March 16, 2019 - 7:21am
Vitamix
Hi, all:
Do you think it's safe to grind 600g of berries in the Vitamix at once? I'm hoping to streamline the grinding process and avoid inhaling the flour dust, but I also want to make sure that I don't break the machine
. Thanks.
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Modernist Bread suggests using the grinding cup attachment. They say it is inexpensive. He also says you can use a food processor or coffee grinder if you have to.
Look into the grinding cup to see if it is reasonably different from the blending cup. I’m thinking either way you probably won’t hurt the blender, but you might not get a fine mill.
for the information. You're right about not hurting the blender. I just ground 600g of berries in the blending cup, and I didn't see (or smell) any problem. I probably won't get an extra cup because I cannot clutter my kitchen any further. I won't complain about the flour milled by the Vit because it is already a hundred times finer than that from my KA mill!
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I did this for a couple years. Freeze the berries first, and don't put more than up to the 3 cup line (not sure how much that is in grams, been a while since I've done it - I usually just ground in smaller quantities).
I froze the berries today for the first time. Are you still grinding with your Vitamix?
Yippee
No, I use a commercial coffee grinder now. Oh, I was using the vitamix dry container (mine's an older unit from about 10 years ago before they had the cool ones of today), but I think the regular container should be fine, too? You may want to sift, as you'll get an errant cracked berry that missed the pulverization - I only sifted once, there were three or four, no big deal - it's messy, flour goes everywhere (everywhere!), so I decided an occasionally partial berry was a-okay! :)
Coffee grinder is an ek43 - for anyone curious, there's no benefit to the grain burrs which have been discontinued. I had to stop coffee due to terrible heart burn, and this thing was sitting around, so I tried it. Works fantastic. Don't judge me :D :P~~~~
EDIT: earlier, I wrote not to go above the 3 cup line.. actually, you might consider not going above the 1 cup line just to try it out the first time if you have the newer machines.. smaller amount may not work as well. I have no clue on the build quality of the modern ones, wouldn't want to give you bad advice and break it :(
The less hands-on work, the better. Honestly, I'd skip grinding if I can buy what I need, but it's been so confusing/uncertain what (kind of rye flour) I will be getting so I have to bite the bullet. Thanks again for your information.
Yippee
Bumping your old thread here, thought this was apropos :)
A friend recently visited me, and she has been considering purchasing the dry container for her vitamix to grind wheat berries. Since I had one, we decided to complete a simple test against the regular container to see what, if any differences there were. I have a ~9 year old vitamix 5200. Newer models may be different?
I had emmer berries on hand, and subsequently froze them for a few hours. We put 1 cup into dry container (178g), and 1 cup into regular container (172g), and blended each on max for 45 seconds, measured temp of flour, then sifted through a 40-mesh sifter from breadtopia.
- Dry container: flour measured 85F temp, and sifting revealed incomplete grind, leaving 57g in the sifter (68% extraction)
- Regular container: flour measured 96F temp, and sifting revealed much finer, more complete grind, leaving 24g in the sifter (86% extraction); there was still an errant berry or two. Funny coincidence with the flipped numbers.
The dry container would probably yield similar results if we let it run longer, and certainly had the option to do so since the temperature was lower. I will also guess that it would perform better with a bit more quantity, as it sent the berries flying in the container vs. the vortex of the regular one. We concluded the dry container is not a required purchase unless you use the vitamix often for other purposes and don't want to wait for it to dry or clean between uses. My dry container came with the costco bundle from a few years back.
Did you have any luck grinding with yours, now nearly 6 months later?
" I will also guess that it would perform better with a bit more quantity, as it sent the berries flying in the container vs. the vortex of the regular one."
I just wanted to mention that the dry container is supposedly designed so that the vortex is inverted, that is, instead of pulling things into the center and down to the blade, it throws them up from the center and pulls them down the outside. The idea, as I understand it, is to keep fine powder from impacting in the corners. However, I imagine it is more chaotic and therefore slower processing.
I've considered getting a dry container every couple of years over the decade or so that I've owned my Vitamix but so far haven't done it. I don't grind often in it but when I do, I just stop it and scrape down midway through. Works ok.
"instead of pulling things into the center and down to the blade, it throws them up from the center and pulls them down the outside"
Yes, that's pretty much what it does, and is certainly chaotic with smaller volumes. Longer processing and a bit more in the container would likely improve results.
The dry container is totally unnecessary, but is nice luxury to have if you have the space for it and use the blender on a regular basis. Before I got a wet grinder, I also used the dry container to make nut butters, results were same as standard container but was slightly easier to get the goods out due to orientation of the blades. I've always been a little envious of blendtech users, the jars are easier to get hands into, and, for a while, they also had the "twister" variation to help with scraping down the sides.
but my daughter makes hot soup in her Vitamix. She just keeps going until it is hot. I find this disturbing but might explain why 30% of millennials don't have any friends.