Sowing the seeds of doubt - buying a komo mill or not.
I've decided it's time to buy a grain mill. I don't want to invest a lot of money into it, but am willing to pay a bit more for something that will last a life time (which in my case is probably about another 25 years of baking if I'm lucky).
I've looked at many across many manufacturers and price points. The komo classic mill looks good, is versatile and gets great reviews on this board and elsewhere. But I have one gnawing problem with it and that's the ceramic grinding "stones' it uses. I've seen enough posts on the subject that have sowed the seeds of doubt in me. I've read of people saying they've had wear and in some cases chips. I can only assume that the wear and tear means that some of that ceramic dust ended up in bread?. Others made the point that the material used to make the stones is aluminum oxide in mineral form and while inert some claim you'll just get some "dust" as a byproduct overtime. It just makes me uneasy.
So I wonder if those that have a komo mill would look at their stones and see if they notice any wear on them, or worse. If you do post and open it up to look at the ceramic stones please mention how long you've had the mill for as that may also affect what you see.
What's the alternative?
I've found a manufacturer that uses granite. Which one post said is almost exclusively what commercial mills use. It's a bit more expensive but I think I'm leading in that direction. I'm not sure. Buying the komo mill would be simpler, cheaper and easier, but I don't want to be swayed by that and do the right thing based on what I've read. I just don't know what that is right now.
My objective in posting this message is to see if I'm unnecessarily worried about the health concern.
There are things that seem scary but aren't necessarily a big risk; e.g., roller coasters. There are things that don't seem scary even though they pose a serious risk to our health; e.g., travel by automobile.
Either type of stone will wear. The worn away particles (dust) will wind up in the flour in both cases.
Which thing causes more deaths, as a percentage of the people using it: home-milled flour or automobiles?
My point is that whichever material the mill manufacturer uses for the stones, your probability of being harmed by it is vanishingly small. Not zero but really, really close to zero. You are orders of magnitude more likely to be killed or injured in an automobile collision than you are by the material that erodes from the stone in your mill.
Buy the mill with stones made of the material that you think will best serve the milling process. You're going to eat microscopic amounts of that stone, no matter its composition. Just know that granite is about 6 or 7 on the Mohs hardness scale while corundum and carborundum are 9 and 9.5 on the Mohs hardness scale, respectively. In other words, the softer granite will erode more quickly.
As with everything else in life, yer pays yer money and yer takes yer chances.
Paul
Thank you and 'justanoldguy' for your replies. You're comment is fair, and admittedly I am overthinking this but it's what I do. I'll sleep on it and buy one or the other on the weekend. I appreciate your thoughts.
I just read your post on the grain mill stones!
i have also been researching this very topic! If we put too much thought into everything we can find dangers or risks everywhere! I also checked into the health concerns of breathing in freshly milled flour! Again! It’s what we find more important to us!
the Komo and Mockmill 100 or 200 seem to be the best choices out there for a home mill! I still haven’t purchased one yet but will! When I make an investment I look into every detail! For now, my vitamix works fine! It sure will be a luxury to have a grain mill though!
have a great day!
cheers!
I'm with PMcool on this. Everything wears - even parts of me. The millstones used by millers for centuries always had to be "dressed" periodically to renew their ability to grind because they wore down. There's only one place for all those microscopic particles to go - into a flour sack. I use a 100-year-old coffee grinder made by Arcade Mills. The burr in it is made of cast iron and never grinds anything harder than a coffee bean. It's bright and shiny and the edges of the teeth are worn and dulled. It still works even though a little bit of it wears away every day. The coffee I make is a darned sight more dangerous than a few stray molecules of iron.