A few years ago, I began buying wheat berries and grinding our family’s flour.  That sounds a lot more impressive than it actually is, because my electric grinder does all the work, but I get the sense that people picture me slaving away when they hear we grind our own flour – it’s synonymous with being a nutritional nut or a martyr mom. 🙂

>>I am thinking of grinding my own grains soon and was wondering what type of mill you use and where do you buy your grains?<<

I use the Nutrimill, which I’ve been very happy with.  It has a lifetime warranty and the company will replace or fix whatever is necessary if it breaks due to a fault in the machine, which is a big plus.  They don’t guarantee breakage caused by you putting something in the machine that shouldn’t be there, so when a penny was in the bag of bulk wheat that I bought and it was unwittingly poured into the grinder along with the wheat, the motor burnt out and I had to pay for repairs.  But even then the repair costs were reasonable and they paid the return shipping costs to me, which I didn’t expect and thought was very nice.  It was $249 when I bought it, including shipping, but I think the price is a little higher now.

Earlier this year I bought a Family Mill, which is a manual mill, because I didn’t like having to buy flour when my electric mill was inaccessible (when it was being repaired).  If I were buying a mill right now, I would buy one mill that had manual and electric capacity – the Country Mill is the one I would probably get, because it’s made to last forever, a quality I like in the things I buy since everything in our home gets used hard.  But that’s $400, and I didn’t want to spend that after already spending $250 on the Nutrimill.  In the end, I spent close to that for the two mills, though.

I buy my grains in bulk, but my sources have changed over the years.  I started with my  local health food store, where I got a 10% discount by buying a large quantity.  I didn’t think that was a good enough discount for the amount I was getting.  So I started looking into buying directly from the wholesaler, which is what I went on to do.  Now I buy through a couple of supermarkets that buy from the wholesaler I was using; they buy at the store rate from the wholesaler and mark it up a bit for me, but it ends up being comparable to the higher private customer rate that the wholesaler gave me.   This works out well for me because it’s local to where I do my monthly shopping and the wholesaler was in an entirely different direction.  I get the impression I’m the only one who has ever asked the management of this store to do this, and obviously not every store will be willing to do it (I asked recently at Whole Foods and while they were willing to buy in large amounts for me, the discount they offered was negligible).  But it doesn’t hurt to ask.  I think the manager of the bulk department appreciates my business since the store makes a profit without much extra work for her.

>>Offhand, have you calculated the cost of grinding your own flour versus buying flour?? I was just wondering if you’d already figured it out… Saves me from doing all the math if someone else already did. :)<<

Actually, it’s not cost per pound, though that’s the easiest way to figure it.  The reason is that flour has air in it, so when you grind a cup of wheat berries, you get more than a cup of flour.  I think you get 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 cups of flour, but it’s been three years since I researched this.  Also, the flour quality is much higher than even the most expensive whole wheat flour you can buy, since the oil in the wheat hasn’t gone rancid.  So you’d have to compare it to King Arthur white whole wheat flour, but the quality of your home ground flour would still be much better.

If you like to use specialty flours that are gluten free, it’s very, very worthwhile to get your own mill.  Those flours are all very pricey and the grains themselves are not nearly as expensive.  I don’t know how much of a case can be made for the money saving aspect of grinding your own wheat.  It will depend a lot on the price you pay for whole wheat flour or wheat berries.  The price I’d pay for 50 lb of berries or flour is the same (comparing regular whole wheat flour), so I’d save 25 – 50% by grinding my own.   But some people would feel the extra step involved in grinding the wheat and the cost of the grinder wouldn’t be justified by that savings.  It would take a lot of wheat berries ground to equal $250 saved!

I bought a mill for the health aspect, since the whole wheat flour in the stores has already lost the majority of it’s nutrients by the time you get it.  Freshly ground flour definitely tastes better, too!  Another benefit that I hadn’t considered when I started doing this is that I can store large amounts of wheat berries without worrying about them losing their nutritional value over time, unlike flour, which has a definite shelf life.

I’m very glad I got the grinder, and have never regretted the purchase.  If anything, I appreciate it more and more over time.

Avivah