Making your own flour and cornmeal plus cooking with it.

[Don P]

I meant to look at Lowes for an NSF seal, the restaurant supplies show Rubbermaid Brute cans for dry goods storage. I can easily get 2 50 lb sacks of corn in a 30 gallon trash can.

[thecfarm]

I have a lid like that. 
I doubt it's food grade type.

[21incher]

I have a lid like that.
I doubt it's food grade type.

The real gamma lids are foodsafe when used with a foodsafe buckets. Even the colors are bpa free and foodsafe.  Many of the Chinese knock offs are not so don't fall for them.

[Don P]

I was looking at this unit for the pto on the mixer, it doesn't look like it'll go fine enough for flour but I found the first comment informative on it and a few other mills;
Amazon.com: KitchenAid KGM All Metal Grain Mill Attachment: Home & Kitchen

The Meadows bagging hopper looks like a good hit. I was looking thru my Red Green pile yesterday and I have about zero stainless.

[21incher]

I watched some videos about them and they just don't have the hp to do a fine grind.  I understand the burr mills require a precise alignment of the tapered burrs that those little machines don't offer. They interface at about a 2 degree angle and for finer grinds they need to be centered. With sloppy clearance mounting holes it will probably take some fine tuning time. I bet that little  pto one doesn't have the crusher and the plates must be angled the opposite direction together grain to feed. I found a set of stones that may fit mine with some mods.

[newoodguy78]

I'm new at this, so I've been asking a lot of questions and reading for months about milling of corn, specifically for polenta. I have not been able to make a decision on a small grinder for kitchen use, but I'm tending towards the Country Living mill with a motor at a price of $1100. It's just the two of us and we will  be grinding primarily corn but possibly some other grains as well. I'm already into this project (growing the corn, buying a schiller, drying storage bags, etc.) and don't have any results yet. I made a decision yesterday to buy a cheap cast iron corn grinder from Amazon for $47 to see if my corn is all that it's touted to be. If we grind up a little bit, boil it and try some recipes to include breads, traditional fried polenta, corn cakes and a dessert called "Atole de elote", to which I was introduced in Guatemala, we'll go further with a high quality grinder for the kitchen.

A bit on the corn; from reading I selected Floriani because it's supposed to be the best polenta corn. It has an interesting history of being a native heirloom corn from North America that was taken to Italy many years ago and is grown specifically, selectively for polenta making. From reading, I've learned it has a very high protein content compared to other corns, superior flavour and a light pink tint to the meal.

From personal observation, it grows like any other corn. The ears are slightly smaller and I'm getting one to two ears/stalk. The plants are tall, 8-11', with a weaker, brittle root structure compared to a hybrid corn. This means that they blow over and snap off when hit with gusts of wind; such as from a rain storm. I should be harvesting and drying the ears I would say by next month and will be able to calculate yield per 25' row. I did spray at first silk with BT and calcium so my fill in is pretty good and I have no worms.

Hopefully the stuff is good tasting enough to warrant going ahead ordering more kelp, rock dust, shell dust, fish meal, cotton seed meal and a great deal of compost to add to the garden this winter and push on with developing this corn for the dinner table once or twice a week, year round. My goal is to have a wholesome starch besides wheat, rice, and potatoes. My wife and I are pretty healthy eating out of the garden and the Gulf of Alaska and this is something I would like to further.

Tule I'm curious what the BT spray treatment stands for?
I've got some open pollinated grain corn growing this year, I'm actually impressed considering the lack of inputs I used. Didn't spray for ear worms at all. Plan is I'll pick the best ears and save them for seed next year. 
Hope you, your friends and corn are not too effected by the storm. 

[tule peak timber]

BT is short for bacillus thuringiensis. It is a non-poisonous way to stop ear worms from invading your crops. It also works really well on tomatoes, cukes and other veggies to keep worms and caterpillars from doing their business. It is a foliar spray mixed with water and I like to throw in a little calcium at the same time. The ultimate is to mix it into a tea machine for foliar feeding along with kelp, trace rock dust, and compost juice. Works great.
  As far as the storm a couple of days ago, it flattened the whole garden. I'm just waiting for the mud to dry so I can get in and salvage as many ears as possible. I hope the ears are far enough along to pick and strip. There is still a little green left in the stalks, but the ears and leaves are brown. I bought light airy storage bags to put the ears in for final drying by hanging from the rafters in a storage building.

[21incher]

Cleaned it today to get all the Chinesium smell and oil out of the chamber and plate. They say don't wet it but it took hot water and Dawn to get it food worthy. Then just ran a 1/2 cup of rice through it for a final cleanup. First coarse that came out like kosher salt, then a little finer. Well I am surprised how fine it ground. It's just about a flour consistency.  I actually can go a little closer with the plates. Most of it went through a 40 mesh sifter and about half of that went through the 50 mesh sifter. My wife is happy with the rice and next is corn. This is 50 mesh rice flour. 


 

 
Took about 4 seconds for a 1/2 cup. Hard to tell from the pics but it's nice and fluffy.  I think they recommend 2 passes to keep the flour from getting too warm. 
Don, what mesh screen do you use for corn muffins, and what mesh for grits if you don't mind me asking.  

[Don P]

Sweet!

I'm running through a 16 mesh which is stock for a corn mill. When I want grits I resift through a colander that must be an 18 or 20, what is left on the screen is grits. I'll try to find some specs in the old catalogs.

If I grind too fine the bran passes through the screen, I winnowed those grits in front of a fan and improved them. Too coarse and there is coarse cracked grain in the bran. All the bran bucket goes to the chickens and they find any cracked grain that stayed above the screen but I don't try to feed them good grain!

[21incher]

Thanks Don. I found a 20 mesh sifter on Amazon to try. I will look for some 16 mesh screen to build that one. None of the commercial stuff mentions mesh. Just fine, medium, and coarse so I appreciate your help. 

[Don P]

 



This is from a newer catalog than the grits bolter I posted earlier. The Mealmaster mills are their commercial steel cased mills. 

"The meal end of the reel is cov3ered with either 16, 18, or 20 mesh wire cloth. 18 mesh is standard and will be furnished unless otherwise ordered. The lower end of the reel is covered with 26 mesh cloth to eliminate excessive bran dust."

And that is funny, in the previous, earlier, bolter it has a fan to winnow the bran from the grits as a notable feature, here it is missing.

[Don P]

Found a newer one, this one incorporates the winnowing fan under the unit for bran removal, something I'd seen in earlier models, as well as the elevator fan back at the mill to hoist the meal to the bolter cyclone.




I bought some of Bob's Red Mill cornmeal today.
"Our cornmeal makes incredibly delicious cornbread; and here's why; We leave the corn germ and bran in. It's 100% stone ground, which results in cornmeal that isn't just tasty, its a good source of fiber too. You'll find its also the ideal texture for muffins, pancakes, waffles and a host of other baked goods."

It is yellow corn and organic. Retail was the same as what I sold at the fair for $5/24 oz. I'm using white but it is not organic.

So, when I overgrind and get too much bran in the meal, its sort of like jazz, brag about it! This is labeled medium grind and is finer than mine. I need a set of gauging screens. I remember a set of tobacco screens that were a nice stacking brass set of ever finer screens, but that has been decades ago.

I can't remember if I wrote after trying to make grits from what was basically cracked corn. Exceedingly coarse, unscreened, winnowed. It had good flavor and was interesting. it would be a good "poor" food. It took quite a bit of chewing per mouthful. Sorta reminded me of crab, am I gaining calories or losing here .

[Don P]

Well, if that is any indication. I made a pan of cornbread with Bob's cornmeal, its eatable but no comparison to mine. The heavy part of the corn flavor is much more pronounced, the grit is tougher. Vacuum packed but it's not as good. I'm ruined, the stuff in the store stays on their shelf  :D. I think I might freeze this pone and one of mine and put them both out at the farmers market to see what others think. BTW, as far as my palette goes, you can freeze and thaw cornbread with no ill effect.

This is the recipe I used;
Preheat to 425
1½ cups cornmeal
½ cup all purpose flour
3 tbsp sugar (a friend uses this recipe with 1 tbsp, I must have a sweet tooth)
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
Whisk dry ingredients together (and then do it again 3 or 4 more times, a bite of soda or powder takes all the joy out of it!)

In another bowl whisk 2 eggs well
add 1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup milk and whisk again

Mix wet with dry and fold in 3 tbsp melted butter

Pour into a greased 9" pan and bake at 425 for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

I used my recipe with Bob's meal. The recipe on the back of their bag called for 50/50 flour/meal instead of my ratio which is pretty much just enough flour to hold it together well. That would probably lighten it up some.

[21incher]

Thanks for the recipe. Going to try it. Brought the grinder outside this morning to try. Got some nice rice and white wheat flour ground then I go inside for a break and my wife is laying in her chair with chest pain, can't breath, and is blacking out. Dropped everything, loaded her in my truck and 5 minutes later had her in the ER. Takes 20 minutes around here to get an ambulance out so I took the chance. That put an end to my grinding for a while. She was admitted but hospital is so overloaded she is stuck in the ER till tomorrow when hopefully they kick someone out to open up a bed. I can say she had the most awesome nurses all day. I am whopped from stress.

[Don P]

Oh no! Glad she is in good hands. Keep us posted and take care of yourself.
We're kind of the same way, I can be at the ER in under a half hour if pressed, it takes 1st responders a minimum of 45 to reach us. That didn't use to bother me.

[thecfarm]

Glad you were home!!!!!!

[beenthere]

Will hope she is going to be okay and back soon to enjoy your new flour. 

[21incher]

Thanks everyone. It's amazing how fast things like that can happen. She actually was looking up recipes for rice flour when I went out and was fine. They will have access to more testing when the hospital is fully operational tomorrow.

Oh no! Glad she is in good hands. Keep us posted and take care of yourself.
We're kind of the same way, I can be at the ER in under a half hour if pressed, it takes 1st responders a minimum of 45 to reach us. That didn't use to bother me.

We are 8 miles from the local hospital but use volunteers so it takes time for them to get to the firehouse and then respond.
Didn't know that ranger would handle nice at 100 mph till today. Adrenalin really takes over in an emergency.  Luckily it's a straight shot from our house and no traffic on a Sunday morning.

[21incher]

I just picked up Dale and brought her home. Much better today and after running a whole series of cardio tests, they can't figure out exactly what happened. The only possible cause may have been the major dental work she had done Wednesday with anesthesia. Some how could have interacted with the heart. All they found was some infection left in her system. All other tests and scans showed no heart damage. I can say she had the best staff ever taking care of her. Thank God there is no permanent damage.

I couldn't sleep and was up most of the night so I put together the part of the video I was working on when it started. I will finish up the rest rest of grinding samples when she is ready to start baking. Here is a look at the grinder and first couple of samples. Time for some sleep.

https://youtu.be/MSdqMjX8xcQ

[color=var(--yt-spec-text-secondary)][/color]

[thecfarm]

That is good news!!!!

[Don P]

That is good to hear  8)

That is bran, pericarp would be another term to reference.. Since you are grinding in 2 passes I'd screen between and try to avoid regrinding bran.

The spiral you see in the interior shots of mine, is just a feed spiral, it brings the grain in through the eye of the burrs.

There was a misspeak as you were reading the label, the power required is 3kw... so yeah, pulling ~30amps through a 12 gauge cord is, well, its short.

I heard a piece on the radio today. Sesame has been added to the allergen list, which brings it up to 9. Apparently bakeries, rather than creating exclusive non sesame lines, went the other way and added sesame to more products and listed it on the label. Ahh the unintended consequences of legislation. In the ServSafe training the allergen and cross contamination section was pretty major.

My cleanup is similar just a whole lot dustier. Lots of scrape, brush, vac, blow, repeat.

I made cornbread with mine tonight, much better. Fresh is the biggest thing I do believe.

[21incher]

Thanks Don for sharing your experience.  This mill recommends grinding multiple passes for fine flour. I think the problem is the grinding plates are so close for fine grinding and the flour all squeezes through the edge between the plates with no pockets or grooves to feed bigger particles.  That center  feed auger is a fairly close fit to the multiple tooth spline it fits in that does the pre cracking to get things to a size that can fit between the burr plates. 

I had no idea that the pericarp is a byproduct of grinding wheat. I will screen it out first grind from now on. Don't know what to do with it but I saved it to play with later. I did read it's very healthy and good sprinkled on oatmeal if you soak it first. So much to learn.

The whole power  rating confuses me. They say 3000 watts @ 110 volts that should be about 27 amps but say use a 45 amp breaker to feed it and it has a 50 amp breaker built in.  I Have 120 volts per phase from the pole so that puts it in the 25 amp range. I guess it will have a higher  draw If I fed it with the valve wide open under heavy load, but playing with it to clean I ran quite a bit of rice through it on the standard 15 amp outdoor outlet. Have to make a cord for my clamp meter to see what it really is.

I started trying to clean it with a vacuum but it seemed to create static that made the fine stuff stick worse. Compressed air seems the best with all the crevices but I don't have a moisture trap on the small compressor so I think moisture droplets may be causing a little  sticking. Definitely going  to put wheels under this so it can be rolled outside to use. 

I am still dying for my first fresh cornbread. Maybe this week if the cook feels up to it. Time to drag everything back outside and finish the grinding now that things have calmed down. That will give us a good assortment to play with. I found our local seed store the farmers use sells wheat, soy, and corn seed by the ton. Have to check if maybe they will sell 100 pound bags of wheat berries.  The dent corn is gmo I was told so won't touch that. Wonder if the sweet corn seeds would grind.

[Don P]

Watch seed grain for pretreatment.
Meadows says mine can grind any dry free flowing grain.
Bran looks like it would make good oil dry, maybe a soft blast media for polishing type work. It is food so that has tempered my trying it and attracting varmints. When the chickens turn up their noses I'll look for another outlet. Whole, long grain rice has had that polished off, I assume that is master class  :D.

That's a good thought, I've been curious what I'm really using also, I might be set up on a generator if I travel. Inrush on any motor is double or triple full load amps but only for a second or two. I think I can get a clamp on meter on a wire in the junction box. Is there a UL label on it, the electrics do sound suspect.

[21incher]

I looked and it has a CE on it. I think that means Chinese Electronics (proceed at your own risk) :D. Surprised no one else grinding their own has kicked in here. Set up and did some more grinding today while  my wife slept. Good thing she was sleeping because it was still with no breeze and I made a real mess. Couldn't believe the dust clouds when I put oatmeal in it. What beautiful flour it made but it was humid and it sucked the moisture right out of the air making it moist after sitting a while.  Kidney beans grind beautifully also. Now to start mixology and see how the different flours taste together.  I want a truck like yours now.

[Don P]

Trailer!
The truck was a buck, the fees are outrageous.

I've committed to one grain with this mill, so I'm really interested in how yours does on other grains, and beans and rice. I can see having an "everything else" mill somewhere in there. Where did you get your screens?

So it wants 45 amp protection at one end and has built in 50 amp protection at the other end of, a 12 gauge 20 amp line. That is the bun warmer feature. Outside is good.

I tried to keep grinding as the rain increased one day. As I lowered the door it didn't take long for me to shut down and wait. Grain mills, the building, can go boom... I'm not sure of the proper A/F mixture.

Mine is mainly wood framed and rock, that must be keeping it static free. I noticed in an old Williams catalog that they put a trap door in the bottom of their mill that is similar to mine, for cleanout. I feel some desecration coming on. Williams was a competitor that Meadows later bought out. If I could apply strong suction to the bottom and blow air in the intake, I'll bet it'll get better than 90% of it.