Grain Mills

We rarely do recommendations for companies on our blog, so when we do it is because we think that their product is amazing for the modern homestead.

Last Xmas I was able to buy Rosie a Country Living Grain Mill. and we have been using it off and on for a little less than a year now and I wanted to let our readers know what I thought of it.

This mill is amazing.

Most of the mills I looked into stated right up front that you would probably have to run your grain threw them more than once to get a fine flour. The County Living people claimed that one pass was all you would need with their mill, and they where right. We have been grinding hard wheat, buckwheat, and corn almost every day for the last few weeks and this mill has never given us any problems. Every batch of flour has been very fine and surprisingly consistent. 

There are a few issues with the mill that I would like to see done differently but the usefulness of the mill more than make up for them. One Issue I have is that the mill body is made from aluminum, this has not been an issue but I would rather see it made from steel. Another correctable issue is that the flywheel is a little small and grinding hard wheat without the "power arm" can be a little tough but not undoable. Lastly the price of this mill is a little high, the next cheapest mills are about 1/2 the price of the Country Living Mill although the next mill in quality above the Country Living Mill is about 2-3 times the price.

If you are thinking of adding a grain mill to your own homestead  this is the mill you want to get. The flavor and texture of fresh ground flour or meal is as far beyond store bought as our fresh farm eggs are above store eggs. Some things I would suggest if you are going to invest in this mill; get the power arm, it will be worth it in the long run. After all if it is a pain in the butt to use the mill you are less likely to use it and then why even get one? Also get the corn and bean auger, this part can be  used when you want to grind something bigger than a wheat berry, you could "probably" make do without it and just try and grind corn meal with the standard auger but it would be a pain and may not work very well. Now this mill is not cheap, it will run in the $400 range but it is of the highest quality and will last you the rest of your life (you will have to replace the grinding plates every so often). There are some cheaper mills that will also do a fair job but you will have to run your flour threw them up to 4-6 times to get a good consistent flour. It takes about 15 min to make a couple of cups of flour in our mill, if you had to run it threw even 4 times then you area looking at an hour of work rather than 15 min, and that is a huge difference. The Country Living Grain Mill is fast enough that I will grind flour for the breakfast scones while I am waiting for my coffee to finish brewing.

Grinding our own flour has been a surprisingly satisfying experiment and next time you are able to join us for a meal that includes some sort of bread it will be from flour that was ground be hand in our kitchen. And that act of grinding our own flour is as strangely liberating as the flour is strangely better tasting than any flour I have ever used.