(Update, March 2014: Boy I was excited when I bought this grain mill! I have used my it and enjoyed it now for nearly four years, and find it most successful for milling rye flour to feed my sourdough, and using rye flour as an additional grain in wheat-based breads, but I have not successfully made bread using 100% home milled wheat flour using this grinder. Not to say it isn’t possible! I confess to not trying all that hard. Please read all the comments below, and other reviews online if you are considering purchasing a Kitchenaid Grain Mill.)
Last week I broke down and bought a KITCHENAID GRAIN MILL ATTACHMENT WOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Okay, there are probably a few of you out there who don’t quite get the all-caps-league excitement. I’ll admit I pretty much nerded out on this one. But I’ve been thinking about this one for awhile now, and I believe it was a good move to bring more nutrition to our baked goods.
Here are some things I have recently read about flour:
– Whole wheat flour is not really “whole”. It has part of the germ removed because the germ, which contains oils, can go rancid quite quickly. So they remove this to make it more shelf stable.
– The germ contains most of the nutrition, including B vitamins, vitamin E, calcium, zinc, copper, manganese and potassium. It also contains enzymes that help your body in numerous ways. None of this makes its way into store-bought flour.
– Store-bought whole wheat only has a fraction of the fiber that whole grain fresh flour has.
– Wheat berries are incredibly shelf stable, lasting years–possibly even decades!
I recently threw out most of a 10 kilo bag of (poor quality) whole wheat flour because it went rancid. For me, moving to grinding my own flour will mean producing less waste as well as better nutrition. It will also be cheaper than buying organic flour from the store.
And it makes AMAZING pancakes!
Plus, I’m hoping to be able to help out some of my friends who are gluten-free by milling flour for them. There are several grains that are gluten free, but finding these specialty flours is hard–not to mention expensive! So if you’re in need of some gluten-free flour, let me know and I’ll share the bounty 🙂
The only glitch in my plan is that I’ve found fresh flour acts quite differently in bread making than store-bought flour. This might be because the increased bran cuts more of the gluten strands, making it harder to get a light, airy loaf. It could be because the grind is not as fine as store-bought flour. Or, it could be that some oxidization actually helps the flour produce a better loaf, as posited by some users on The Fresh Loaf.
I read a lot of grain mill reviews before buying the Kitchenaid attachment. This one has many negative reviews due to people burning out the motors on their mixers. But knowing this gives me power–instead of going ahead and milling 10 cups on the finest setting at the highest speed, I’m choosing to mill smaller amounts at a time, doing two (or three) passes, moving from coarse to fine, at slower speeds. I was thrilled that my machine, a 325 Watt Artisan, didn’t even break a sweat.
The other benefit of the Kitchenaid Grain Mill is that it can mill very coarsely, which will be great for cracking grains for porridge or for multigrain mixes for bread. I’ve heard fresh-cracked corn grits are amazing!
I’ve now got some new challenges, and new projects ahead of me. I’m EXCITED!!!
Frugal + Urban 
The bread would be different with fresh flour because the amylase hasn’t had time to develop.
You can fix this by either milling grains and letting them sit, or adding stuff to them to speed this up(BUT most chemicals that do this are banned in other countries as food chemicals because they are seen as completley unsafe. I’ve also heard that there are recipes somewhere that have solutions for this. I just don’t know where they are.
So how does the grain mill work? I’ve read about a lot of people saying that it overheats.
I’m finding it works well for small volumes at lower speeds, doing a double or triple pass. Right now I’m baking every day with my bread maker or doing pancakes, so I only need a small volume each day and it’s working perfectly! But you do need patience–it isn’t quick. But I also like the slightly coarser grind it gives.
I can totally see how it would overheat if you did the 10 cups on speed 10 on the finest grind.
As for the info on amylase, that’s interesting. I guess it’s a matter of finding a balance between the flour being “developed” enough, but still retaining lots of nutrients . . .
On the other hand, I did a loaf yesterday that had some vital wheat gluten, plus 1 cup of store-bought flour, and it rose well. I didn’t cut it or taste it (gave it as a gift), so I can’t attest to the grain or taste, but judging by the rise, I’d bet it’s pretty light and tasty!
I totally understand the all-caps. That is the same exact mill that I have. Been using it over a year and no problems yet with our mixer.
Where did you read all this about grains? That is super interesting. I read a lot about how freshly-milled flour was better in Nourishing Traditions, but I felt like she never really fully explained why. Maybe I didn’t read close enough though?
Have fun milling! And please post if you figure out a good bread recipe with the freshly-milled flour.
I actually got it from a local grain-producing farmer’s newsletter. Okay, not exactly a scientific source! You got me 🙂 I’ll follow up with him and see if he can name his source, and if so I’ll share it.
I read about it on Dan Barber’s “The Third Plate”!
Oh, I have read, that sprouting the grains then milling them can help with the amylase thing. Which is also nourishing traditions good.
You should try that, then let me know. 🙂 It’d be interesting.
i did some maintenance work in a commercial mill where they did a lot of grinding and packaging of different types of flour for several popular brands i will not name the companies involved but they are in the toronto area. the work involved replacing parts and repairing the various pieces of equipment and cleaning the filters and augers that feed material into the mill. Inside one of the augers which was having some problems we found a crushed racoon . The mill had been operating for almost three weeks while having problems with getting the ammount of material into the machines because the critter was plugging to hole for the grain the go through. and if that is not enough to turn anyone off store bought flour then you should go and try cleaning some of the equipment, there are so many insects that it is very difficult to control them. another job we had to do was to clean the magnets twice weekly every machine has multiple magnets at the inlets and outlets to catch metals i have removed wires, nails, nuts and bolts and various pieces of machinery that had failed
so ya grinding your own is an awesome idea i have been doing it for some time now
Is the attachment still working well for you? I am looking at my options now and stumbled across your blog, which was a nice find because I am from Ottawa!
I was reading that you had to pass grain through at least twice on some of the more expensive grain mills. So that is no different than anyone else.
I was wondering where you buy your grains and what kind (Just getting into this and very excited) but I have no Idea where or even what grains to get for it?
I love my Kitchen Aid mixer, and am considering buying a mill attachment, versus buying a separate grain milling appliance. I appreciate your input. Due to multiple food allergies we are gluten free. I would VERY much appreciate hearing about your experience in milling the gluten free grains. They are very expensive. I would especially like to hear about how well it can mill quinoa, and rice.
I haven’t milled many gluten free things–only rice and it did mill, though perhaps a bit on the coarse side? I’m not sure what you need for consistency. Perhaps I should do some experimenting! 🙂 I’ve heard good things about quinoa flour.
I bought the Kitchen Aid flour mill today. I bought it online at Amazon.com It set me back $173.97 to have it delivered to Canada. I’ve thought about buying this item for sometime. I bought the mixer for myself two Christmases ago and it has been unused since then. It’s silver and it as the top of the line at the time. I hope I don’t have issues with the motor smoking.
I’m looking forward to grinding various flours and making tasty bread. Like anything else that’s home cooked the quality will be higher but also more expensive.
Thanks for your review! I wish I’d found your review before I bought my Nutrimill. 🙂
How do you find your Nutrimill?
I like it a lot. It is relatively quiet (for a grain mill) and fast, and it does a nice job. I’ve only had it for about 2 months, but so far, so good. I’ve used it to grind wheat mostly, but I ground some brown rice a couple of weeks back, and it came out equally well.
I did end up buying the grain mill attachment. For the life of me, I couldn’t get the thing to mill rice. Even after 10 passes on the finest setting, it was too course to be usable. I called Kitchen Aid to speak with a customer service rep. We went over how to use it & couldn’t identify anything I was doing wrong. He then told me “if the grain mill didn’t fill my needs that I should return it”. (What I needed was a grain mill that could make rice flour.) Rice, btw is listed in the manual as a recommended grain to mill with it.
When I say the rice came out course, I mean really course, not even in the ballpark of what I would call a flour. It was the constancy of grits, if you are familiar with those.
If yours has been able to make a reasonable rice flour, maybe the one I bought was defective?
The other problem I had was that twice during my 10 passes through with the same 1 cup of rice, the darn thing fell off the mixer! I am pretty sure I tightened it down well the first time, & absolutely certain I did after it fell off the first time!
I wanted to love it, but ended up returning it. I went back to making rice for in my Vita Mix. I am really glad this attachment works for you though.
To be honest, I have used it most often for milling rye flour for feeding my sourdough. I didn’t find the flour grind to be fine enough for satisfactory breads or other baked goods. It has been really worthwhile for just that main purpose though. However, in hindsight I might not recommend it for folks who want to mill flour and bake with it.
Wow, i really wish this comment was at the top and not the bottom, i just ordered a KitchenAid mill to make bread with. Boo.
Hi there, I’ve given your comment a lot of thought. I’m sorry if your excitement has been dampened, but please let me clarify about my experience. I did say in my original post that I had not figured out how to make bread successfully with my home-milled wheat flour. In the nearly four years since writing the article I never did! But as I said above
Oops! I was just saying, as I said in the above comment, that I have found it successful for rye. And to be honest, I do use my home-milled rye flour in bread, but I haven’t done 100% rye.
I was super excited four years ago when I bought my mill, and I still love it and use it regularly for my sourdough. I wrote about it with the honesty of my opinion at the time, and to be honest, I haven’t really changed my assessment!
The other factor is that in Ottawa I had access to inexpensive fresh local stone milled whole-grain flour, so I had other healthy options for my bread flour that were more convenient than milling my own. So I didn’t try all that hard! I also mostly tried with one variety of wheat berry (red fife from a particular farm). So perhaps in your area, you might be able to make it work!
Please do let me know if you find success with it! I have hope for you 🙂
I am a very poor baker, so we will have to see if i can overcome:)) I have one no knead peasant bread recipe that i use because it is the only one i haven’t managed to ruin. I’ll try to let you know how the milling affects things.
Well at least with bread baking, it’s rare that you get a completely inedible failure!!
May I suggest using Vital Wheat Gluten? In my experience it can overcome many many ills in bread baking.
And another tip I read was to sift your whole-grain home-milled flour, or even double sift. I just bought a large fine-mesh sieve at the dollar store for about $2 which works perfectly 🙂
I just love no-knead bread. If you look on this blog I recently posted a nice recipe called Lovely Whole Wheat No-Knead Bread. It is a combination of a couple of no-knead techniques, and I’ve found it pretty foolproof. But on the other hand, if you have one that works, why mess with it!! 🙂
Happy baking! And do let me know how it works out.
Hi! I’ve been trying to find this piece of info, but could not in any of the official sites. Could you please tell me how the mill works? Does it have stones to mill? Thanks a lot in advance for your feedback. Stefy (from Italy)
I believe it’s a burr mill. Definitely not stone. Mine’s been going strong for looks like around 6 years now! Looks like you’re really doing your research 🙂 let us know what you decide on!