I am a novice baker and new to the concept of milling my own wheatberries instead of purchasing store bought organic flour.
Yesterday, I received my adorable hand mill from Germany. After much contemplation about which manuel mill to purchase, I settled on the Korn Kraft Mulino.
Does anyone here have a manuel mill, or even a Korn Kraft Mulino? It is appropriate for a one or two people in a family due to it’s small size and yields.
I haven’t purchased berries yet but want to buy from Breadtopia in smaller 5# quanities. I have seen uncracked and cracked berries , at least on other sites. Another supplier had told me that I could purchase the whole berries or cracked berries to put into my mill. Why would one purchase cracked wheat to put into the home mill? Wouldn’t the berries loss some nutritional value if it were already cracked from the supplier?
I believe cracked berries don’t have as long of a shelf life as whole berries, though its likely still longer than flour. Cracked berries might reduce your work, but from what I can see from the product page of the KornKraft Mulino is designed to handle whole grains, minus corn.
This blog post is about using home-milled flour. It’s focused on the Mockmill, but the flour uses and list of recipes can be applied to a powdery fine flour from any mill.
I have myself convinced hand mills were invented by people that sell electric mills. I started out grinding whole wheat berries with a hand mill. The first time was great, the second time was good. After the third time hand grinding, I was online ordering a Mockmill from Breadtopia, never looked back.
The quality of bread made with fresh ground flour is addicting. You are going to love it. A hand mill is a great way to get introduced to home milling your own flour. It is a lot of work and for that reason I do not see it as realistic for someone making bread frequently. I considered using the hand mill to grind coffee beans every morning, but even that was pushing it. Maybe it’s just me.
From my experience, you are going to want to work on a table or counter that is solid, not wobbly, and bolt or clamp the grinder down as hard as you can. I have a Quaker City mill with cast iron grinding plates, supposedly it will grind anything, even make rocks into powder. These days, I use it to grind dried sourdough starter into powder, then sprinkle the powder on whatever I am composting. Sourdough starter has the bacteria necessary for anaerobic composting.
For anyone interested in an electric mill, Breadtopia has them 10% off (and free shipping) now through Cyber Monday. Use the code at the top of the Breadtopia homepage.
Thanks Otis. Yes, I hope to get an electric mill too but definitely wanted a manuel for emergency preparedness and to learn milling from the purest form to gain appreciation for the process.
Great idea about adding the starter to compost!! I will try that too.