I buy 50lb bags of both soft white wheat and hard white or red wheat. In general I get these from Eden Organic Foods in Clinton Michigan. I buy them there because I drive by the company headquarters on my way to work and back each day. I notice that they also have quinoa and popcorn (and pearled barley). I recently discovered that you can get Eden products cheaper. Zonya Foco has a 15% off coupon code for Eden on her website. (I discovered this because Zonya attends my church.)

Once per year, my family and I make a trek to Battle Creek Michigan for a biking/camping trip at Fort Custer State Recreation Area. While there, I generally pick up an order of bulk grains and other things from Something Better Natural Foods. They have unbelievable prices and a large selection. Last summer I got a large quantity of hard and soft wheats, barley, oats, and corn. I also picked up some spelt and kamut. I must say the kamut is my absolute favorite grain. I wish I had bought more.

I buy lesser used grains (e.g. quinoa, rice) in packages at my grocery store.

Because of the volume I purchase, it is impractical to have these things shipped. Most places will ship, but the costs are prohibitive. It is important to try and find something local if at all possible to keep costs down. Unbelievable prices aren’t so unbelievable after you add shipping.

I go through about 100lbs of soft wheat and 100lbs of hard wheat per year. I make bread once per week from the hard wheat and make quick-breads (e.g. biscuits, scones, muffins) throughout the week with the soft wheat. I make pancakes and waffles with oats and barley. I occasionally make hot cereal with whatever grains I have on hand.

UPDATE (2/29/2008):  I recently went to the Eden site to order some grain, and discovered that their prices have nearly doubled. I will be looking elsewhere.

I had been making corn torillas with masa harina, but Shari wanted me to try to make flour tortillas. So here’s the recipe I developed for whole wheat flour tortillas.

• 2 cups soft white wheat freshly ground into flour (or about 3c whole wheat flour)
• 2 tablespoons of whey
• 1 teaspoons of sea salt (I’m currently using RealSalt)
• 1 tablespoon of oil (I used extra virgin olive oil)
• 1 cup of lukewarm water

Mix all of this stuff up and let it sit for 12-24 hours at room temperature. It’s probably better to leave the salt out and knead it in just before baking as it will allow the lacto-bacilli in the whey to work better.

Pull dough off in 2 inch diameter balls and flatten in a tortilla press or baker. Heat on both sides until done. Keep warm in the over (or toaster oven) on a plate covered by a damp paper towel till ready to serve.

If they stick to your press, you may want to add some extra flour to the dough or flour the press. The press I am using is Teflon coated (gasp) so works well with this recipe.

These are wonderful fresh, but get quite stiff if they sit around for very long. I found that they make a nice chewy snack after a day or so, but won’t work for burritos anymore unless you seriously rehydrate them.

The Fidibus 21 is a very attractive mill with a nicely finished beechwood enclosure. It is not a terribly large mill and has a fairly small footprint. It has to be one of the most convenient mills on the market. I simply pour the grain in the top, put a bowl under the spout, and flip a switch.

Several of the mills I considered had complaints about producing dust. The Fidibus 21 does not have this problem. Neither is it excessively noisy. Depending on the grain used, it is probably about the noise level of a microwave.

One of my concerns was fineness of flour. There are very few mills out there that can beat an impact mill for fineness of flour. The Fidibus 21 produces a flour that is more than fine enough for anything I’ll ever make. It isn’t as silky soft as corn starch, but it seems as fine as any store-bought whole wheat flour I’ve ever used.

On the other hand, I can set it to produce what is basically a cracked grain for hot cereal. I have been using my blender to do this, but the Fidibus 21 produces a much cleaner cracked cereal with much less flour than my blender, and it’s easier to use.

This morning I made scones with flour from this mill. The scones were much lighter and fluffier than I’ve ever been able to make with my old mill. I am very happy with my choice of mills.

UPDATE (February 7): The seller responded to a question about milling beans or oilseeds with this:

With regard to milling beans or oilseeds, this kind of mill – which grinds rather than cuts – is generally not recommended. The beans are not nearly as dry as grain, so they tend to smear on the mill surface during the grinding, and gum up the works. Then this residue tends subsequently to flavor your grain flours and meals in unintended ways.

This is not a problem for me since I have no intention of milling beans and use my blender to handle flax seeds.

Also, in the video, I first fill the hopper and then turn on the unit. The seller recommends spinning up the unit before filling the hopper. I must agree, it does seem to work better that way.

After living with this mill for a week I absolutely love it. While the stunning good looks, fine low temperature flour, and relatively quiet operation are all excellent features, my favorite thing about this mill is its convenience. It is so easy to mill just a little bit of flour without any setup or cleanup. It makes milling almost as easy as using pre-milled flour from the store.

UPDATE (2/9/2007): I just milled 2 cups of flour and then stuck an instant read thermometer in the flour. The room temperature in our house is about 69 degrees F. The thermometer read 80 degrees. The flour that came out first was cooler than the flour at the end, so if you are milling large amounts of flour the stones will heat up some. But a 10 degree gain is miniscule in my mind.

My main reasons for this choice are:

• I’m a traditionalist. I’m skeptical of newfangled ways of doing things. For this reason I shyed away from choosing a high speed pulverizing impact mill like the Nutrimill or Wondermill. More often than not, newfangled methods end up being problematic (e.g. trans-fats, aspartame, pasteurization, microwaves)
• The Fidibus is aesthetically in a different league. The Nutrimill is a standard white plastic non-descript appliance. The Fidibus is housed in an attractive beech wood cabinet.
• I want convenience. My current mill requires me to jump through hoops to grind flour. The Fidibus looks to be one of the most convenient devices available. You pour the grain in the top and the flour comes out a little spout on the side, right into your mixing bowl or measuring cup. Most other devices have separate flour bins you have to insert and extract or attach.
• By all reports, the Fidibus is significantly quieter than any impact mill.

The Fidibus 21 is is the little brother to the Fidibus Classic, which is also marketed as the Wolfgang mill in the US. The Wolfgang/Fidibus Classic is a nice looking mill, but it was out of my price range.

I’m anxious to receive my new mill. A review will be forth-coming once I have an opportunity to play with it.

UPDATE: For more information see my later post on the KoMo Fidibus 21.

As far as I can tell, this book has no competition. There are no other books out there covering this topic. It is loaded with information about how commercial flour is milled, what get’s destroyed, etc. It also tells you about all the different home grain mill milling mechanisms (e.g. impact, stone burr, roller, etc.) and their pluses and minuses. It has a lot of information about different manufactures and how to contact them. It also has a wealth of information about different types of wheat, dough conditioners, and recipes for various breads.

In short, if you are considering (or even if you are already an avid home-miller) milling your own grain, this is a must have book. Don’t go out and buy a grain mill and then order this book. For the small price you pay for this book you could save yourself a lot of pain and heartache. Buy it, read it, THEN order your grain mill.

That said, I do have some complaints. The author, Marleeta Basey, has completely bought into the whole low-fat agenda. She preaches low-fat high-fiber diets throughout the book. Naturally, Nourishing Traditions cooks will have to disagree with this preaching. There are about 3-4 chapters of nutrition information, which in my humble opinion are completely unnecessary. They talk about vitamins, minerals, fat and other things and there are a large number of speculative statements like… this study showed that vitamin x MAY do such and such. These are the same chapters that rail against fat. My recommendation is to take these chapters with a grain of salt and get down to the practical information in the book.

On the whole, I highly recommend this book. Even if you are not planning to mill your own grains, this book may change your mind.

I discovered that there is a widening crack in my attachment for my Bosch Universal. The ebay ad said there was a crack, but I had not been able to find it until now. Perhaps it was exacerbated when I dropped it. At any rate, my flour has become much coarser now.

My spending limit is $250. I’ve been looking at both impact mills and stone mills. I looked at some of the less expensive steel burr mills, but none of them will grind fine enough for what I want to do.

Currently I have narrowed the list down to 2 mills:

• The Nutrimill – an impact style mill that pulverizes the grain at super high speeds into micron size particles.
• The Komo Fidibus 21 – A German stone mill that is visually stunning and well reviewed.

At this point I am leaning toward the Fidibus 21, but am still considering the Nutrimill. I am primarily concerned about possible high temperatures and possible excessive starch damage caused by an impact mill.

I would love to hear comments on either of these mills (or any other mill for that matter) from people who have used them.