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Discover the possibilities of milling healthy grains at home! Let’s learn all about grains and explain the health and budget benefits, as well as the top 5 grains to mill at home.
*This post was originally written by my sister Marci, from Instafresh Meals.
If you have been wanting to dive into the world of cooking with whole grains, YOU MUST READ THIS POST! I’m just a little excited about it, (assuming “a little” excited means “super-duper, over the moon, nearly hyperventilating” excited).
I LOVE talking about whole grains (Saturday night dates with me are such a joy). I’ve spent a lot of time studying, experimenting, and cooking with them and I personally feel like it’s been a VERY worthwhile cause.
Table of contents
My Favorite Grain Mills
I came upon a new grinder that has made milling my own healthy grains even better.
The Harvest Grain Mill is not only a good-looking appliance (hello lovely bamboo wood) that can sit pretty on any countertop, but it has made grinding small to large amounts of FRESH whole grain or bean flour on demand so much easier.
If you plan to mill a lot of grains, you may want to consider the Classic Grain Mill which can do more bulk milling without a need to refill or babysit your mill. It works like a dream too.
For a manual option, the Wonder Jr Hand Crank Mill is top notch. Very reliable and great to have on hand for power outages and old-fashioned baking.
As a special gift for my readers, you can get 20% off anything (yes, anything!) from Nutrimill.com if you use my code “TIDBITS” at checkout. Don’t miss out on those savings!!
The Benefits of Freshly Milled Healthy Grains
For those of you who want to incorporate more whole grains into your diet, but are new to the world of grinding, let’s talk about why you would want to grind your own grains and beans at home.
Fresh is Best
When you grind your own grains at home, you will actually be getting the WHOLE grain kernel (i.e. the bran, endosperm and germ). Commercial flours often remove the germ because it contains oil that can turn rancid when stored long term.
To add to this loss, nutrients are being constantly depleted as it sits on the shelf. Up to 40% of E and B vitamins are lost to oxidation in the first 24 hours after milling. By the time you’ve hit 2-6 weeks, it is a 60-80% loss. That’s a lot of wasted nutrition!
To learn more about how important vitamins E and B are, listen to the Bread Beckers podcasts, specifically episodes 164 and 2. This will truly motivate you to bring in more whole grains into your diet!
When I grind my own grains, I will store it for only a few days at room temperature. If longer storage is needed, I store it in the freezer to keep it as fresh and nutrient rich as possible.
Texture Control
When grinding your own wheat, you can control how fine or course you want it. The Nutrimill appliances shine in this category, allowing you the ability to easily adjust for fine pastry flour or more course for texture in your baked goods or hot breakfast cereals.
Cost Effective
Depending on the type of grain, you can save a good amount of money grinding your own compared to buying a bag of flour. If you’re passionate about making all of your own yeast bread like I am, the savings is significant.
When you start branching out into other healthy grains like spelt, Kamut, barley, etc., the savings become even more remarkable.
Flavor
Who knew the secret to the best homemade whole grain bread was as simple as grinding your own grains! My husband even agrees, the taste is significantly better since I’ve started using my fresh ground flours, and trust me, he takes his title as “Recipe Tester” very seriously.
Rockstar Status
May I have a vain moment for a sec, while I admit that I kind of love telling people I grind my own flour? Especially as they marvel over my beautiful, perfectly golden loaf of bread?
Making bread never fails to delight me (unless it flops, then I’m in a bad mood all day!). I also have been able to swap nearly every recipe using white flour, for my home ground flours without a single complaint from my family. I’m talking everything from sandwich bread, to tortillas, to every breakfast food imaginable. That makes this mama proud!
What You Should and Shouldn’t Mill at Home
Now that you know why you should grind your own flour, let me tell you what you should and should not grind at home.
Home mills are ideal for non-oily grains, beans, and legumes such as hard wheat, soft wheat, spelt, Kamut, rye, barley, einkorn, farro, quinoa, millet, amaranth, teff, sorghum, brown rice, wild rice, white rice, oat groats, dried corn, buckwheat, black beans, pinto beans, lentils, and chickpeas.
Seeds, grains, and beans that have a high oil or moisture content should be avoided. This includes chia seeds, nuts, flax seeds, herbs, spices, chilies, coffee beans, etc. I keep a small spice grinder on hand for these items.
My Favorite Healthy Grains to Mill at Home
So where to begin if you want to start grinding your own flours? There are so many choices, I know, and the research can quickly become overwhelming. Let me save you the headache by sharing my top 5 grains to mill at home. I like these because they have proven easy to mix and match in many of my go to recipes.
Hard White or Red Wheat
When I first started grinding my own flours, I stuck with a hard white wheat berries. Hard white wheat is still 100% whole grain but is much lighter in taste and texture then the hard red wheat. It makes for a great beginner wheat, if you are new to whole grains. I use it for my whole wheat bread, pancakes, muffins, cookies, biscuits…pretty much every recipe I can that uses wheat flour.
Hard red wheat also works great for all the items mentioned above, but it has a darker color and a greater depth of nutty flavor. Hard red is slightly higher in protein content, which helps form a stronger gluten structure. If your family is okay with darker and more robust bread – hard red is perfect for any of your bread recipes.
Soft white wheat, otherwise known as whole wheat pastry flour, is an even lighter option that swaps out wonderfully for white flour. However, its lower protein content makes it not ideal for yeast bread, but it is wonderful for baked goods, like cookies, muffins, etc.
Spelt
Spelt does not have as much gluten as hard white or red wheat and sometimes takes more effort to swap into yeast breads. The gluten in spelt is easier to digest and those with wheat sensitivities often tolerate spelt better. The flavor of spelt is a bit sweeter and is delicious in baked goods, tortillas, cookies, pancakes, etc.
Kamut
Kamut has a wonderful flavor, and is amazing when worked into bread, baked goods, muffins, pasta, etc. My sister in law introduced me to this grain in the form of the most incredible cornbread I’ve ever tasted. Kamut has a different gluten structure that is easier for people with gluten sensitivities to digest.
Oat Groats
Not only can you course grind oat groats to make your own steel cut oats, but they can be ground to use as oat flour in so many ways.
Oat flour adds a sweet moistness to quick breads, muffins, pancakes, and so many more baked goods. It’s also easy to find, affordable, and gluten free (make sure packaging says gluten free if this is essential).
Buckwheat Groats
Buckwheat flour has become an essential in my kitchen for creating lightness in recipes I once used white flour in. My first experience with buckwheat was in the form of my brother’s chocolate chip cookies which I will confidently say are the best cookies I’ve ever had.
I also use it often for pancakes and crepes. Buckwheat has a more prominent flavor than spelt and Kamut, so I only substitute it in for ¼ -⅓ of the flour called for in my recipes. Buckwheat is also gluten-free, so it is safe for people with celiac disease. If we are getting technical, buckwheat is a seed and not a wheat grain, but it is worthy of our time in the kitchen!
Honorable Mention – Einkorn
A more recent obsession of mine is einkorn. Einkorn is an ancient, unmodified grain that is full of fiber, minerals, antioxidants and vitamins. It makes the most delicious whole grain einkorn sourdough bread.
Einkorn sourdough bread has a sweet nutty flavor. It’s easy to make and great for digestion. And of course, you can use einkorn in many recipes. It’s becoming a fast favorite! Learn more about einkorn with me in my recipe video.
Where to Shop for Healthy Grains and Supplies
Need a little help getting started? Click over to my TIDBITS & Company Bread Making moonsift board or read my blog post on bread making supplies. I have all my favorite supplies and ingredients linked there to make your shopping easier.
Recipes Using Healthy Grains
That was a lot to take in so let me finish on this note.
Grinding my own flours has been a work in progress over the years and I am becoming more and more comfortable and adventurous with mixing grains all the time. With so much attention on whole grains in recent years, recipes using the grains I discussed are so easy to come by. This means you won’t have to go through much trial and error to have great success in cooking with them.
For the health of yourself and loved ones, it is completely worth the journey!
I tried several whole grain cookbooks and THIS ONE is my favorite. Check it out for more information on making your own flours. It is full of beautiful pictures and delightful recipes!
If you want to learn more about whole grains, see:
If you’re looking for some tasty recipes to try those freshly milled grains on, check out:
Thank you for your article. I have ordered my Nutrimill Harvest. And I order grains from Azure. Your article was so good to explain the different types of grains and usage. Our granddaughter is gluten intolerance so we buy Kamut for her baked goods. So we have decided to start grinding our own flour for her and our family…I am excited to get started..
I actually clicked on your “I get my Spelt here”, thinking I might find another good seller of spelt. I was somewhat surprised at your choice. It is a good choice for those who know nothing of home grinding & wish to try different grains. Most home millers buy in quantity like 25 & 50 lbs. That is if you’re serious about milling & saving money while doing it. For example, 1.5 pounds of Kamut from Bob’s Red Mill goes for $24 (that is $1 per ounce!!!).
I can find Kamut for $75 for 25 lbs, about 19 cents per ounce. If you buy the 24oz bag of Bob’s Red Mill Kamut, you’re paying FIVE TIMES more than if you buy it in quantities. All you have to do is store it in a 5 gallon food bucket. Whole grains will keep many, many years in a bucket. But certainly you must already know this.
Why would you mislead your readers? Why not put a foot note at the bottom telling them to do a search on sellers. Why lead them to a high price? Oh, I forgot. For every person who follows that “I buy my spelt here” link, and for every person who buys that high priced grain, YOU GET A SMALL KICK BACK. Is that why you lead them to the higher price? Wow.
This article is for people like us who are new to milling. I will NEVER understand people who need to post negative things when there is nothing negative happening. We wanted small quantities to try different types. I appreciate that. We also looked up companies for larger quantities for AFTER we find the ones we like by using the smaller 5lb bags. We are fully capable of doing that.
As someone totally new to milling, a small bag of each type is all I want so I can experiment. I don’t want the commitment of a large amount of grain that I might never use. Certainly, if any page does have links which earn them commissions, they should note that with a little asterisk. All the best!
Very useful post. Thank you so much for writing this post! I like whole grains, B-vitamins are a big part of whole grains; B-vitamins include niacin, thiamin, and riboflavin. These nutrients play a key role in keeping up a healthy metabolism as well as a healthy immune system.
Wow, I did not realize that there were so many different kinds of grains that you could mill at home. However, it really is interesting to see the wide varieties of flour that you can make using these different grains. My wife and I might have to try backing with a few of them like the spelt and kamut grains.
The Nutrimill Harvest is a beautiful mill! It looks a lot like my KoMo Classic, which I love. I’m glad this wasn’t available when I bought mine in 2013 or I’d probably still be trying to make my choice 😛
I use hard white and soft white wheat almost all of the time, but I really like the suggestion of using oat groats. That’s going on my list! Up to this point, if I wanted oat flour I’d grind rolled oats in my Vitamix, but buying groats would also allow me to crack some for steel cut oats. Buying one thing that does multiple jobs is a plus in my book 😀
When I first got my mill, I bought a small bag of field (dent) corn which is OK to grind in my model. I liked making cornbread and polenta with it, but the flavor always tasted a bit off to me. If anyone has a good source for field corn they like please share!
Yes please! Would love more.
Jann, Good to hear! Enjoy the pancake mix for now 🙂
I love this stuff! I have a NutriMill…….about 25 years old, hardly used. I would love to learn more and use it often. Thank you for all your research and practicing to give us the best resources. I would like to try a few new things and my daughter has recently been diagnosed with Celiac, so anything that we could make for her would be wonderfu.
Thanks again
Kathie
Perfect time to break it out, right!?
I think this is a fantastic post! I am totally into grinding my own flours and would love to save with this mill over buying expensive bags of the stuff!
Thanks Karen!
I would love to grind my own flour, but, seriously, $299 for a grain mill is out of my price range. I am sure there are cheaper ones. but they probably aren’t as efficient. If I could share the cost with someone living nearby, I would. But most people are not interested. However, thanks for all the info on the best types of grain to mill.
I’m with you, Paula. This is a beautiful and highly-efficient grain mill, but cost prohibitive. Plus, there are only two of us in the household, so likely overkill for our purposes. Marci, can you make any recommendations for alternative versions that are effective/quiet yet smaller and less expensive (and preferably not the kind you clasp to a countertop)?
That said, yours is an excellent post and I learned a great deal. Your in-depth research is very much appreciated. Thank you, Marci, and Cami for it. Cheers, Ardith
Ardith, I’ve had this one for the past 5 or 6 years https://www.amazon.com/NutriMill-Classic-760200-Speed-Minute/dp/B001UI37N8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487186432&sr=8-1&keywords=wheat+grinder. It’s a bit cheaper but it has been an incredible machine. It’s actually larger than the one I wrote about in the post and I keep it in my basement. I use it solely for when I grind large amounts (12-14 cups) for making bread. I make most of our bread products and plenty of other baked goods, so for me it’s paid for itself. I 100% agree with you though, if you don’t cook things like that often, buying pre ground flours is a great way to go! I scanned Amazon for other options, and there is definitely a variety of brands and price points. I’m hesitant to recommend any of them though. The NutriMill grinders are the only ones I’ve ever used and can give solid feedback on.
I received a grain mill attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer as a gift! I think they are reasonably priced for those who want to mill at home and have (or can purchase) a Kitchen Aid as a cost offset option. Thanks for the recommendations!!!
Paula, I agree with you, a wheat grinder is definitely an investment. I remember my sister in law buying one a couple years before me and I wondered why she would spend so much money on it. It took me a long time to justify buying my first wheat grinder. I was determined to use it once I finally bought it, and have been so glad I did ever since.
Awesome! Thank you for posting this. I’m always interested in healthier ways to bake. We do love our bread around here ? Would love to see your recipes!
Thanks Casie! More to come!
I have celiac disease so can’t use wheat, rye, or barley. My grains and bread are totally different. I would use a mill very differently.
I’ve noticed those with celiac disease often times substitute chickpea flour which is incredibly expensive if you buy it already ground. I plan on experimenting with that soon 🙂