So, you want to bake with fresh milled flour, but how do you choose a grain mill? Which is the best grain mill for home use? With so many options on the market, it can be overwhelming to choose the right one for your needs. We will be comparing electric verses manual mills as well as steel burr, stone burr and impact mills and which grain mills I have found to be the best fit for my home and why so that you can make an informed decision on the best grain mill for your home.
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Electric or Manual
There are several factors to consider when deciding between getting an electric or manual grain mill. How much do you plan to mill? Is it going to be a daily task or something that is done once a month or less? Do you have access to reliable electricity?
Electric
With the press of a button, you get fresh flour. It does not get much easier than that. This option will of course require electricity, so in the event of a disaster you may not be able to mill flour. The electric grain mills are also more expensive and have more weight to them due to the motor. That said if you plan to mill a lot of flour, I would absolutely get an electric for the time and physical energy savings.
Manual
Electric is the easiest and quickest, but there is something that is extra satisfying about a hand-crank grain mill. While it does take extra muscle and time the process is so fulfilling, plus its a workout. Keep it mind though that if you plan to mill frequently it can become a nuisance. For myself I found that I enjoyed my hand crank, but it started to become daunting when it was a daily task.
Obviously, a hand crank mill can be used with or without electric, which can be very beneficial. Many of the hand crank grain mills do offer attachment options so that they can be run off of electric in some way. For example, the Wondermill Junior Deluxe offers attachments to power it with a drill, and a motor. The big positive with hand crank mills is they are generally more affordable and lighter weight.
Types of Grains you plan to mill
Some grain mills can handle all sorts of grains. Others can only handle dry grains. If you plan to mill a variety of oily and dry then you will need a grain mill that can handle both, which are going to be the steel burr mills or there is the option to get one with interchangeable plates, so you can have the benefits of the stone burrs when milling dry grains as well as the versatility to mill oily grains.
What are considered dry grains?
- Soft wheat
- Hard wheat
- Dehulled oats
- Rice
- Triticale
- Khorasan
- Spelt
- Buckwheat
- Barley
- Rye
- Millet
- Quinoa
- Amaranth
- Teff
- Soybeans
- Field corn
- Sorghum
The grain mills that can handle the above can also generally handle lentils, dry beans (pinto, red, garbanzo/chickpeas, kidney & more), coffee beans, and dried, non-oily spices.
What are considered oily grains and foods?
- Flax seeds
- Popcorn
- Cocoa nibs
- Sesame seeds
- Cinnamon sticks
- Sugar
- Oily spices
Type of Mills
- Stone Burr
- Steel Burr
- Impact
Stone Burr
Stone burr mills offer a consistent texture and are the more traditional mill. The stone burr grain mills mill slower than the steel burr mills, which means they produce less heat. This is important because the heat can damage the nutrients and enzymes in the flour. This also results in the flour having a more complex flavor profile.
The stone burr mills also mill the finest flour of the different mills types. The extra fine flour is a must for baked goods such as pastries.
The downside to a stone burr mill is that they can only handle dry grains. Depending on what you plan to do with your mill this may be a nonissue, or it may be a huge issue.
The health benefits of the stone burr makes the stone burr mills my number one choice. Some popular brands for this style mill are Mockmill, Komo and Nutrimill.
Steel burr mills
Steel burr mills do mill faster than stone, but as mentioned above this means more heat, which can damage the nutritional profile of the flour. They will also need to be replaced more frequently than stone burrs do.
The positive to steel burrs are that they are nonporous, so these mills can mill both oily and nonoily grains. Some popular brands for this style are Wondermill and Country Living.
Impact mills
These are similar to steel burr mills in that they use steel as well. Instead of crushing the grain between two plates like the stone and steel burr mills the impact mills have a milling chamber with concentric rings of stainless-steel fins. These fins, spin extremely fast and burst the grain kernels into small pieces as they’re impacted.
Impact mills are only available in electric due to the high speeds needed for them to work. The one I have used was also rather loud compared to the electric steel and stone burr mills I have used. Some popular brands of this style include Nutrimill and Wondermill.
Hopper Size
The hopper is what holds the grain and feeds it into the burrs. If you are grinding a bunch of grain at one time having a bigger hopper can make things easier. Some of my favorite recipes use around 1000 grams of wheat berries, so having a larger hopper was something that was important to me. Having a smaller hopper is not the end of the world. The hopper can always be refilled, I just prefer to fill mine and then walk away and work on the rest of my autolyse while my grain mill does its job.
What is the Best grain mill for home use?
Which one is the best grain mill for your home is really going to depend on your preferences and how you plan to use it, but I can tell you what I chose and why I went the direction I did.
In my kitchen I have an electric as well as a hand crank grain mill. The hand crank grain mill was my first mill because at the beginning I was not planning on grinding all of our flour. I just wanted to do some and was wanting something more affordable and also versatile so I could grind wheat berries for baked goods and also make peanut butter.
My favorite hand crank manual mill
I ended up choosing the Wondermill Junior Deluxe. With this grain mill it takes me roughly 15 minutes to hand crank out 1000 grams of flour and that is with some breaks in there too. I choose this one specifically because it has both the steel and stone burrs. It also has attachment options to be able to motorize it. Of the different attachments I chose the drill attachment, so I could use the drill we already have and not have to buy something additional. If you already own a small motor for a butter churn or something else, you may be able to use that to power it as well.
Since I decided to make the switch to all fresh milled flour I did end up investing in an electric mill as I found myself grinding flour every single day and my husband wanted his drill to not live in the kitchen. I also wanted to be able to grind flour without having to stand there and hold a drill to power it.
My favorite electric grain mill
After looking at multiple mills the one I decided on was the Komo Classic. I really wanted the Komo PK1, which has the same specs as the Classic just with prettier housing, but the PK1 has been out of stock for months and I got sick of waiting.
The Komo Classic has stone burrs in a beautiful wood housing. This brand of grain mills is handmade in Austria and have an amazing reputation. The Komo Classic grain mill has a hopper that is large enough to hold 1000 grams of wheat berries and it has a higher output than some of the other models available. It also has the ability to grind super fine flour, which is a must when I am no longer buying flour from the store. (Read about why I made the switch to all fresh milled flour.)
I looked only at stone burr mills because I wanted something that would last longer and would not heat the grain much. I also needed one that would grind super fine, so stone burr it was. Besides the Komo I seriously considered the Mockmill which also is very well loved by many. The specs are amazing and they are made in Germany. The only reason I did not go with a Mockmill Lino 200, was because the price point was that much more than the Komo Classic.
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