I’ve had a Country Living Grain Mill for a couple years now, but without a motor, which meant grinding grains by hand. It’s certainly doable, but over time, I found that the time and effort it took to grind enough grain for a weeks worth of bread was becoming too much. As a result, I wasn’t making as many whole grain recipes.
They sell a variety of motorization kits, from the complete package (which is what I bought), to the parts you’d need to motorize it yourself with a separate motor.
The motor and kit I got is fantastic. It takes about fifteen minutes to grind enou wheat for a couple sandwich loaves, the flour doesn’t get overheated, and it grinds it very fine; equal to what you’d buy in the store.
Here’s the recipe I started this morning (makes two sandwich loaves) which comes from Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day:
Ingredients
- 250 g — Water (warmed to around 100°F)
- 283 g — Milk
- 1½ T — Yeast
- 284 g — White flour
- 550 g — Whole wheat flour
- 2 t — Salt
- 71 g — Honey
- 1 — Egg
- 56 g — oil
Directions
- Add water, milk, yeast, flour and honey to mixing bowl
- Mix egg and oil until blended, add to bowl
- Add yeast
- Mix with dough hook on medium speed for five minutes
- Rest, covered, for ten minutes
- Pull and fold dough twice, then rest ten minutes
- Repeat folding and resting three more times
- Refrigerate dough for one to four days in a covered, lightly oiled container
Baking
- Take dough out, let sit at room temperature for three hours
- Flatten dough into rectangle and roll into a loaf, put into greased loaf pan
- Let sit for two to three hours until dough has risen above the rim of the pan by around an inch
- Bake at 350°F for 40 minutes