This is the mill I use and recommend.
Part of any sound preparation plan is a grain mill. It is essential because your survival without bread or flour based foods like pancakes etc. will be miserable and you may not survive at all. A grain mill allows you to long term store large amounts of many different types of grains for many years to come unlike the limited time commercially milled flour will last.
I’m also a person who likes to bake so my grain mill is used weekly and if all the claims are correct the added nutrition of freshly milled complete grain kernels into flour is a plus and also knowing exactly what I have put into the recipe is far healthier than any store bought bread.
I purchased the Family Grain Mill including the Hand Base and with the optional 'adapter' for use on my Kitchen Aid stand mixer for a motorized operation. This combination allows milling with or without electricity. The mill mills coffee, wheat, rice, corn (not popcorn), oats, rye, barley, spelt, flax, buckwheat, millet, sesame and more it also cracks grain like Barley if you want to home brew beer.
There are just six parts to this grinder, very easy to disassemble for cleaning and built for durability with very high quality. This is a burr grinder, the burrs are made of hardened stainless steel and fully adjustable including index markings for repeatable settings from coarse to fine milling. Yes, it is mainly plastic but the plastic is Lexan (polycarbonate) the same plastic used in bullet-proof windows. The Family Grain Mill company has a complete line of kitchen gear such as a 'Vegetable Processor' that slices and shreds vegetables, fruits, cheeses etc., a Flaker Mill for making oat meal, a 'Meat Grinder' a 'Sausage Stuffer' and a dedicated electric powered motor to drive all these devices.
This is a very efficient machine, my milling produces three (3) cups of flour in four minutes of hand cranking at two (2) Revolutions Per Second cranking speed (industry recommended speed) with almost no effort to turn the crank. The reason it is easy the crank is because the overall diameter of the milling burrs is half the diameter of other mills thereby requiring minimal effort when comparing to the other mills (leverage principle).
I use the Kitchen Aid mixer adapter when I mill and try to maintain the 2 RPS speed (although I have run it at full speed with no flour over heating issues). At this cranking speed the milled flour only reaches 93 degrees from kernels that are 76 degrees to start with so there is no heat degradation to the flour milled. The hopper is large and it can hold up to five cups of whole wheat kernels. The laminated wood hand crank base clamps to a table top very securely without marring the table. The hand crank is very easy to turn and is easy to continuously crank at about two revolutions per second.
For those who want to get into grain milling with a lower cost but with good quality machine this is it. The mill comes with a life time warranty, what more could you want?
My Family Grain Mill was $130.00 (2008) including the Kitchen Aid mixer adapter for motorized operation. Not a bad price when you consider it is two machines in one; I have a hand crank mill or a powered mill when there’s electricity. In just 8 minutes you can mill enough flour (6 cups) for two loaves of bread.
Wheat Kernels to Milled Flour Conversions:
- 2 cups wheat kernels = 3¼ cups milled flour (makes one loaf of bread)
- 1 cup uncooked wheat kernels = 2 cups cooked wheat
- 1 lb. wheat kernels = 2¼ cups wheat kernels
The mill mounted on the Hand Base for manual milling.
The mill completely disassembled. Very few parts and easy to clean.
The hardened stainless steel Burrs. This is what mills the grain into flour.
Mounted on my KA Stand Mixer for powered milling. They make several adapters for mounting to popular stand type mixers.
This is how I buy my wheat grain. Today I use only Hard White Wheat. It is slightly milder than the Hard Red but that's just my personal taste and opinion. Buy a #10 can of each and try it for yourself before stocking hundreds of pounds of wheat.
Hard Red Wheat kernels.
Freshly milled wheat grain into flour. It's ready to make bread.
