Beginner’s Guide to Home Grain Milling
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The idea of milling your own flour at home can be overwhelming, but the truth is it’s actually pretty simple. In this post I’m sharing a complete beginner’s guide to home grain milling from wheat varieties, which grain mill to choose and more! You’ll be on your way to a fresh milled kitchen in no time!
There has been a huge rise in home grain milling over the last couple years. People are craving the ability to serve their family healthy, wholesome food and milling your own grains is a great way to do that. But if you aren’t familiar with the process of home grain milling, it can be confusing to sort through all of the information online.
I got my NutriMill Harvest grain mill off of Facebook Marketplace about two years ago and since then I have been almost exclusively baking with fresh milled flour. From fresh milled sourdough artisan bread, fresh milled sourdough bagels and fresh milled cornbread to fresh milled flour fried chicken, fresh milled waffles and pancakes, fresh milled pumpkin muffins and fresh milled pound cake.. there are so many delicious ways to incorporate healthy, whole grains in the kitchen without sacrificing flavor.
In this post we are going to cover everything from the history of grain milling to where to source and how to use your grains. By the time you’re done you will feel confident in your ability to begin your home grain milling journey… and I don’t think you’ll ever look back!
The History Behind Fresh Milled Flour
For much of human history, wheat was used in its natural form. The Bible speaks to the use and long term storage of grain in Genesis when Joseph stored grain in Egypt for the famine.
Wheat specifically has always been a staple food in the human diet. It offered many of the nutrients needed to keep people’s bodies functioning well.
With the industrial revolution came a new process of milling flour that allowed for commercial, mass production of the flour that we are familiar with today. Commercial flour differs from fresh milled flour because, during the milling process, the wheat germ is removed due to its oils causing flour to have a short shelf life. The wheat germ contains majority of the nutrients that can be found in wheat, meaning that the commercially processed flour was devoid of all nutrients.
This didn’t appear to be a problem until a variety of diseases linked to the newly commercialized flour emerged around the 1930s. This led those in the flour industry to the remedy of adding synthetic versions of the lost vitamins and minerals back into the flour. But unfortunately our bodies don’t respond to this commercialized, synthetic form of wheat that they were designed to eat. Many people have realized this in the last few years and made the shift to home grain milling.
Benefits of Home Grain Milling
More nutritious – Fresh milled flour is full of many of the essential vitamins and minerals our bodies need like B vitamins, iron, zinc, magnesium, potassium, natural fats and fiber.
Shelf stable – Whole wheat berries store for a very long time. You can store them in a glass jar or five gallon bucket for up to a year, or even over 20 years when using mylar bags and oxygen absorbers. This makes wheat berries the perfect longterm storage item for a prepared pantry.
Affordable – Purchasing whole wheat berries is often more budget friendly than buying bags of store-bought flour. I like to purchase my wheat berries in bulk to get the best value.
Delicious – There is a unique, delicious flavor to baked goods made with freshly milled flour. In my opinion, the flavor is far superior than that of your commercial flour.
Variety – There are so many varieties of wheat available, meaning that you can really have diversity in the flavor profiles and textures of your baked goods. With store-bought flour, there are really only a few options available.
Authentic – When you bake with freshly milled grains, you just feel like you are eating something real. It’s hard to explain, but once you taste it for the first time you’ll notice it too!
Home Grain Milling Supplies
There aren’t many supplies you need to have success with home grain milling.
Here are the ones I recommend:
Food scale – while you can bake with fresh milled flour using volume measurements, I highly recommend using a food scale and measuring with grams for accuracy
A good set of mixing bowls
Loaf pans – for making sandwich style loaves
Dutch oven – for baking fresh milled artisan breads
Choosing a Grain Mill
There are a few different types of grain mills available. Each one offers the end goal with is fresh milled grains, however they differ in process.
Stone Mills – Mills like the NutriMill Harvest, MockMill and others use stone plates to crush the grain. This gives the most traditional texture.
Impact Mills – The most popular versions of these mills are the NutriMill Classic and Wondermill. They create flour by using metal teeth that spin quickly and break the grain. These mills are typically more affordable than stone mills.
Roller Mills – This includes hand crank style mills that are not powered by electricity. Some choose to opt for this type of grain mill due to the security of being able to operate it without power, however they can require quite a bit of effort to mill a small amount of grain.
Best Home Grain Mill
Deciding which mill is best for your home grain milling depends on what you are looking for in a mill.
If your goal is to get into home grain milling for as little cost as possible, then an impact mill might be your best choice.
However, if you are looking for something with a traditional method like stone milling, and want to be able to leave it out on your counter at all times, then the NutriMill Harvest or MockMill might be the better choice for you.
I personally have the NutriMill Harvest and have had nothing but a great experience. It is reliable, simple to use and consistently mills high quality flour. Our family has thoroughly enjoyed our addition of our home grain mill.
Types of Grain
There are different types of grains you can mill in your kitchen with a home grain mill.
Wheat – This includes a variety of wheat berries like hard red wheat, hard white wheat, and soft white wheat as well as ancient grains like einkorn, Kamut, and spelt.
Rice – You can mill your own rice flour right in your home grain mill.
Oat groats – Different from rolled oats, this is the grain used for making high quality home milled oat flour.
Corn – You can mill your very own cornmeal in your home grain mill.
Legumes – You can even mill legumes like chickpeas, lentils and dry beans.
How to Store Grains
There are a few options when it comes to storing your grains. Much of how you store your grains will depend on what grains you are storing, how often you are reaching for them, your space and the amount of grains you are purchasing at once.
Glass jars – The easiest way to store grains is right on your kitchen counter or shelf in glass jars. Even though I buy my grains in bulk, I like to keep jars of my most commonly used grains right in my kitchen so they are easily accessible.
Storage buckets – If you have the space in your kitchen or a good sized pantry, you can store all of your grains in storage buckets ( I highly recommend using gamma lids for your buckets as they make it so much easier to access what’s inside). I keep my bulk stock of grains stored in five gallon buckets in our basement, and fill up my kitchen jars from the storage buckets.
Where to Purchase Wheat for Home Grain Milling
With the rise of popularity in home grain milling, grains are becoming more accessible. There are different options for purchasing grains depending on your location.
Azure Standard – Arguably the most popular bulk food supplier in the United States, they offer a wide variety of grains to choose from. Check out my Azure Standard Guide blog post for everything you need to know about shopping with them.
How to Use Fresh Milled Flour
Using your freshly milled flour and other grains is actually quite simple. However, there are a few key things that I have found bring success with using fresh milled grains.
I have found that I prefer the way fresh milled flour works with sourdough over commercial yeast. This is because the slower fermentation from the sourdough allows the flour to absorb fully into the liquid in the recipe and creates a less crumbly finished product.
For bread products, you can grind your wheat on a medium grind setting. For baked goods like cookies, cakes and muffins you will want to use a fine grind setting.
You will want to use soft wheats like soft white wheat and spelt for baked goods and hard wheat varieties for bread products.
Using weight measurements like grams is very helpful in getting a consistent result for your fresh milled product. I like to weigh out my grains before putting them through the mill, that way I have exactly as much as I need for the recipe once it is done grinding… no further measuring needed!
Fresh milled flour straight out of the mill is warm which is great for kickstarting the fermentation of yeast or sourdough, but not so great for items with butter cut in like biscuits, scones, or pie crusts. Make sure to refrigerate the flour before using it for any pastry-like items.
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