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Rarely do I find so high quality a tool that I get gooseflesh using it, but last night when I converted about five pounds of the <a title=”Bloody Butcher corn we grew ” href=”http://www.grit.com/departments/growing-corn-in-osage.aspx”>Bloody Butcher corn we grew </a>last summer into homemade cornmeal with our <a title=”GrainMaker hand-powered mill” href=”http://www.grainmaker.com/” target=”_blank”>GrainMaker hand-powered mill</a>, gooseflesh crawled all over me. Homemade cornmeal is easy to make if you can source some nice and hopefully open-pollinated corn and have access to a home-sized mill. I’ve used the <a title=”C.S. Bell No. 2 mill ” href=”http://www.csbellco.com/hand-grist-mill-2.asp” target=”_blank”>C.S. Bell No. 2 mill </a>to grind meal – and it is possible to make fine cornmeal with that mill using multiple passes, but the GrainMaker is truly a work of art that delivers finished cornmeal (from coarse to fine) in a single pass. I can’t wait to try it with some other grains and may even use it to whip up some homemade nut butters next year.</p>
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<p>The GrainMaker hand-powered grain mill comes with a pair of feed screws. One is essentially a spring-steel spiral that is suited to feeding smaller grains to the grinding burrs, while the other, called the GrainBreaker augur, is machined from stainless steel. The GrainBreaker’s cracking action makes it easy to mill larger and harder grains such as corn and dry beans in one pass. The GrainBreaker cracks the grain as it is fed to the grinding burrs – my experience with making cornmeal with the GrainBreaker installed was entirely pleasant. So that you don’t have to lose the different feed screws in a cluttered kitchen drawer, the GrainMaker comes equipped with a post to store the unused feed screw on and a pin to lock it into place. </p>
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<span style=”font-size: 13px;”>Photo Courtesy Karen Keb</span> </p>
<p>Although I chose human power for the making homemade cornmeal with my GrainMaker, the mill’s flywheel doubles as a V-belt pulley and the machine is sufficiently robust that it can be set up with motor power easily – without voiding the warranty. For the more ingenious the GrainMaker would be simple enough to drive with a bicycle or even a geared down windmill. The GrainMaker has a red powder coated finish that makes cleaning it as easy as brushing and wiping the surfaces. If you made something like peanut butter with the device or ground coffee beans, you’d likely want to disassemble the unit and give it a good cleaning before switching over to wheat. Wondering about the kind of bearings used to locate the GrainMaker’s main shaft? The company installs only sealed roller bearings, which will give you plenty of years of hard use before needing to replace them. </p>
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<p>Finally, the good folks at GrainMaker are friendly, incredibly knowledgeable, helpful and justifiably proud of their product. These are the folks we need to be doing business with – especially in these economic times. If you are interested in learning more about the GrainMaker hand-powered grain mill, I know <a title=”GrainMaker Information” href=”mailto:sales@grainmaker.com?subject=GrainMaker Information”>Bonnie Jones </a>will take good care of you. </p>
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<a href=”http://www.grit.com/biographies/oscar-h-will” target=_self>Hank Will</a>
<em> raises hair sheep, heritage cattle and many varieties of open-pollinated corn with his wife, Karen, on their rural Osage County, Kansas farm. His home life is a perfect complement to his professional life as editor in chief at GRIT and Capper’s Farmer magazines. Connect with him on </em>
<a title=Google+ href=”https://plus.google.com/u/0/117459637128204205101/posts” target=_blank rel=author>Google+</a>.</p>
