I have used my Komo for a year now and never had any problems. Purchased it on Breadtopia too.
Today, I went to grind rye berries, which I have done many times before. But today I used a new batch received from clnf a couple of month ago and stored in an airtight container with one of those keep dry packets.
first 30 grams or so, were fine (I know how much because I was feeding my sourdough starter), but then Komo stopped working. I opened it up, cleaned it out and tried again. Not working. Tried a couple of more times. Nothing.
I read up on the internet and now I am remembering that I actually dried prior batch of rye berries when I purchased them. Forgot about it this time as I ASSumed (yes, I know, assumed starts with an ass) that clnf https://www.clnf.org/rye-berries-og would send out properly dried berries. I didn’t know to look for percentage dryness. I know now. But it is not listed on their website.
There is a ring of brownish color that is absolutely smooth on the grinder stones. Did I ruin my Komo?
Is there a way to fix it?
And exactly how do I dry the berries? 100F for 8 hrs in the oven? I put them on cookie sheets and spread them about 3/8" deep?
I tried the berries now and I think they are not dry enough
Attached are some pictures.
Please help
Hello. No, you have not ruined your KoMo. This glazing takes a bit of effort to remove, but it will bring the mill back to life. 1) with a kitchen knife, scratch through the glazing just enough that you can see the stone. Do this in several places, on both stones. This will give the rice something to grip onto in the cleaning process. Reassemble your mill, and do a cleaning with 1/2 c uncooked rice, on a coarse setting. Open the mill again to inspect. Repeat all if necessary.
The Rye should be dried in a 200F oven for 20-30 min.
@Saph16 Hi! I’m so glad you were able to “restore” your Komo. MANY thanks to @john2 for helping. This forum is the most awesome place for support on all things “Breadtopia”. Breadtopians are the best!
As to the 2 cups of coarsely ground rice…JUST DUMP IT! Of course I realize you already know that, hence the emoji. But on a serious note, you don’t want to use that ground rice for anything else, certainly NOT eat it, as you’ve used it to clean your Komo. Consider that rice a sacrifice for the greater good, your Komo.
Thank you. Now I will have to grind some more rice as I am in the mood to try a traditional British Ground Rice Pudding. I googled it and it sounds delish.
@Saph16 Rice pudding! Yum! I grew up on rice pudding as a special treat as a kid and have always loved it. My husbands isn’t a fan though. Maybe he just didn’t like the way mine turned out. Come to think of it, I wasn’t crazy about the way mine would turn out. I didn’t seem to have the knack which is probably why I haven’t made it in decades, LOL. . I’ve never tried a British version with ground rice though. Now I’m thinking I just might too, sprinkled with cinnamon and maybe some raisins added in. I seem to remember always having raisins in it.
Thanks @Saph16 and @john2 for your posts. I never heard this about drying rye berries. t’s been several years since I ground rye and I’ve been thinking of doing it again. I guess I got lucky in the past. Is there a way to tell if a given batch of rye berries needs to be dried? At the very least, it seems like excessive drying might be detrimental to the grain’s nutritional value, so one might want to avoid drying a batch that doesn’t need it – but is there a way to tell before your mill stops working? Thanks and happy New Year!
That is actually easy. Before drying I took one grain and chewed on it. It chewed well, was nice and moist and tasty too. You get the picture.
Then I tried one grain after drying. Didn’t try very hard as I didn’t want to break any teeth.
I googled for this explanation and found them somewhere on the internet forums. No idea which one.
