Question: What kind of grain grinder do you use?
I have been using a Nutrimill for several years now and love this machine!
PRO’s: It has a very trim design and is not huge and awkward making it easy to store on my kitchen counter tucked in the corner for easy access. It produces fresh flour very quickly providing me with a nice batch of flour in a matter of minutes. It actually stays relatively clean while grinding flour and does not have a huge off spray, thus providing easy clean up. Its works very well for grinding fresh flours for all your baking needs. It has a twenty cup bowl capacity, so you can prepare a lot of flour at once or any smaller amounts as well. The Nutrimill keeps your flour at temperatures (typically around 118 degrees) that protect the nutrients in your grains. Its new airflow design makes it the world’s coolest-running impact mill. Customer service is excellent. My machine actually broke in a month’s time and the company paid to have it fixed and shipped back to me. It hasn’t had a problem since. It has a lifetime warranty including the stainless steel blades.
CON’s: It has various settings to adjust the fineness of the grind, but I have not found them to be very effective. It produces a fine grind rather than a course grind. The only things I found it difficult to grind included whole corn, and oatmeal. In these cases, I recommend grinding it together with another smooth grain such as wheat/spelt/kamut/brown rice grain. Mixing them together made it grind perfectly. I wouldn’t say this machine is quiet, but it is definitely not as loud as my mother’s old fashioned grinder. It is not cheap, but is definitely a worthwhile investment for all the nutrition value of grinding your own grain!
To read more of the benefits of grinding your own grain, check out these posts:
Is buying whole grains cheaper?
The Value of Soaking Your Grains
Where to buy a Nutrimill? I recommend Paula’s Bread as an excellent Christian family small business.
I have wanted to grind my own flour for a long time. This is an awesome grinder!
I have had my Blendtec Total Blender for several months now and I bought it not only for smoothies and such, but also for grinding grains. At the time I was not milling that much wheat and it was working great.
Now, I am milling all my flour and since it will only do a couple of cups of wheat berries at a time, I am looking for a mill.
Thanks for the run down on the nutrimill. I have demo’d this mill and have liked the cornmeal texture, as well as the fine wheat texture.
I am also looking at the wondermill, but do not like the idea of not being able to stop it mid-grinding, as mentioned in earlier comment. There is always some calamity that just so happens during bread making day… That is important to consider…
April, you can actually turn the Newest WonderMill off during milling or even fill the hopper before milling if you really wanted. The new wondermill has a more powerful motor now and has ho problem doing this. see this youtube video of the WonderMill Company turning it on and off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiwhtgsKkbY
The Nutrimill keeps your flour at temperatures (typically around 118 degrees) that protect the nutrients in your grains.
Why is this important, if you are then going to bake the flour at 350+ degrees?
Hello to all – I have enjoyed reading the posts so far on the NutriMill. I have had one for 3 years & can attest to the fact that the NutriMill is by far the BEST electric mill on the market. Very convenient because you can keep grain in the hopper and turn it on & off; it does a GREAT job on the course setting on low speed to make my own cornmeal both from corn and popcorn as well as finely cracked wheat cereal. All other mills will only grind to a flour and for the price, I love having the option to grind fine flour to a fine crack. (sometimes with larger grains I do watch to make sure it feeds, but a minor problem compared to all the benefits) It also makes great fine flour. To those that are not used to older mills and their noise, this one is actually considered “quiet” for a mill and has been tested decibal wise just below the WonderMill. It is also super easy to clean; I just rinse & wipe the bowl and the inside motor area does not need cleaning as it’s considered self-cleaning. I cannot recommend this highly enough especially since it has a lifetime warranty! I bought mine through a small family company: The Preparedness Store & Bosch Kitchen Center which has great customer service. I did TONS of research before buying and am very happy with it. Good luck!
I have to say that I have a Vita-Mix, and have been using it for four years to grind grains (and for four years prior to that), and am very happy with its results. It grinds 3 cups of whole wheat flour (chilled wheat berries work best) in 1 minute, 20 seconds. The texture is not as fine as store-bought, but if I wanted that fine a texture I would skip the grinding all together and purchase store-bought. I use my home-ground flour for everything – - cakes, cookies, breads, pizza dough, biscuits… It is hearty and delicious! If a Vita-Mix is cared for properly, it will last a lifetime. It comes with a 7 year guarantee and customer service is wonderful! I have dealt with them twice and received prompt, courteous help right away. While I primarily use my Vita-Mix for wheat berries, I have also ground oats and corn with excellent results. Its operation is a little loud, but that is a result of its powerful motor. This is the blender/grinder professionals use! The best part about purchasing a Vita-Mix is that you can do so much more than grind grains with it, and all for just over the price of a machine that exclusively mills.
I have a Nutrimill, and it does a decent job at grinding, but I HATE that it sounds like I have a plane taking off when I fire it up. My husband can hear it OUTSIDE the house when he comes home from work. I have the crazy thing out in the garage now so the children and I aren’t deaf in a few years, but I keep my grains out there anyway, so it’s not so inconvenient. I have had some trouble with it not feeding the grains properly…sometimes they zip right down, and other times, I have to stand there and push the grains with a stomper. I think as our family grows, I will eventually go to the Jupiter mill recommended by Sally Fallon, but for now, this does work pretty well, and it surely beats the little hand mill I was using!
Aww… I’m so very jealous of all the fun grinders.
I have a LOVELY antique Magic Mill grinder that does exactly that – grind. Nothing fancy. 
I have to double sift for fine flour, but it’s still worth it for the fantastically wonderfully better taste of fresh flour! No matter what kind of mill anyone gets, it’s still worth it for that taste!! 
I am going to teach bread baking to a high school Sunday School class (incuding a devotional) this fall. Just for demonstration purposes, do you think a coffee grinder would grind the wheat berries to a texture similar to flour? I’ve never been around anyone who grinds their own flour so I’m very curious about this whole process. Thanks.
Coffee grinders work well for grinding seeds and small grains (i.e. millet, quinoa), but I do not believe it will produce a fine flour if using whole wheat berries.
One thing I did try recently was soaking the whole berries in buttermilk. Soak them for about 30 hrs then you can grind them in your blender. I made creps this way. You would have to add white flour or already ground wheat flour if you wanted to make bread but that could be a good substitute.
What an amazing coincidence that you posted a review about grain mills! I have just recently debating about getting a grain mill. We have a VitaMix (we’ve been having green smoothies almost every day), and I have used it to grind grains (for baby cereal), but I got out of doing it a while back and now I want to get into making my own flours, so I would be using it on a larger scale (which I see from an above comment that it might not be the best tool for grinding grain). Thanks so much for the insight. I’m still undecided about which model to go with, but I’m definitely leaning towards getting a mill now.
We have had the Nutrimill for about five years now. It does a wonderful job and I consider it one of the best purchases I’ve made for our kitchen. I haven’t had the wonderful customer service experience that Allison had though. About four years ago our older daughter put the bowl on the bottom rack of our dishwasher and seriously warped it. I now can’t get the lid on or off without pounding it with a rubber mallet. It’s extremely frustrating. I called the company I bought it from. They told me they couldn’t help me, I’d have to call the manufacturer. I called the manufacturer and they were no help either; I’m still pounding away with my mallet four years later. It seems that Allison’s issue was resolved quickly. Perhaps I should try again.
I use the family grain mill with the kitchen aid attachment. My kitchen aid is pretty loud when on top speed to grind the grain, but it works great and I like having one less electrical appliance filling up my kitchen. I also like the family grain mill because it comes with a hand crank, so if all else fails I can hand crank it.
Wowee! I was JUST on Amazon looking at grain mills! Reading your posts about grinding grains and buying in bulk I decided maybe I should look into them. Isn’t it funny how the Lord plants these little ‘coincidences’ in our paths
Thank you for your review; I will keep it in mind as I shop for a mill!
One reason I chose this machine over the Wondermill is that I read you MUST fill Wondermill before turning it on and off only after it’s empty or it would mess it up. I am usually multi-tasking with all the littles around when I am cooking, so having flexibility when I get distracted is nice. For instance, I’ve misjudged the sound before (not focusing or checking) and turned off the mill prematurely, only to realize it wasn’t finished grinding. Nice that it wasn’t an issue.
I also had a little part break and the company sent me a whole new base for the mill without any hassle.
We have owned a Nutrimill for a little over a year, I’d say. I love it. What a great feeling to be able to have such fresh flour — and flour where the only ingredient is the actual grain! I just wish it would grind more coarsely for cereal/cornmeal.
We have a nutrimill, and while I am still learning some of the finer points of using whole wheat flour, I am thrilled with our purchase. We grind a week at a time and store it in the freezer so that it stays fresh. I grind both hard red, and soft white so I have flour for bread and for pancakes and such. I am proofing a batch of your recipe made with 3c red and 2c white since the all red has turned out kinda crumbly, not sure why. Can’t wait for it to be done.
I personally prefer the Wondermill. I have tried both and although the Wondermill does take up a little more space (I don’t like things on my counter anyway so I would not keep either one there so that doesn’t bother me;) It also seems to grind faster and QUIETER which I really like! I have also ground corn, beans, oats, etc. without a problem. It does only have one setting and that is just a fine flour it makes a very nice flour though. I have had it for almost 14 years never had one problem with it.
I’m new to baking: Why would you need anything but fine flour?
Some people enjoy making their own cracked wheat/oatmeal for cereals as such. I never need anything else myself so that is why it works great for my use.
I, too, was going to say that the Wondermill (which we have) grinds corn with no problem. I never mix grains in the mill; that way I can measure and use various flour combinations as needed later.
I agree, we love this mill. It was my Christmas present this year from my husband. We did alot of reading reviews and this seemed to fit our needs. I have three other friends that have this mill also. Everyone loves it.
We went back and forth and did a lot of research before deciding on the Family Grain Mill. It’s slower than the NutriMill but has more attachments. I got the flaker and LOVE making my own oatmeal! I think both are a great buy when you make your own flours/cereals.
Would you mind giving pros and cons on the Family Grain Mill?
I got the nutrimill about a year ago. I agree completely with your pros and cons. I love this machine! I was using the grainmill attachment to my kitchenaid mixer and it’s finest setting was not fine at all. So, the nutrimill has been WONDERFUL!
I’m not kidding, we were just looking at this mill yesterday along with the Vitamixer (which, supposedly, can do everything). Thanks for this review! Definitely helping with our decision.
Having owned a VitaMix for over 10 years, I can say it is a fantastic purchase. We use ours daily and it is a workhorse. I wouldn’t be without it.
However, just as a caution, it really isn’t very good at grinding grain. I do have the dry container and have used it this way, but it doesn’t work well for this purpose. I find it leaves unground/partially ground grains and can only do a very small amount at a time.
I think it is absolutely, hands-down worth the money — just not as a grain grinder.