Transcript:

Eliana: Hi, I am Eliana. We have another video from SimplyLivingSmart.com. Today my husband and I will show you two quality grain mills to grind legumes and grains to make flours. Watch our video Bread From Start to Fish. Our partner, Anitra, makes home made whole wheat bread,in less than 1 hour.  Isn't that quick? Today, we will show you how to graind these flours with and without electricity.

Aaron: We have been excited to see more and more people beginning to use grains, beans, and other whole foods in their regular meal planning. If you are building your food storage, you will quickly find that without a grinder, your cooking options are limited a little. If you are doing a google search, grinders are normally called mills, spelled M-I-L-L not M-E-A-L.

Eliana: While I saved to buy a mill for our kitchen, I used my ordinary blender and a fine sifter to make flours. If you don't have a mill you can use a blender too.  Any blender will do. But to get really fine flour, like the ones from the stores, you need a good mill.

Aaron: Mills can be broadly categorized as electric and hand mills. If you are like me, you want a good quality electric mill, because, frankly, I don't want to be stuck grinding by hand every day. And if it's a burden, you won't do it regularly and you'll end up buying flour.

Eliana: But we women like the feeling of security and comfort during hard times. Besides my electric grinder I also want a hand operated mill.  If electricity fails, I can still grind our grains and legumes to prepare our meals.

Aaron: So our goal was to have the option of both. There are a lot of hand mills. But I wanted a solid, high-quality mill that we could rely on. After studying mills and trying out several, we found two quality solutions that will give you the convenience of electric and the security of a hand mill. In this video we will compare what we believe are the two best hand mills. The two hand-mills that we recommend that will give you the option of electric and manual are the widely known Country Living mill including a motorization package and the second option is the Wondermill Combination--The Wondermill and the relatively new Wondermill-Jr. Deluxe.  Today, Both the motorized Country Living Mill and the WonderMill combination will cost in the neighborhood of $500.00. (Of course, prices will vary from time to time.)

Eliana: We own a Country Living mill that be be used with and without power. It is very efficient. We use it every day, and we love it! We also own a Wondermill Junior hand-mill. When the power is out, we like to use it. It is a little easier to use without power than the Country Living mill.

Aaron: Let me show you


First I'll start with the Country Living Mill.

The Country Living Mill is built rugged. It has a powerful steel I-beam base and can be bolted snugly to a mounting frame. Internally, it is also built to last. As far as I know, it is the only mill that uses two industrial-grade ball-bearings. This is especially important if you plan to motorize this mill, which Eliana and I have done. In this diagram, you can see how the bearings, highlighted in red, are spaced apart, which increases the stability of the drive shaft and reduces bearing strain.



Getting to the milling head is pretty simple. On the front of the mill is a Threaded Coarsness Adjustment Knob. It is designed to stay in place once it is set. When the machine is off, you can unscrew and remove this knob. Be careful to watch for the washer. Once you have removed the knob, you can remove the rotating burr plate.

There are two burr plates, in internal stationary plate and a rotating plate. This thin-grooved burr plate system has the advantage of being able to grind course or fine by adjusting the Adjustment knob on the front. However, oily grains such as flax and millet have a tendency to gum up inside. If you are mixing the grains with other grains, the other grains can help pull the oily residue through.

The auger that comes with the Country Living Mill resembles a large spring around the grinder drive shaft in the feed housing. This auger produces a minimum amount of drag on the crank wheel and is enough to move small seeds such as wheat through the feed chamber to the grinding plates or burrs.  The small grain auger that comes with the grinder doesn't adequately move large seeds through the mill and for those of you who wish to grind larger grains such as beans and corn, you'll need the larger auger designed for this purpose.

Replacing the spring with the corn auger is a little tricky, which is one disadvantage of this mill. After you have removed the rotating burr plate, you need a pair of pliers to press the spring in carefully. Then carefully pull out the key. If you're not careful, the key can slip and go flying across the room. Then grab the auger spring and pull it out. The spring is purposly slightly curved so that it has tension on the shaft in order to pull the grain through the mill heads.

Clean out all of the grain.

 When you look inside, you will see two washers. One of these needs to be removed. Then you will need to carefully slide a key all the way inside the mill on ths shaft.

Once the key is on the shaft, you will assemble the corn auger and spring. Notice the key groove on the auger. Slide the spring inside the auger.

Then slide the auger onto the shaft so that the key hole and key line up. Slide it next to the washer.

Now comes the tricky part. You need a second key pushing into the spring. Be careful! Oops, it fell out. I'll rotate the shaft to put the key on top . . . and so you can see better. Place the key into the slot of the shaft carefully. I use a pair of plyers and hold with my finters to push the spring in until is slides completely in the slot. This one went in easily. Sometimes it doesn't. If it is too loose, you need another washer back inside. If it is too tight and you can't push it in, you need to remove a washer. Fun, isn't it?

Now, put the rotating burr plate back in place. Slide the washer on and tighten down the Coarsness Adjustment. See, that's not too bad, but you will need to be careful. I don't like to switch very often. We can get around this most of the times by leaving the normal spring in and then running corn or beans through with a very wide setting the first time and then run it through on a fine setting the second time.

Now, to give me the advantage of the electricity, I have install a motor and belts. This can be pricey, but it definitely makes the Country Living Mill useable for the long run, not just during emergencies. I know that when we did not have the motor installed, I used it only about 4 or 5 times. I won't go into a lot of details on this. The Country Living Mill website, www.countrylivinggrainmills.com, has a lot of instructions. Here is one of their diagrams.

I saved a lot of money by installing an old motor that I had in the garage. The motor itself, if purchased new, will run you between $100 and $200 dollars, depending on the model. Pulleys and shafts will run you another $50 to $80 dollars depending on your design. Then you need a box or cupboard to hold it. Our cabinet is an old bathroom cabinet. I'm not a very good carpenter. However, we love this mill and we use it every day.

What about switching between power and hand. It's pretty simple.

First, unplug the power. Then grab a small screwdriver or other strong rod. Put the screwdriver between the belt and the pulley and twist it out of the groove. Then turn the pully so that the belt slides out. It can be pretty tight, so pull hard. Then push and hide the belt out of the way. Grab the handle and screw it into the pulley. Then begin to grind.  Right now, this grinder is on a very fine flour, so it has about as much tension as you will get.

What about reversing this? Now, attaching the motor is just as easy. Take off the handle and install the belt, plug it in, and turn on the power.

When I purchased my Country Living Mill, the Wondermill Junior Deluxe was not available on the market. Believe it or not, I missed it by about 2 months. If I were to do this again, I would use the Wondermill combination. The Wondermill Junior Deluxe came out in late December, 2007.

The Junior Deluxe is also built very strong. Though it does not use I-beam construction, it is very solid steel construction. It has a very powerful, wide-jaws clamping system that will stay secure when you have set it. It does not use ball bearing, but it has a very well built brass bushings. The wondermill is designed to adjust for heavy, coarse beans or oily grains. As a matter of fact, it will create peanut butter or grind the finest flour. It does this by combining a spring/auger similar to the Country Living Mill, but it is built in. Then it is enhanced by providing two interchangeable sets of grinding heads, one steel and the other stone. Let me show you how easily these switch these heads out.