I got a Family Grain Mill!

[baymule]

I got a Family Grain Mill and so far I love it! I say so far, because I used it one time, made 2 loaves of bread and then my oven died. I have one on order, maybe it will show up next week. I will come back after the oven gets installed and let ya'll know more about the mill.

 

[baymule]

I grew Hastings Prolific White Dent Corn for corn meal. I ordered the seed from @HomesteaderWife on TEG and was happy to get them. Crows pulled up a bunch of the corn sprouts. I put compost on the plants, God provided the rain. We turned our attention to finishing the outer parameter fence, then slaughtered 3 hogs. I processed one for our neighbor and one for us. By this time it was beastly scorching hot. Weeds took off and did rather well. LOL I picked and shucked the corn a couple weeks ago. I shelled it two days ago and got out the grain mill today. It has been quite a while since i played with my grain mill! My husband and I milled 6 cups of corn and got 10 1/2 cups of meal. I made hot water cornbread with chopped onions and it was delicious. I have corn from the biggest and best set aside for seed.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

@baymule , how long have you had the Family Grain Mill? How often do you use it? And, if you were to buy again, would you buy the same one?

Any other readers, do you have a grain mill? If so, what model and please give your assessment for ease of use, and quality of product. @Beekissed ? What say you????

For those who do long term grain storage, I hate the idea of heat treating the grain before sealing it. I would rather vac seal, perhaps with a dessicant, then freeze for a couple of weeks. Thoughts? It would be a horror to invest money in grain, and storage space, only to find it infiltrated by insects. We don't use much flour. But, given the state of the world, I do believe it would be prudent to be prepared.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

this morning, I ordered the Wonder Jr. Deluxe. I liked the fact that it has stone AND SS burrs, can be operated by hand or drill, and it is all metal. Can't wait to get it. Pricey, but, the peace of mind and improved nutrition will be well worth it.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Have you tried running it with a drill? This is one of my deciding factors. I've had shoulder surgery, and hubby is headed in that direction. So, we will hand crank when needed. But, I have a Ryobi drill with multiple re-chargeable batteries. That should make it super easy for us. When I have some spare $$, I expect I'll buy an extra set of stones/burrs, and the other "wear out" parts.

 

[Britesea]

One thing we have found from grinding our own flour to make bread: Just as freshly roasted coffee tastes better than beans that have been sitting around for a while, so it is with freshly ground flour. I think that is the real secret to the incredible flavor of DH's sourdough bread.
In order to lighten the dough a little, we sift out some of the coarser bits of bran (that gets used to sop up grease in the pan and fed to the chickens- saves a lot on plumbing bills, lol) The resultant flour isn't quite like commercial white flour, but it's not as coarse as whole grain flour either. We get a nice loaf with a good crumb out of it.

 

[Britesea]

Our manual Grainmaker 99 takes 15-20 minutes to grind a couple of cups of flour from whole red wheat. https://grainmaker.com/products/grainmaker-grain-mill-model-no-99/

 

[Beekissed]

@baymule , how long have you had the Family Grain Mill? How often do you use it? And, if you were to buy again, would you buy the same one?

Any other readers, do you have a grain mill? If so, what model and please give your assessment for ease of use, and quality of product. @Beekissed ? What say you????

For those who do long term grain storage, I hate the idea of heat treating the grain before sealing it. I would rather vac seal, perhaps with a dessicant, then freeze for a couple of weeks. Thoughts? It would be a horror to invest money in grain, and storage space, only to find it infiltrated by insects. We don't use much flour. But, given the state of the world, I do believe it would be prudent to be prepared.

I don't know if the grain I was blessed/gifted with was heat treated prior to storage in those tins, but not a bug one in it, even after breaking the glue type seal and using on them. Imagine that....stored in the 70s for the year 2000(remember when everyone thought the grid would go down in 2000?)...and still as fresh as newly harvested grain even yet. I'm still using on the last of those tins now, 13 yrs hence and no bugs.

At the same time I was gifted a Magic Mill III and used it for many years to grind this wheat...and it's a good mill. But one of the plastic pieces broke and was allowing the flour to get down into the inner workings, so I bought another mill just like it on Ebay and kept the older one for parts.

Keep in mind, you'll want to store your mill in a big ol' zip loc bag with a pantry moth trap either in the bag or nearby, as the flour seeps into creases and such and the moths will find it there. Open it up on occasion and clean out any stray flour to the best of your ability so it doesn't attract such things.

I store freshly ground flour in one of those giant pretzel tubs you get from Sam's Club, plastic with a screw on lid....never had a moth get into one of those all these many years. If I have large quantities of white flour on hand, I store them in the freezer.

 

[The Porch]

this morning, I ordered the Wonder Jr. Deluxe. I liked the fact that it has stone AND SS burrs, can be operated by hand or drill, and it is all metal. Can't wait to get it. Pricey, but, the peace of mind and improved nutrition will be well worth it.

That is exactly the one I have except mine is white, I had to go look, mine is the Wonder Junior Deluxe and I have all of the extra stones

 

[The Porch]

@baymule , how long have you had the Family Grain Mill? How often do you use it? And, if you were to buy again, would you buy the same one?

Any other readers, do you have a grain mill? If so, what model and please give your assessment for ease of use, and quality of product. @Beekissed ? What say you????

For those who do long term grain storage, I hate the idea of heat treating the grain before sealing it. I would rather vac seal, perhaps with a dessicant, then freeze for a couple of weeks. Thoughts? It would be a horror to invest money in grain, and storage space, only to find it infiltrated by insects. We don't use much flour. But, given the state of the world, I do believe it would be prudent to be prepared.

I have had this one for years