Grinding Flour In Our Nutrimill
 Meet my new kitchen “tool.” Hi Nutrimill! I say “tool” loosely because it’s currently still a toy – I like playing with it. I get giddy……I wake up early and I get giddy with excitement over a mill – I think I was born after my time. So, I thought all of you should get acquainted with our new family member since you already know everyone else. The Nutrimill grinds grain into flour. Remember I said we were making all our own bread products now? This is just the next step in Healthy Eating for us. I did tons of research before I bought this baby. I read everything I could find and I picked my friend Stephanie’s mind I’m sure that she’s wishing Stacy would just go away. I’m like a boomerang that keeps coming back. We decided on the Nutrimill instead of the other various mills on the market because it was supposed to be the quietest, have the biggest storage container, and you can turn it off while it’s grinding (unlike some of the other models). By now you know that only crazy things happen when I’m trying to cook, so I needed that option – Dottie will throw up or Annie will “clean” the toilet.
I purchased the mill from Paula’s Bread. She has really great customer service and she offers free shipping…..y’all know how I feel about free stuff. Don’t get sticker shock. We paid $260 for our mill. I saved for a bit and we paid from extra money so we didn’t take from our checking account that’s being utilized to kill the house payment. Stacy and “her” money are not soon parted, so you know that I really wanted this thing. Barry was on board too. We listened to The Bread of Idleness CD from Bread Beckers and were convicted that we should start milling out own wheat. The CD is free, so if you’re considering switching to grinding your own wheat, I would highly recommend it. Let’s grind something! |
These are wheat berries…..they make flour. It’s amazing to me. I’m glad Annie can watch this process so she realizes that you grind flour and it’s not magically made at the store. I bought these from Earth Fare but I do hope to order from Bread Beckers this fall. Bread Beckers is very reasonably priced and they have good quality grain from everything I’ve read. Stephanie orders from there too……yep, it’s the boomerang again. I could go into great detail about all the different kinds of grain you can buy and what they do, but I’m not an expert at that. I have ground hard white wheat, hard red wheat, and oat groats. I might try different grains in the future, but this was what we went with first. Here is a good explanation of the types of wheat, but you can mill all sorts of stuff – like popcorn and millet. The possibilities excite me……I think I might need a sedative.
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First you pour your grain into the top of the canister. One cup of grain makes about 1 ½ cups of flour. For us, we only mill what we’re going to use that day. Fresh ground grain needs to be used pretty soon or the nutrients will start to oxidize. You can freeze it to slow the process down, but I like to reserve my freezer for other stuff like strawberries and other produce. Freshly-ground grain keeps all the nutrients….when you buy it in the store, they’re almost all gone – the flour has been ENRICHED. That just means that most of the good-for-you stuff is gone so they had to add part of it back in. Yummy.
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Once you pour your grain in, you can start the motor. The settings on the motor and the feed rate determine how fine your flour is. For coarse flour, you turn to the right (think cornmeal) and for fine flour you leave it on the left. The faster it feeds in, the more coarse the flour. When you turn it on, it’s going to be loud. Remember I said it was “quiet?” Well, quiet is a relative term. This one is quiet compared to others. It is louder than a blender…..but quieter than a chain saw. How’s that? If you put the lid on, it’s quieter. After it’s done, let it keep going for a few seconds to eliminate any flour left in the chamber.
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When it’s done, you just pull the handle to bring out the canister. It’s virtually dust free. Nice! I hate dusting…….I wish I could train Dottie to dust the house.
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This is the canister out of the mill. The lid is very tight fitting, hence the low amount of dust. The black thing on top is the filter. You’ll wash the canister when you’re done, by hand….not in the dishwasher. Once when I was young, I gave my Grandmaw a set of cow salt and pepper shakers. She washed them in the dishwasher and then they lost all their spots. It was a sad day. They were naked.
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Ta da!!!! Isn’t that just amazing? I’m amazed. You should be too. It’s cool. |
It looks just like store flour, but it’s GOOD for you.
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I made a batch of Light Bread with this…..and it was DELICIOUS! As you can see, we dug in pretty fast. It really makes the best bread you’ll ever taste. Now when we eat store bread we’re like “Gosh……this tastes…….weird.” And not weird in a good way, but weird in a bad way like a stalker or something. So, that’s our new mill. I <3 it. Any questions? This post is also linked at Whole New Mom. |
Oh, I saw one of these AND a Bosch mixer at the bulk store last week…I was all shivery with excitement!
No, I would be sad if you went away.
I’m working on some notes for classes. Let me know if you have any suggestions. I figured for the first class, I would just concentrate on wheat in general with overall health benefits, basic bread and rolls, cornbread made with spelt and maybe a pizza crust. The advanced class could be for braiding, decorating and sweet breads maybe. And I have soap and canning notes too. 
I wanna come!!!!
I wanna come, too!
Me too!! Please tell us when and where!
I want one! Time to start saving…
I’m not sure if I’m more interested in the bread making or the entry for the napkins—-actually I’m really most interested in the bread eating!
One of these is on my wish list, too. Maybe the NutriMill company will send you one to give away to your readers (especially one with a baking blog, lol). I’m a dreamer!! — Looking forward to seeing all the yummy stuff you’ll be baking with your flour.
FYI: linked this post to http://baking4six.com/flour-101/.
Please advise Stacy. I am debating between the Nutrimill and the WhisperMill. Do you have a particular reason(s) why you chose the Nutrimill? They both seem to do about the same…except you can stop the Nutrimill…price is same…
Thanks.
Leslie, stopping the mill was a huge deal to me. What if I needed to stop and get the door? What if something went wrong? What if Annie put a penny in there? I mean, really……that stuff happens to me.
I have also heard that the Nutrimill is quieter, but I haven’t had anything to compare it too. Also, the Nutrimill has a larger canister, so it can hold more wheat as you grind it. That’s also a good perk. Make sure you order from Paula’s Bread to get free shipping! 
Good luck! Let me know how it goes.
Hey Stacy! I just ordered the NutriMill from Paula’s Bread! I am so excited…I have been bidding on them on Ebay and I am OVER that! I may become your “boomerang!” Sorry…
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so excited for you!
Make sure you tell me about your first grinding experience. It ROCKS! 
I’ve been making bread for a few years now….I watched the webinar from GNOWFGLINS this week and learned that the whole wheat doesn’t absorb all the water for up to 30 min. By this time, you’ve added too much flour….making the bread denser….to solve this problem…let your dough rest in cycles…I add most of my flour, then let it rest for 20 min, come back, add more flour…let rest another 5 min…by this time I can tell if I have enough flour added or if I need to add a little more…then I let the machine do the kneading (or knead by hand)….tried it today and made the best, lightest bread I have ever made….looked just like store bought bread. My family said it was the best bread they had ever had…YEAH!!!!
I love Wardeh.
She knows her stuff.
Hey! I’ve been reading about how wheat flour looses like all of it’s nutrients over time so that kind of freaked me out and I’ve been trying to figure out this grinding my own flour business and I’m a little confused. Ok so some recipes call for wheat flour and bread flour. If I’m grinding my own flour do I just grind the wheat and buy the bread flour from the store? Or do you use something else in your wheat bread recipes? Also, what type of wheat berries do you buy? the hard winter red wheat? Thanks!
Sarah, good questions.
I do not buy bread flour. If recipe states “bread flour” I just use what I have. However, the recipes I’ve been using lately are from “whole food” sites and just say “whole wheat flour.”
I don’t buy Hard Red Winter Wheat. It makes bread a little more dense. I buy Hard WHITE Winter Wheat and Soft White Winter Wheat. I use the hard wheat for all my yeast breads. The soft wheat is for pancakes, muffins, cakes, etc (it’s like the equivalent of pastry flour). I want to try spelt very soon.
You cannot grind your wheat very much in advance – it looses its mineral content. So, I just grind what I need for the day. Some say that you can grind it and put it in the freezer to slow down the process. I do have an “emergency” stash in the freezer, but I just choose to grind mine daily as I need it – and some days I don’t grind at all. If you leave freshly ground flour at room temperature for a few days, it will go rancid.
What are the websites you get your bread recipes from? I made the switch back to whole milk today(I hope it doesn’t upset colten’s stomach. He had a hard time a while back with whole milk, but he could drink 2% just fine so hopefully he will do ok with this) and as soon as I use up all the so called butter I have we’ll be buying REAL butter
So we’re trying to use up what we’ve got before we replace it. Thanks for all your help! 
That’s the best way to go Sarah.
You’re doing great!
I can send you the recipes via email that I’m using now. I’m working on a new one for the site.
Hi Stacy,
I used my Nutrimill for the first time today. I used hard white winter wheat and set the mill to the finest setting. My flour was fine but had a little bit of grainy feeling. It was not like a flour from a store…. Does your flower come out super fine or does it also have a grainy feeling? Do you know whether I can ‘regrind’ my flour?
Thanks
The slightly “grainy” feeling is normal. I get that even if I grind it on the lowest setting. It’s because the whole part of the berry is in there. Just use it like normal flour. You won’t be able to tell at all in the finished product.
No need to re-grind…….and I’m not sure that would work anyway. Good luck! Let me know how your baking goes. 
You really can’t tell? I tried making banana cake once with freshly ground flour and the finished product was gritty. Nobody liked that. I had ground white wheat berries in my Blendtec but I’ve been afraid to try again because of the gritty stuff. I’ve heard that the Blendtec grinds about as fine as a grain mill. I sooo want to make my own flour!
Hmmm. No, I’ve never been able to tell the difference. Neither has Barry. I always use the finest setting on my Nutrimill. I’ve never used another setting – so maybe the Blendtec doesn’t get it that fine? I’m not sure…..maybe someone with a Blendtec will chime in.
I’ll keep trying and googling. I got excited one day and figured I could just sift it out and then realized I’d be sifting out the good stuff which is a reason for grinding my own to begin with. Maybe I’ll get it right one day!
I hope you figure it out – because fresh ground flour ROCKS!