Apothecary Inn

The Daily Grind

My hand-powered grain mill arrived while I was on vacation last week, so now that I am back and refreshed I can grind my heirloom dent corn! Yippee! While I drooled over the Diamant during my grain mill shopping, at $1200, it was a bit out of my practical price range...so we went with the Country Living Grain Mill - the best you can buy in the under-a-grand financial range. I have to say: it's pretty bad ass.

The Country Living Grain Mill has a food-safe white powder-coated aluminum body with two carbon steel grinding plates (or burrs) that can grind from course to baking-fine. You adjust the grinding type by either loosening (courser grind) or tightening (finer grind) the plates. The flour then pours out of the bottom into a bowl. The hopper can hold up to 2 lbs. of grain at the top, so you don't have to worry about constantly pouring grain into it.

As far as ease of use, there was surprisingly little resistance when turning the wheel. It was far easier to use than I expected! - A VERY pleasant surprise! I could easily grind a full hopper load of corn by myself. What was more tiring was the simple repetitive motion of turning the wheel...I rather wished that I had thought to bring a book!

I was incredibly pleased with how my cornmeal turned out. The fineness is perfect for baking, and due to the gorgeous color array of the Oaxacan Green Dent corn kernels, the resultant cornmeal is nearly a rainbow of culinary possibility!

See what I mean??! :)