gordon
It's so worth it! yes, the flavor is better, my research indicates it's healthier (depending on grain quality) when freshly ground and soaked. I'm able to mix my own multi-grain flours to my own specifications. I love being able to produce my own wheat fiber, corn meal, grits, rice flour, etc. Then there's the satisfaction factor (huge!) and the brag factor (and I do). There is a learning curve bit not you'll have fun with it.
I have an an original Golden Grain grinder--don't think they make them any more. My husband surprised me one Mother's Day. Which brings up the husband's happiness factor when I tell him "Honey, I'm so glad you got this for me!"
I love my mill and the bread gets rave reviews when I gift a loaf. There is a learning curve to baking with freshly milled flour, but so worth it IMO.
Rick
germ removed and some of the bran is added back in.so it isn't as nutritious and has much of the minerals and essential vitamins removed. It also isn't fresh and there is nothing as good as fresh ground flour when it it comes to taste. I used my Krupps coffee grinder for many months to prove to myself that fresh ground flour was worth the money and there is no question it is. Also If you ever get into sprouting your own grains to get fresh milled sprouted flour then a mill is a must. As the whole grain bread god Peter Reinhart says.... sprouted grains are a Bread Revolution and a huge step up the bread ladder above fresh milled grains.
I have never head of a person who bought a mill and was disappointed that the bread wasn't better enough to justify the cost and time to mill.
I have a used a Wonder Mill and and now have a Nutrimill and both do what ever I need to do when it comes to flour and breads and Lucy and I have made about every kind of bread there is to make using all kinds of grains and grinds. They sound like a jet taking off tough but make great flour of all sizes and types.
Commercial white patent flours are made from what millers call 'straight flour' - 72% extraction where all of the germ and bran is removed. This straight flour is further milled and sifted to get the flour in the bag. They can do this because their computer controlled, multi million dollar roller mills and sifters are designed ti do it but us poor home millers can never get the bread or AP flour like that with our $200 mills and screens. 80% high extraction fresh flour is the norm with one pass through my one sieve after milling and the resulting white bread is just killer. Use the sifted out 20% bran extraction for the levain build and you have a great whole grain bread of your choosing that can't be beat.
We only make 1 loaf of bread a week now a days and only mill exactly what we are using using and use it all immediately within 12- 24 hours.
Still the first loaf of bread costs an additional $200 which is a lot......but what is a bit of money for us crazy addicted home bakers:-) I've got my mill cost down to about 30 cents a loaf now and I sleep better at night! When you taste your first 50% - 7 sprouted grain sourdough or 100% whole grain wheat SD bread - you will feel better too! Just tell your significant other that a mill makes for one fine present for any occasion. It is great to share home made bread with family and friends
Happy milling