I bought a Diamant 525. If I could do it over I would have gone with the country living mill because it is almost as good and about half the price. That said I like the diamant very much.

What if your neighbor grows wheat? If you read some history about the settlement of the United States, the first commercial enterprise in most areas was a mill. Frontier women spent hours per day grinding wheat to make bread, because they could get wheat but not flour. Men would carry 50 pound sacks of wheat for 20 miles to take it to a mill for grinding because of the work involved in grinding it in those days.

I don't grow a lot of wheat, but most of my neighbors do. If I do some machine work for them I'd be glad to take wheat in trade and it's nice to be able to grind it.

I also have a 19th century corn grinder, much, much, larger and tougher, to make corn meal with for the same reason. Plus, feed corn is still cheap by the bushel and stores a lot better than corn meal.

Yea I had 4ac of winter wheat and rye drilled a couple of weeks ago.

GNM, Shanny and Boba make good points too.

Just trying to add some reality to the discussion - a grinder does little without something to grind.

Dawn makes my point, there have been wheat farmers and millers since way back and that isn't going to change soon.

I'm thinking we need to look at other problems and potentials.

I ordered a Country Living grain mill yesterday. I found it on ebay "new in the box" for $395. That price included shipping. Not bad, I think, since every other one I looked at was over $400 and I still would have had to pay shipping.

I researched grain mills and chose what I thought would perform well and last for many years. (Buy quality and only cry once)

I currently have red winter wheat stored and needed a means to grind it. I also want to store whole corn. I do need to find a supplier for both wheat and corn in bulk quanities. Years ago, there existed numerous grain mills in my area. Now, all are gone as far as I know. I look until I find a source.

Oh, I read lately that we should be careful about buying grains directly from the farmer. Why? If the grain was grown with the intent of becoming feed for livestock, certain pesticides and other chemicals might have been used that are toxic to us humans. Be sure that the grain you are buying was raised for human consumption.

Today I made a delicious bowl of gruel from wheat kernels we got from a field across the road. I used our made in Italy Marcato Grain Mill set to the roll/rough ground setting.

Add water and bring to a boil on the stove; add butter and some maple syrup. Yummmm

DomiusAlbion,

I'd love to have a look at the innards of your mill! It sounds like it is a roller mill, since it can make flakes and such. I'd like to make one. Have a machine shop and some old Mack truck wrist pins that are suitable, but I need to know the nature of the surface of the rollers. Are they smooth, or textured in some way? Grooved maybe?

Also curious about the nature of the grinding, that is can you make fine flour with it?

Yes, Patience, they are three steel rollers that have grooves that spiral along the surface. You can adjust the distance between the rollers and create flat grain, flakes or finely ground flour. Very versitile. We can get various grains here directly from growers (wheat, barley, field corn). I plan to use this for our kitchen but also to grind animal feed. For the animals there is a guy who has the contract to clean out the grain trucks at the port of Wilma on the Snake. He will sell a hundred pound bag of wheat or barley for $10. That's a pretty good deal but the whole kernels can be a bit tough for the horses, cows and pigs (chickens have no problem) so the mill will save us some bucks on animal feed.

To make really fine flour I've had to run the first grinding through a second time and then the results need to be sifted for a good pastry flour.

Thanks, DomiusAlbion. I have a monster sheet metal roller, 3 rolls, adjustable, with tremendous strength. I have to try runnig some grain through that! We have a 6" burr mill and have ground flour and feed with that for years, but I'm interested in making rolled oats, and cereal flakes. Maybe I have something that will work! More later, after I try this.

You can see most "deleted" web pages using the Wayback archive machine. The page above is at:

http://web.archive.org/web/200702021940 ... inder.html

Thanks for the links skyemoor and Tucker. Very useful.