<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> Here it is the much belated grain mill summary! I had not idea selecting a grain mill would be such a complicated process! ----------------- k-tec http://waltonfeed.com/kitmill.html It paid for itself in a very very short period of time. ---------------- I have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I bought the grain mill attachment about a year ago. I use it for rice flour. It does a great job. You can grind up to 10 cups at one time before the motor needs a rest. Super-fast set up and clean up. I bought it online for $80 or $90. I remember doing a lot of comparison shopping for best price and free shipping. Sorry, but I don't remember the website. Best of luck. Marilyn Madison County ---------------- I have a Whisper Mill and it works very well. I've ground millet, rice, brown rice, and buckwheat. Mary Anne ------------------------- There's a summary about Whisper Mills in the archives: Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 10:42:15 -0400 From: Linda Etherton <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Summary: Whisper Mill --------------------- I have the grain mill attachment for my KitchenAid mixer and find it works well when I want to grind large quantities of things like quinoa or millet. The only grain it is not good for is amaranth, because the seeds are too small. For small amounts of flour, or for oily things like flax seed, I just use a cheap coffee grinder. I tend to like my flour on the coarse side, so your mileage may vary. Joe Ellison --------------------- I have an older Magic Mill (now called Ultra Mill) that does great for rice, lentils, split peas, and I forget what all I've used it for over the years. Now a newer grain mill has come on the market, the NutriMill, that is rated the best for non gluten grains, although the Ultra Mill is fine for budget minded families. It is nice to be able to store the whole grains in grain form, and then just mill what you need so it's fresh, more nutritious, and doesn't have a chance to go rancid. The flavor is way better too. Here are two items to keep in mind if you need to be gluten free. 1. You can't use a mill that has been used for gluten grains without cross contamination. The manufacturers say they cannot be cleaned well enough. You need to dedicate the mill strictly for non gluten grains right from the start. 2. Don't use grain mills for seeds, nuts or spices, like pecans and almonds or flax or sesame seeds. These foods have a high oil content and will gum it up. You need a Nut and Seed grinder. (Often a small, inexpensive coffee grinder is fine for smallamounts of nuts, seeds, and spices as well as coffee.) Except the coffee will leave a flavor in the grinder, so again you may want to have 2 and keep them separate. Another option if you have a Bosch Kitchen Machine, is to purchase their Slicer Shredder or Food Processor Attachment for oily items. These attachments make great nut meals, bread crumbs (non gluten of course), etc. You also can purchase small grain mills that attach to the Kitchen Machines, and they are OK for smaller amounts at a time. I have made my own bread for my family (7 kids) off and on for years, and ground my own wheat and other grains for it. Now that my family is going gluten free, I plan to purchase a NutriMill from a Gluten Free Kitchen Tools dealership I just started. (In fact, I submitted my first Gluten Free Tools ad to this listserve yesterday. I liked the machines I've used for years so well that I decided to offer them as affordably as possible to other gluten free cooks.) Here is my website. Both the UltraMill and the NutriMill are offered on this site. Check the Specification sheets for details on design. www.geocities.com/glutenfreetools Olive Kaiser, Gluten Free Tools ---------------------- I use the Vita-Mix. It looks like a blender, but had special blades and motor to do all that sort of thing. I believe the newer version actually have a separate container for doing grains. I have to admit I don't do my own grain, but everything else I have put in this machine does exactly what they tell you and more. It grinds up ice to make ice cream.........and yet grinds up hard vegetables to cook soup in the same unit without any other heat source. It is expensive compared to a blender, but well worth it, in my opinion. I use it most for smoothies, soups, & sauces. I can grind up anything I choose to make a healthy drink that I can take with me anywhere so I can clean house and drink at the same time........although, sitting outside on the patio with a cool drink in summer is a much nicer way to go. My husband prefers blueberry fat free smoothies, but I like the ones containing vegetables too. It is a wonderful appliance to have.........I put one of the sites below, but you can get some from the company that are reconditioned and they are less expensive. I have had mine for more than 10 years......so they are durable too. A good investment especially for our diets. http://www.vitamix.com Np ------------------ It has been years since I've dealt with the hassle and the noise, but I used to grind my own wheat with the grain mill attachment to my Kitchen-Aid mixer, and got another for exclusive use for gf grains. I used to grind chickpeas as well, but they were particularly noisy and difficult (and I really think bean flours are not a good idea since they are not soaked; there is a brand that does soak, but that must take forever to soak, rinse, dry, grind). Anyway, I think I always liked it well enough, but it can be difficult to adjust the flour to be as fine as you might like, which is fine for a hearty wheat, but lousy for a rice flour pie crust. I find I really do not like noisy appliances that have to run a long time (a blender or food processor does not run long, but if you want to grind up flour, you are going to be rattling your ears with some decibels), and much prefer to purchase the flour even if it does cost more (I bake much less now anyway). I've had friends satisfied with their hand grinders (grain mills), but they do admit that it takes a lot of elbow grease (and they end up buying electric ones for while they do have electricity). I've heard that the VitaMixers do not really do a good job - have to do very small batches, makes a lot of noise, and is not that consistent (not a uniform fineness). Also interesting that they always have rebuilt ones for sale (a lot of people return them). Oh, and I don't know which grains you want to grind, but I think the tiny ones might be even harder (quinoa, amaranth - and we don't like the soapy taste of either; and buckwheat is bitter), and I suspect that rice used for rice flour is a different rice than what you buy for cooking. That fresh ground wheat bread sure was good though - of course that was when I could use gluten and yeast; and I really believed that my fresh ground organic wheat was filled with goodness (more vitamin E, etc.) . . . . . . and here's another thought: if you want to grind the soaked grains, then I think you would do well with the Kitchen Aid grinder attachment, which is what I used to use when I made things with soaked wheat. If you already have a Kitchen Aid mixer, this is not that big an investment; if not, then it would depend on whether you want the mixer - I really like mine, not only for mixing standard stuff (like gf bread batter, or whipping cream, or beating egg whites, or making coconut cookies), but especially for mixing stuff into ground meat - e.g. onion and collard greens, etc. (which I first pulverize in the food processor - then there are no large pieces to mess up the texture, but the resulting meat balls or loaf are much better nutritionally (and flavor) - of course this is the sort of thing I'll do a lot for a while, then we get sick of it and don't do it for ages...I used to use the grinder to grind my own lamb, too, as the store bought is never good quality around here (they will even grind in the thick fat with the purple ink stamp on it!). If I ever tried the pasta it did not work out though - I think that was back when we could not use egg though. . . And grinding is very different from what the food processor does, which for things like soaked grains can result in an awful goo. Hilary --------------- HI Valerie, I have a Whisper Mill which I even use for dry beans with little oil content although it is not recommended for milling beans. It's been a great asset. Laura Y. --------------- I have a whisper mill that works pretty good. Legumes, whole buckwheat, and sorghum have to be run through more than once for a fine flour. Teff falls through a cheaper mill but is nicely ground by the whisper mill. Joanne --------------- ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the Internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the Web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! * Visit the Celiac Web Page at www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/index.html *