Burr Mill – use a cutting action to slice through grain kernels quickly and efficiently, much faster than stone. They are some the most cost effective mill types usually the most compact as well.
Disadvantages include poor mechanical tolerances and course flour, even when re-milled. Not recommended for fine baking
Steel Burr Mill
George Washington’s
Stone Mill
Stone Mill – Have been used since ancient times. They were consider to be essential tools for survival:
Deut 24:6 “It is wrong to take a set of millstones, or even just the upper millstone, as security for a loan, for the owner uses it to make a living.
Although they can be a bit slow, Stone Mills produce a nice fine high quality flour.
Larger stones can also provide a good heat sink to keep flour cool if used in small batches. However, most stone mills in use today run very hot and require a “hopper boy” to cool the flour after milling
George Washington’s
“Hopper boy”
(Grain cooling rake)
Hammer Mill / Impact Mill – is the modern high performance choice. Can be tuned by changing the hammer size and spacing to adjust particle size, or be fitted with a hammer screen
- Enables high air flow milling for better cooling
- Optional screens to enforce uniform particle size, enabling finer whole grain flour with bran that stone mills
- Optional Nitrogen purged environment to eliminate oxidization during milling
- Optionally fitted with sifting mechanisms to remove the bran and germ from the wheat
modern hammer mills can produce both the lowest and highest nutrition flours, depending on their configuration
Oxidization – can be a major factor to overall nutrition. A majority of oxidization happens during milling, especially when hot, and continues as the flour is exposed to air.
45% of flour’s nutrition has been oxidizes after 24 hrs, and as much as 90% after 3 days
Milling Temperature – can significantly affect nutrition and increase oxidization. Keeping your flour below 115°F (46°C) while milling is essential to ensure full robust flour is produced
In our own testing, we observed most stone mills output flour above 130°F!