Product Review: The Nutrimill Untangled

A while ago a friend of mine (check out her blog here) suggested I do some product reviews for some of the appliances I use for baking, and it's been in the back of my mind ever since.  The other night the gust of wind that brought on a cold front must have blown this notion out of the cobwebs, since here I am, ready to blog in full about my Nutrimill.  I'd briefly addressed a couple different grain mills here, but thinking back to when I was researching my grain mill, I'm going to try to provide more information and photos that I would have appreciated seeing pre-purchase.  Not that I'm dissatisfied at all, but the more information you have before dropping over $200 on a small kitchen appliance, the better.

So get ready to see the fastest, coolest-running electric mill on the market:

My Nutrimill's home is next to my Kitchenaid Pro mixer, which gives you a visual as to its size.  It's shown here with the hopper extension in place (the hopper is the top section where you put to-be-milled grain).

A more compact option: the Nutrimill's hopper extension is stored inside the flour bin (you'll see a photo of that in a second).  Dimensions are 11.5" high; footprint is 11" x 13".

These knobs control how fast your grain is milled and how coarse the flour.  The top knob controls speed; consequently, turning it to "low" gives you coarser flour, as well.  The bottom knob controls how coarse or fine your flour will be; however, if you are milling larger beans (such as kidney), you will need to turn it more toward the "coarse" setting.  Otherwise the beans won't move into the milling chamber at all.  For something like corn meal, I turn the top knob to "low" and the bottom to "coarse," and for pastry flour I keep the top knob on "high" and the bottom knob at the 11:00 on "fine."

Flour bin on left, with lid on, and hopper extension on right.

Lid of flour bin, with filter in place.

Flour bin untangled from left to right: bin, filter, reservoir cup, white-thing-that-seals-the-bin-to-the-milling-chamber, lid.

Reservoir cup in place.  This receives some powdery excess from milling, which can be mixed in with the rest of the flour.

Hopper (lid not pictured for obvious reasons).  You can put grain in the hopper before you turn it on, which you can't do with other electric mills.  With the extension, it holds up to 13 cups of grain.

Flour bin getting ready to be put in place.

The Nutrimill is self-cleaning; after milling you run it ten extra seconds so any flour residue will filter out.  But occasionally you'll want to take the mill apart and dust it off with a dry cloth.  I also try to either wash out or dust out the flour bin after each use.  Never wash the milling chamber!

And the Nutrimill wouldn't be complete without some handy-dandy cord retract-o-rama action.

More information:
Output: 20 cups of flour
Technical: 12-amp, 1 3/4 hp motor
Noise level: loud but not ear-shattering.  Think vacuum cleaner.
Grinds: hard and soft wheat, dehulled oat groats, rice, triticale, kamut, spelt, dry beans, lentils, popcorn, dried sweet corn, split peas, buckwheat, barley, rye, millet, teff, quinoa, amaranth, sorghum, dried beans, chopped chestnuts and soybeans.
Does not grind: herbs, spices, oilseeds like flax, or fibrous materials

I know a couple people who have WonderMills and am going to bribe one of them with the fame and fortune that are sure to come with being a guest writer on my blog.  I'm also planning on reviewing our Kitchenaid and blender, as well as getting a product review to you on an Electrolux mixer.