New and Interested in Grinding my own Bread Flour?

Hand mills do not take that long to grind if you get a good one.  It takes me less than 10 min a lb.  Now keep in mind the electric ones are not much faster, are harder to clean and are so loud you have to lock them in the garage outside.  Or at least that is my opinion.  I think hand milling is a wonderful way to add better quality food in your life.  Proth5 above has termendous knowlegde on home milling.  And there are others out there as well.

I have been grinding my own for over 20 years using a Whisper Mill which is no longer made- mine still runs great and am very happy.  This product "Nutra Mill" seems even better given some improvements have been made and the seller is reputable

See this link for Nurtra Mill for $269 USD.

http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/nutrimill.aspx

That said: Rheinhard says flour has to age a few weeks - this is true of commercial flour where parts like the germ and bran are stripped out.   But I do not agree as I grind my flour the night before, start my poolish/sponge late at night and complete the recipe in the morning.  This soaking is important given the fresh ground whole grain has fiber that benefits from the overnight soak.

I have great results using 80% whole wheat and 20% store bought white, and also 100% works well too.  Simply said, would you rather have fresh squeezed orange juice of powdered drink mix?  The flavor of fresh ground is very superior to store boughrt, even quality brands like KA.  You'll be glad you did you started down this road and will never look back.

I buy 50 lb bags of wheat from Whole Foods special order and any decent health food store can bring in 25 or 50lb bags.  WF does not have whole rye, so I do special order 25lb bas from my local health food store.  10-30% of flour    store in a cool dry place in food grade buckets which can be found online.

If you are only grinding a little at a time...  Less than say 100-300 grams for each bake, a hand crank one should suffice...  If you want to do entirely freshly ground whole grain stuff, I'd recommend getting an electric one, unless you have really strong arms, or want to make a contraption to hook up your grinder to a bicycle...

I did an experiment with 100% whole grains that required 1kg of flour...  It took me about 20 minutes to grind.  To keep things short, I really worked up a sweat, and my arms were pretty much wasted...

I have a really cheap grinder that cost me aobut $66.00 including shipping from Lehmans...  I have settled on grinding only to feed my sourdough starter, or to add small percentages of freshly ground rye, spelt, whole wheat to my breads which contain anywhere from 5-30% whole grains.  If I go more than that, I just buy the flour from the supermarket.