My husband had a fancy to purchase a grain mill in order to mill his own barley for homebrewing.  So he picked up this Corona grain mill.  It sat around, unused, in its box for a while, until I decided to try it out on some whole wheat berries for bread making.

I had heard stories from people who grew up eating homemade bread from flour that had been milled at home.  To hear them tell it, bread from freshly milled flour - flour less than a day old - bears no resemblance to anything you could find in any store, nor make from store bought flour.  I was certainly game to put this claim to the test.

Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out all that well.  Although this mill is advertised and labeled on the box as a grain mill, it doesn't seem capable of turning out a product finely ground enough to be called flour.  In fact, the information included in the packaging identifies this mill specifically as a corn mill.  I think it's fair to say the mill will produce cornmeal with a range of textures from chunky to reasonably fine.  The best I was able to do with hard wheat berries might qualify as cream of wheat, but a far cry from flour.  I was still able to add what I had ground up to my bread, but I couldn't measure it out as regular whole wheat flour.  If I had, the texture of the bread would certainly have been adversely affected.

The Corona grain mill is easy enough to assemble, break down, and to clean.  It needs to be attached to a countertop or other very well anchored horizontal surface.  If you're right handed, you will want to clamp it to the free edge of a countertop that is free on its right hand side.  In other words, a surface with nothing butting up against it to the right, so that you can turn the crank freely.  And just the opposite if you're left handed.  I suppose if all you've got is a countertop free in the other direction, you could manage with your non-dominant hand. 

If you intend to leave the mill in place permanently, there are two holes to secure the mill with screws, in addition to the provided clamp.  This would probably take care of the slight movement that occurred when I used the mill on its finest grind setting.  The grind is adjusted manually with three different screws that tighten or loosen the two grinding faces.  The tighter the setting, the more effort is needed to move the grains through the mill.  So I got a workout, trying to grind my wheat fine enough for bread making.  From the looser setting I started on, the texture of the milled wheat would have been perfect for homebrewing.  I'm sure this would turn out a beautifully rustic cornmeal for polenta.

The clamp to secure the mill to the countertop doesn't have all that much clearance - less than 2".  And there's also not an incredible amount of clearance under the mill to collect the meal as it comes out the grinder.  I had to use fairly low plastic storage containers.  So it would be rather a nuisance to use the mill for large quantities of grain, since the container would have to be emptied or replaced rather often.

This grain mill doesn't come cheap.  So I wouldn't recommend it to those who only occasionally homebrew, or those with a penchant for hand powered kitchen gadgets.  Further, even if you would heavily use a hand mill, I would probably recommend another model entirely, since this one is not capable of producing flour.  I gather that grain mills are hot ticket items among preppers, doomers, collapsitarians, off-grid folk, and survivalists of other stripes.  If you fall into one of those categories, then I would say you'd want the most versatile and best made grain mill you could find.  Keep looking.

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