Recommend me a hand mill

[tombear]

I know this sort of thing has been done before but since new ones may have come out and opinions may have changed with experiance I thought I'd start a new thread.

Although things are proceeding apace with my disc rotary quernstone project I'm considering getting a modern steel hand mill for processing grain in the mean time and when I don't wnt it full of grit!

Which ones would those of you who have and use them recommend and which ones should I avoid since ill probably be limited in how much I spend and will be tempted by the bottom end ones.

Also if anyone knows of good second hand ones I'd b great full to know of them.

ATB

Tom

 

[Dave]

I have a GSD Korn Mühle KM 150, I think I got it for about £75. Its new, but old stock. And I'd recommend 'How to live on wheat' by John Hill.

 

[boatman]

Use a coffee grinder, hand or electric powered according to choice.

 

[tombear]

Cheers folks. The wife's been consulting her cronies and we are going to go for a Wondermill Junior Deluxe, ideally a second hand one but otherwise will flog off some of th surplus kit to get one. Cheapest we've found so far is £156 with free postage. Yeah ouch but it comes highly rated and I like the build quality.

ATB

Tom

 

[Swallow]

Chef is running Group Buy on these

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=95782&page=2&p=1692188

 

[Robson Valley]

I read the poop-sheet. Seems the grain grinding function works with stones. Buying used, hope those were not damaged.
Power drill driven: look like about a 3/8" socket. Sure as hello not worth $35.00.

 

[tombear]

Well folks I decided to get rid of all the Great War model plane kits I hoarded about 20 years ago and finally put them on ebay, ringfenced so whatever we made would go back on hobby stuff rather than worthy stuff like plastering that the rest of the ebay mountain is for.

Anyhoo a week later and I've come out of the shock I went into when herslf told me how much profit we had made. When ive found one that will come apart to go up the stairs to the shed will be getting a 7 foot by 4 slate bed pool table, the sort with a false top so you can use it as a dinner table or in our case a cutting out table and base for the lads huge wargames table. There some other bits and bobs I normally couldn't merit spending on but best of all herself has just ordered me a shiny new Wondermill Jnr Deluxe from the Uk supplier. They have gone up since I first looked a year ago but what the hell!

Hopefully the bad weather wont destroy the bere crop but we can buy all sorts of interesting grains cheap anyway, heck, we have the restof the sack of barley the lad got for brewing.

Atb

Tom

 

[tombear]

Well folks, it arrived by UPS just now and I must admit I'm impressed by how well made it is. Once the rest are home we will have a go at making some stuff with it, there's a huge bag of kershews I've my eye on and some oat groats and hulled spelt. I need to do some reading up but there seams to be plenty of sites.

Theres quite a few mills on eBay now for dirt cheap prices and I'm tempted to get one for doing non food stuff rather than battering them in a mortar and pestle.

atb

Tom

 

[Robson Valley]

This is great news. Now you can mill anything and everything to a standard.
The baked goods will be a fascinating historical exercise.
Wish I was there!

 

[tombear]

Just tried it with a quart of unhulled barley to clean it out and bed the stone wheels in , nicely adjustable. Will turn the flour and husks into bird food, no point in wasting it. Will get a sack of hulled stuff when next passing the feed merchant. Want to get a sack of spelt and vacuum bag it to extend the life. 'Saw quite a decent vacuum bagger in the back of a charity shop in Accy, so going to see if it's still there tomorrow. Otherwise I'll get one new while I've the spare cash.

I'm still intending to make a late Saxon style rotary quern, I've done the research now and just need to do the drawings, get intouch with the MSG specialist mason who was interested in the project.

ATB

Tom

 

[Robson Valley]

For wheat alone, there are 14 species in 3 groups (diploid, tetraploid and hexaploid).
Protein content changed and thus so did the milling and baking characteristics.
All the hybridizations with wild grasses have been identified and replicated.

Would love to use the same formula with 6 different wheats baked as the same sort of bready thing.
What an exploration.

 

[TheGrinder]

I saw that BushcraftUK had in the past organised group purchases of this item, with substantial savings. Are there any plans to do so in the future, as I would be interested.