Manual Grinder #1

Today I'm going to show you the manual grain mill that we received yesterday from my boyfriend's dad as a Christmas gift. It was so thoughtful that my boyfriend decided to choose the grain mill when his dad asked him what he wanted for Christmas. And I'm happy that his dad did get it for us! It'll be useful for a lot of things. Right now I'm waiting to go to the health foods store so I can get some hard red winter wheat. I don't think they have hard white, so I may have to order some or look around more.

I'd been looking at grain mills, but I was browsing through the more expensive electric ones. But I realized that a manual grain mill would be better in an emergency situation, if we didn't happen to have electricity or the power goes out. I'm waiting on my tabletop manual meat grinder, so when that arrives I'll add it to this post.

Some electric grain mills can cost around $400 or even $700. My dream hand-cranked grain mill is the Country Living grain mill, because it's gotten so many good reviews and it's supposed to be entirely made in the USA. Unfortunately, I don't have over $400 to spend on a manual grain mill right now, so the Victorio will do unless I can find a cheap, used Country Living mill.

This Victorio grain mill was less than $60. It comes mostly assembled. All that I needed to do was attach the handle to the mill by removing the knob (it's on the left side), putting the handle on, and putting the knob back on. It took me one minute, so this contraption was super easy to assemble.

Since the knob controls the coarseness or fineness of the milled product, you have to make sure that it isn't screwed on too tightly. That'll overwork the gears and the grinding mechanism. I loosen it up a little and if I want a fine product, I just tighten the knob until it is just barely tight.

The mill is pretty substantial and heavy. It attaches to the table using a clamp screw. It stays snugly clamped to the table without damaging the surface. The hopper (the chocolate-colored attachment in the picture above) is quite roomy, but this mill is supposed to be able to process 1/2 cup of flour per minute. That would most likely depend on how fine or coarse you want the product.

This is a close-up of the milling cone and shaft. These parts are attached together on a long rod, which is screwed onto the mill's body by the adjustment knob. If I want to clean the cone and shaft, I just have to unscrew the adjustment knob and pull the rod out. Then, I can use a brush to clean out all the dust or powder. Another BIG plus about this mill (and the fact that it is manual) is that I can wash it if I want to "deep clean" it. Otherwise, I would probably just use a damp cloth.

Since this mill isn't that big, anyone could choose to leave it clamped onto their table or countertop and it won't really be in the way. We have countertops that are "hollow" underneath, so there's no where for the clamp to hold on. I have to clamp it onto the tabletop, but it's in an inconspicuous part that's not used often.

I'll be putting up more posts about this mill as I start grinding other things, especially the wheat berries. Overall, I'm super excited that we have this and I can't wait to use it some more!

Check out my Youtube video with me using the Victorio. My video is located at the bottom of the blog page.