WONDERMILLManual Hand Grain Mill Red Wonder Junior Deluxe for Dry and Oily Grains - Kitchen Flour Mill, Grain Mill Hand Crank and Spice, Corn, Wheat Stone Mill Grinder

After a few months use of the hand crank, your upper body will resemble that of a bodybuilder. All yolks aside, I love this machine. Despite the fact I paid $50usd above cost available from other suppliers, I have no intention of parting with my new grainy friend.My Wondermill Junior Deluxe Herr Engineer Doctor von Superduper arrived from India, well, it arrived nearly a week late despite USPS falsely indicating it was received on-time, and after unboxing I realized there was not a single arguable blemish on any aspect of the machine. It’s gorgeous and bright red. I scrubbed every component of the thing with weak Palmolive/H2O solution, lots of water, citric acid solution, and lots more running water. It literally sparkled and shone.Assembly was easy, despite I am a patient liar, er patent lawyer and engineer, and there is practically a separate instruction manual for each major component. I broke in my Wondermill by grinding three cups of rye berries on the stainless steel burrs. This was somewhat excruciating given the friction but it further cleaned and polished the burr faces fine.I brushed the machine flourless enough and ground another three cups rye using the stone burrs at the tightest setting I could manage (I’m a large former rugby player with giant hands). They call hard red wheat “hard” for a reason but the sub-00 granularity "vapor" result is worth the effort in service to my scratch ravioli. I guesstimate on the tightest setting you may spend up to 1.5 hours to mill 6 cups, which is ridiculous. However, the fine grind is easier to turn as compared with the bumpy cracking of einkorn berries on a coarse setting.I have no intention to motorize my Wondermill. It operates flawlessly now and looks to grind gourmet grains and nuts by my heirs if they’re up to it. Power will only screw up the system just as with politics.I would buy this agrain. Fire your tennis coach because you are going to be so pumped up the serves will break Mach. My Wondermill is a keeper and does not look to fail me. Sweat equity, babies, plan ahead and divide your milling sessions into manageable intervals, and you will be very very pleased at the capabilities this machine delivers. My 120lb trim wife is still getting the hang of milling, I note. But the results exceed our expectations.

I love this little grain mill. I have the Wonder Mill electric, which I use several times a week. But I wanted to be able to mill grain in a power outage (although I haven't gotten so far as to figure out how I would actually use the grain with no power!), and to make nut butter. It is a LOT.OF.WORK. To make grits, I have to grind the corn, sift out the flour from the larger bits, tighten the plates, regrind the bits, sift out the flour from that, tighten the plates once more, regrind the bits, and sift again. What I usually end up with is half flour in one bowl, and half grits-sized corn in another bowl. Probably if I did it in the VitaMix dry blender I'd get a consistent size the first time through, but I haven't tried it. The taste of these cooked fresh grits is aMAzing!!! For the nut butter, it seems to take flippin' forever for anything to begin squishing out of the plates, but eventually you will get plenty of nut butter out. Again, it takes forever and is a lot of elbow grease. We have to take turns turning the crank. It takes some trial and error to figure out how close the plates need to be to each other (they shouldn't grind each other). Also, it seems that they are constantly loosening because of the way they are screwed in opposite the way you are cranking. Sometimes you have to help the grain or nuts down into the hopper (I think that is what it is called) so they go down far enough to be milled. Small stuff isn't a problem, but corn, peanuts and almonds seem to just sit there unless you help them along. Storage is awkward, and you have to keep track of the little washer that goes with the plates, and it is virtually impossible to re-fit everything back into the original box. We have a small cupboard above the stove into which I can lay the mill and store the plates. Otherwise, I don't know where I'd put it! But if you have a place you can leave it set up, that would be ideal.The Deluxe version has the clamp; the regular version does not. You need the clamp! The mill is easy to clean (all metal), but heavy and long, so it is awkward in the sink. It comes with a little brush to help you clean it out. I use soap and hot water and have great results.If you are going to be milling frequently, go for the electric Wonder Mill (I highly recommend it!). But if you want something for emergencies or nut butters, add this to your collection. Just make sure you have somewhere you can clamp it onto, with enough clearance to fully turn the crank, and at a comfortable height. Otherwise you will be cursing the day you bought it. [I have seen videos where people hook up a drill to it and that makes quick work of the cranking]