How to mill your own flour

The routine differs by mechanism before it differs by brand. Impact, in a grain mill, names a chamber that shatters grain against moving heads. NutriMill states that “A 10-amp, 1¾ horsepower motor powers the Classic’s high-speed impact chamber (micronizer), using stainless steel milling heads to produce up to 20 cups of flour at a time.” The horsepower figure appears only in that marketing sentence; the owner manual’s technical block records the motor as “Motor: 10 Amps; 1200 W” and the heads as “Milling Heads: Stainless Steel.”

Stone, in a grain mill, names an abrasive burr — one of a pair of discs that reduce grain in the gap between them. The Mockmill 100 mills that way. Its owner manual carries the description on the cover, “Stone mill for milling grains, pulses and spices,” and names the mechanism in its technical details as “Corundum ceramic milling stones.” The Mockmill 100 draws 360 W, and its spec tables and manual agree on that figure, against the Classic’s 1200 W.

The operating consequence is where the operator’s attention goes. On the Classic, texture is the product of two knobs — motor speed and grain feed rate — that the operator holds in balance while the mill runs. On the Mockmill 100, texture is one lever set to a number before the mill runs, and the operator then leaves it alone. One routine is adjusted during the batch; the other is set before it.

What arrives in the box differs too, and it changes the first ten minutes. The Classic’s parts diagram names a supplied “Flour Bowl (Canister)”. The Mockmill 100's stated contents are “Mockmill with hopper cover / Owner’s manual”, and the manufacturer’s own shop lists “Mockmill with Cone-Lid, Instruction Manual”. No flour container is supplied with the stone mill, and the manual’s getting-started step is simply “Place a bowl beneath the chute.”

The mechanism argument underneath this decision — what each way of breaking grain permits, excludes and requires — is set out at Impact vs stone burr grain mills. This page takes the mechanism as already chosen and follows a batch through.

The Mockmill manual’s first-run instruction is addressed to the other model in the same document. It reads, in bold, “ATTENTION: Only for Mockmill 200. Before starting your Mockmill 200 for the first time, you’ll need to remove the transport lock.” The manual restricts the removal step to the 200 and says elsewhere that it “applies only to Mockmill 200". It does not state whether the Mockmill 100 carries such a part at all, so the honest reading is that a Mockmill 100 owner is given no first-run removal step, not that the part is documented as absent.

The second pre-batch step on the stone mill is a listening test, and it is the calibration reference for every setting afterwards. The manual states: “The setting is pre-adjusted so that you can hear a quiet sound of the stones touching at lever position 1 when idling without grain. This is the finest setting, at higher settings you get coarser results.” The screw-in adjustment lever can be loosened at either end of the scale and re-indexed, which shifts the whole 1 to 10 range coarser or finer, so the position-1 sound is what tells an owner where their own scale actually sits.

Both manufacturers attach paperwork conditions to the warranty before the mill is ever used. The Mockmill manual asks: “Please register your device online under www.grainlovers.shop ⟶ to ensure that your warranty is valid,” against a term of six years for home use. That is phrased as a request carrying a condition, not as a flat requirement. NutriMill’s condition is documentary in a different way: the warranty runs five years for parts and plastics with a limited lifetime on motor and milling heads, applies to the original noncommercial purchaser, is void if the mill is disassembled, and the manual states that you must keep a dated sales receipt for warranty service.

Neither mill is meant to move once sited. The Classic measures 12" W x 12" D x 13" H and the manual states a weight of 14 lbs. The Mockmill 100 measures 380 x 220 x 190 mm, or 15 x 8.7 x 7.5 inches, with a cable of approximately 150 cm — about 6 feet — and a weight that its own sources dispute at 6 kg or 6.6 kg. The Classic’s technical block records amperage and wattage but no voltage or frequency; the US Mockmill listing states 110 V and protection class 1.

Moisture is the check both manufacturers put ahead of loading, and each names a different failure. The NutriMill manual instructs: “Avoid grains and beans that have high oil or moisture content. Non-commercially dried products may cause plugging.” Its safety section states the same rule as an imperative — “Do not mill damp, wet or oily grains” — and the Quick Start Guide compresses the whole input rule to “DO NOT MILL SEEDS, NUTS, SUGARS, OR SPICES / Be cautious milling any grains with high oil or moisture content.”

NutriMill is the only one of the two that publishes a test for an input it has not listed, and it is a quarter-cup procedure: “For any grains not listed above, mill only ¼ cup, then test the flour by pinching a small amount between your thumb and finger. If it holds the shape of a pinch and does not fall apart, it contains too much moisture. Do not mill this grain.” That is a repeatable bench test with a stated pass condition, which is more than either manufacturer offers for texture.

The Mockmill manual frames the same territory around the stones. It states: “Use only cleaned grains. Unclean grain may contain small stones that can damage the milling stones. Milling foods or substances other than those listed on pages 14 - 16 can damage your mill and void the warranty.” On moisture it describes a mechanism rather than a plug — moist grain leads to a build-up of film on the milling stones — and it adds a storage instruction no other document here carries: “Rye should be stored for at least six months following harvesting before milling.”

Oil is treated as the more serious contaminant on the stone mill, because it does not pass through. The manual instructs: “Please refrain from milling nuts or oily foods such as sesame, flax, or poppy seeds. Even coffee beans contain a great deal of oil, which leaves a film on the milling stones, rendering them incabable [sic] of processing the grain properly. Immediately afterwards, clean the Mockmill as described on page 9.” The misspelling is the manufacturer’s. On the impact mill the same class of ingredient is excluded outright by the Quick Start Guide rather than made conditional on cleaning.

• Dry: the NutriMill manual instructs “Do not mill damp, wet or oily grains”; the Mockmill manual states that moist grain builds a film on the milling stones.
• Clean: the Mockmill manual requires cleaned grain specifically because unclean grain may contain small stones that can damage the milling stones. The NutriMill rules quoted above address oil and moisture rather than foreign objects.
• Listed: the Mockmill manual confines milling to the foods tabulated on its pages 14 to 16 or named on the manufacturer’s website, and states that going outside that list can void the warranty. The NutriMill manual publishes three tiers instead — a permitted list of 31 foods, a use-caution list, and a do-not-mill list.
• Tested, if unlisted: only NutriMill publishes a procedure, the quarter-cup pinch test, and it ends in a stop instruction rather than a setting.
• Rested, for rye on the Mockmill: at least six months after harvest before it goes into the hopper.
• Not oats in any rolled or cut form on the Classic: “NOTE: rolled oats will NOT feed into the NutriMill® Classic. Do not mill steel cut oats or rolled oats.” Whole oat groats are on its permitted list, and oats sit at scale setting 3 on the Mockmill.

The Classic’s grain hopper capacity is published twice, with two different numbers. The product page’s specification list states “12 Cup Grain Hopper Capacity” and repeats it in the feature block. The owner manual’s technical block states “Hopper Capacity: 13 cups”, and the manual’s own grain-to-flour section reinforces 13 by working an example from it. A reader following the manual and a reader following the product page are working to hoppers a cup apart before anything is poured.

For a substantial group of foods the working capacity is smaller still, and the manual says so directly. Its use-caution tier is headed with an instruction rather than a warning: “Fill the hopper no more than ⅔ to ¾ with these as they produce more flour volume.” Thirteen foods sit under that heading, including dried lentils, legumes generally, dried sweet corn, dried garbanzo beans, dried pinto beans, dried green beans and dried mung beans. Six of them — barley, quinoa, soybeans, oat groats, kamut and spelt — also appear on the manual’s permitted list, and the manual does not flag the overlap or say which instruction wins.

The Mockmill 100 publishes one hopper figure, and it publishes it three ways. The US listing states “Hopper Capacity | 1,100 g | 2 lbs 7 oz (Wheat)”; the manual states the same 1,100 g and 2 lbs 7 oz; the manufacturer’s shop states “Filling Capacity (Wheat): 1.100 g”, using the European decimal point. The model comparison table rounds it to 2.4 lbs, which is the same quantity to one decimal place rather than a fourth figure. Every published hopper capacity for this mill is quoted for wheat.

Grain volume is not the ceiling on either mill, though. On the Classic the ceiling is also the flour bowl, which NutriMill describes as producing “up to 20 cups of flour at a time”. On the Mockmill 100 there is no supplied container at all, so the ceiling is whatever bowl the owner places under the chute, and a longer run means either a larger bowl or a pause to swap one. The published figures for the stone mill, including its disputed weight and every capacity above, are set out at Mockmill 100 Stone Grain Mill.

The Mockmill manual states the order in bold and states it more than once: “ALWAYS switch the Mockmill on prior to loading the hopper!” and, immediately before it, “Don’t switch the Mockmill off while it is milling.” The numbered quick guide carries the same sequence, with switching on as step three and loading the hopper as step five, and the troubleshooting section repeats it. The 2019 edition of the manual, still linked from the US product page as the owner’s manual, gives the same order. The manufacturer never publishes the reason; it publishes the instruction four times.

On the Classic no loading-order instruction appears at all. The manual describes the lower knob rather than a sequence: “This is the ON-OFF switch and controls grain flow into the mill. This affects the fineness of the grind,” and it adds that “Turning the knob all the way to the left will turn off the mill.” Neither the owner manual, the Quick Start Guide nor the product page states whether the hopper is filled before or after that knob is moved. What the manual qualifies instead is the feed itself: it states that “most grains will not flow at less than a 10:00 position on the knob”, and that the point where grain begins to flow varies with grain and bean size. The two documents are therefore not answering the same question. The Mockmill manual gives a sequence, stated four times and never explained; the NutriMill manual gives a knob position with a stated threshold and a stated variable, and leaves the sequence unaddressed.

The Classic is also meant to run closed. Operating instructions state that “The NutriMill is designed to operate with the lid on for quieter milling,” and the parts diagram repeats it on the component itself: “Hopper Lid / Use during milling for quiet operation.” How loud the mill is with the lid on is described but not measured. NutriMill states “Whisper Quiet™ - Noise reduction is achieved with a sound level similar to that of a vacuum cleaner. This is quieter than the first generation of impact mill designs.” No decibel figure appears on the product page, the owner manual or the Quick Start Guide, and none appears on any Mockmill source either.

What the run itself looks like is documented on one mill and not the other. The Mockmill 100's milling rate is stated as “Approx. 100 g/min | Approx. 3.5 oz/min (Soft Wheat)” on the US listing, and the manual gives the same figure for wheat without the word soft. NutriMill publishes no rate in cups or grams per minute on any source fetched for this page — only the batch ceiling of up to 20 cups of flour at a time. The duration of a Classic batch cannot be estimated from published figures at all.

The Mockmill 100 turns texture into a lookup. Its manual tabulates a scale setting per food across a 1 to 10 range, and the operator reads the number rather than judging it: wheat 1, rye 1, spelt 1, einkorn 1, millet 1, kamut 1, lentils 1, corn or maize 1 to 2 with the note “No Popcorn”, soya beans 1 to 2, pinto beans 2, lupin seeds 2, oats 3, chickpeas 4 to 5, and at the coarse end of the range tonka beans at 9 to 10. Quinoa, teff, amaranth, milo, white beans and natural long grain rice are all listed at 0 to 1, with rice carrying the note “No parboiled rice” and buckwheat the note “Only hulled and not pre-toasted”.

Because the lever moves a physical gap, a number returns the same gap next time. The fine end of that scale is audible rather than printed — the stones can be heard touching quietly at lever position 1 when the mill idles empty — and the manual states plainly that “This is the finest setting, at higher settings you get coarser results.” The 2019 manual words the coarse end differently, as “with lever position 10 you get coarser result”. Adjustment is stepless; both product pages state “Stepless adjustment of the settings from very fine to coarse”, and no source states how many discrete positions the scale contains.

The Classic has no lookup table and no numbers. Its upper knob is the Variable Motor Speed Control Knob, and the manual instructs: “For finer flour, upper knob should remain to the left (high speed). For very coarse flour and medium fine corn meal, knob should be set to the far right, which slows the motor speed. For heavy flour & dense textured breads, select a middle setting.” Its lower knob is given in clock positions: “For finer flour, set the knob toward 11:00 – 12:00 (most grains will not flow at less than a 10:00 position on the knob). For bread flour, set the knob toward the 12:00 – 1:00 position. For coarser flour turn the knob toward the right.”

The manual then qualifies its own clock positions in a way that matters for the first batch. It states that the point at which grain begins to flow will vary depending on grain and bean size, and that flow may fluctuate at the finest setting. A clock position is therefore a starting point per grain rather than a repeatable setting across grains, which is the opposite of what the Mockmill’s numbered table offers. The Classic’s stated span is “Flour Fineness: Adjustable - Fine to Medium Coarse” in the manual; the Mockmill’s is “Variable from very fine to very coarse”.

Two claims about the Classic’s range should be read as marketing rather than specification. The product page states “With a 400% adjustment range, you can grind super fine (finer than any other impact mill) or coarser textures ideal for rustic bakes. That’s 10 times more texture range than earlier impact mills,” and the feature block restates it as “400% Range Adjustment - This makes it ten times greater than previous impact mills”. A 400% range and a tenfold range are not the same quantity, neither is defined against a stated baseline, and the comparison is drawn against unnamed earlier mills. Neither manufacturer publishes a particle size in microns for any setting, so no setting on either mill converts into a number a baker could check.

If a first batch comes out coarser than wanted, the Classic’s manual does not endorse a second pass: “CAUTION: WE DO NOT RECOMMEND MILLING FLOUR THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN MILLED. THIS MAY CAUSE PROBLEMS IN YOUR MILLING UNIT.” That is a recommendation with a stated risk, not a prohibition, and it should not be repeated as one. The practical alternative it implies is to change the knob positions and mill fresh grain rather than to re-feed flour.

The Classic mills into a supplied container. The parts diagram describes it as “Flour Bowl (Canister) / Large 20 cup capacity. / Large easy grip handles,” and the product page’s specification list agrees at “20 Cup Flour Bowl Capacity”. That figure is also the batch ceiling NutriMill advertises, since the marketing sentence about the motor ends at “up to 20 cups of flour at a time”.

The same manual states a larger number a few pages later. Under its grain-to-flour ratio heading it reads: “The bowl holds 21 to 22 cups of flour. You will get about 21 cups of flour from 13 cups of hard wheat when milled at a medium texture.” Read together with the diagram, one document gives the same container a 20-cup and a 21-to-22-cup capacity. The yield sentence is worth reading precisely as written: it is stated for hard wheat at a medium texture, and it is the ratio the manual works through rather than a general conversion for every grain and every setting.

That arithmetic is also the clearest illustration of why the hopper conflict matters. The manual’s example fills 13 cups of hard wheat and returns about 21 cups of flour, which is under the manual’s own bowl figure but over the diagram’s and the product page’s. A reader who takes the product page’s 12-cup hopper and 20-cup bowl as the pair, and mills hard wheat at medium texture to the top of the hopper, is working near the edge of the container on the manufacturer’s own numbers.

The Mockmill 100 supplies nothing to catch flour. Its stated contents are the mill, the hopper cover and the manual, and no flour-container capacity is published on any source — not on either product page, not in either manual, not in the comparison table. The getting-started instruction is “Place a bowl beneath the chute,” which puts the choice, and the ceiling, entirely on the owner. In practice the hopper’s 1,100 g of wheat is the unit that has to be planned around, since that is the quantity the mill will process before it needs refilling.

Neither manufacturer publishes anything about the flour once it is out of the mill. The Classic’s stated flour temperature of around 118°F is a manufacturer claim about the milling process, not a storage figure, and the Mockmill sources publish no flour temperature at all. Recipe choice and storage after milling are covered at Fresh milled flour: baking and storage basics, using baking guidance alongside the mill manuals.

The Mockmill’s cleaning rule is absolute about water and states it twice in one paragraph: “Never submerge the Mockmill in water or any other liquid. Wipe the casing clean with a slightly damp cloth. It is important that no water enter the mill. The millstones should never be cleaned with water or a wet cloth!” The stones are reached by lifting the upper stone off — the manual’s procedure states that “Now you can lift off the top stone (stator). The bottom stone (rotor) is then visible; it is attached to the motor shaft” — and it warns owners not to lose the two small springs that support the upper stone during the operation.

Cleaning on the stone mill is not scheduled by time; it is triggered by what was milled. The manual instructs that the mill be cleaned right away when oilseeds have been included in the milling, and after coffee beans it says to clean “Immediately afterwards”. The manufacturer’s own tables create a tension here that the manual never resolves: chia seeds appear in the permitted milling table at settings 6 to 7, alongside a general instruction to refrain from oily foods such as sesame, flax or poppy seeds. An owner milling chia is following one instruction and breaking another, and the cleaning trigger is the only guidance the document offers for the collision.

The Classic’s cleaning instruction exists in two manufacturer documents with two different forces, and the difference is not cosmetic. The Quick Start Guide states: “Hand-wash the plastic bowl and lid. DO NOT put them in the dishwasher. High-heat dishwashers can warp the plastics.” The owner manual states the same fact as a preference: “We recommend hand-washing the plastic bowl and lid. High-heat dishwashers can warp the plastics.” One document forbids, the other advises, and both are current NutriMill publications for the same parts.

The two mills also diverge on whether an owner is expected to open the machine. The Mockmill’s routine cleaning procedure requires lifting the stator off the rotor, which is a documented user operation. The Classic’s warranty is void if the mill is disassembled, and the owner-serviceable parts named in its diagram are consumables rather than the milling chamber: “*Inlet grommet and filter should be replaced every 2 years or as needed.” Those two facts point at different maintenance habits over the life of each mill.

Moving the mill afterwards carries its own instruction on the Mockmill, and it is a warning about a specific part: “Never use the Mockmill’s spout cover (its 'nose') as a handle, as it is not made to resist the unit’s weight and may well break off!” The manual directs lifting by the base or by cradling the hopper instead. This lifting section appears only in the current manual. The 2019 edition, which is the PDF the US product page links as the owner’s manual, has no lifting section at all, so a buyer following the linked document is never given the warning.

Every conflict below is between two manufacturer sources for the same mill, and each one changes something an operator does. They are recorded here as they stand. Neither manufacturer has reconciled them, and this page does not attempt to pick a winner between two documents that carry equal authority.

Three of these are procedural rather than cosmetic. The hopper and bowl conflicts change how much grain is poured and how close a full batch runs to the rim of the container. The dishwasher conflict changes whether a part goes in the machine after every bake. The rest change what a reader believes about the mill rather than what they do with it, but they are the reason a specification quoted from one page should always be traced to its document before it is trusted.

One thing that is not on this list is the operating order. The Mockmill manual instructs switching on before loading and the NutriMill documents cited here state no order at all, and silence on one side is not a disagreement between the two. It is a gap in one manufacturer’s instructions, and it is recorded in the section on what this guide cannot settle rather than here.

• Classic grain hopper capacity: “12 Cup Grain Hopper Capacity” on the product page against “Hopper Capacity: 13 cups” in the owner manual. The manual’s own worked example uses 13 cups, which makes the manual internally consistent and the pair of documents inconsistent with each other.
• Classic flour bowl capacity: “Large 20 cup capacity” in the manual’s parts diagram and “20 Cup Flour Bowl Capacity” on the product page, against “The bowl holds 21 to 22 cups of flour” in the manual’s own ratio section. This is a contradiction inside a single document.
• Classic dishwasher instruction: the Quick Start Guide’s “DO NOT put them in the dishwasher” against the owner manual’s “We recommend hand-washing”. Same manufacturer, same parts, prohibition against preference.
• Mockmill 100 weight: “6 kg | 13 lbs 3.5 oz” on the US product page against “6.6 kg” and “14 lbs 9 oz” in the current manual, the 2019 manual and the manufacturer’s shop. Three sources agree on the heavier figure and the US listing does not.
• Mockmill 100 milling speed, a three-way disagreement: the US page pairs “Voltage 110 V” with “Milling Speed Approx. 1,100 RPM”; both manuals pair 110 V at 60 Hz with approximately 1,300 rpm and 230 V at 50 Hz with approximately 1,100 rpm; and the manufacturer’s shop states “Rotation (50 Hz): ca. 1.300 U / Min”, contradicting its own manual’s figure for 50 Hz.
• Mockmill 100 casing: “Terluran® GP-35" in both current spec tables and “Terluran®” in the current manual, against “Arboblend ®made from renewable raw materials” in the 2019 manual — and the manufacturer’s shop still advertises a casing made from renewable materials in the bullet list directly above its own Terluran® GP-35 specification row.
• Mockmill 100 coarse limit: “Variable from very fine to coarse” on the US page against “Variable from very fine to very coarse” in the manual.
• Mockmill 100 commercial use: the manual states the mill “is not designed for commercial use”, while the manufacturer’s shop specification table states “2-year warranty for commercial use, 6 years”.

Both mills are rated for the same scale of use, in almost the same words. The Classic’s manual carries “HOUSEHOLD USE ONLY” as a standalone heading under its technical block, and its warranty is written for the original noncommercial purchaser. The Mockmill’s product page states: “For home use: The Mockmill is intended for home use and milling quantities appropriate for normal family needs. It is not designed for commercial use in which large quantities of grains are to be ground.” A buyer choosing between them is not choosing between a domestic and a light-commercial machine.

Both put the same demand on the grain, even though each names a different consequence. Dry and clean is the requirement in both documents; oil is the ingredient both flag; and both manufacturers publish an explicit list of what may enter the hopper rather than leaving it to judgment. The Classic risks plugging, the Mockmill risks a film on its stones, and in both cases the remedy the manufacturer describes is preventive rather than corrective.

Both are counter-top machines on a household outlet that neither manufacturer surrounds with running-time rules. No duty cycle, maximum continuous run time, cool-down interval or thermal-protection rating is stated on any source fetched for either mill. Whatever an owner does about resting the motor between batches, they are doing it without manufacturer guidance.

Both leave texture unquantified in the same way. Neither publishes a particle size in microns, so on both mills the first batch is a calibration exercise: mill a small quantity, look at it, bake with it, and write down the setting that produced it. The Mockmill’s numbered scale makes that note reusable; the Classic’s clock positions make it grain-specific. Neither publishes a decibel rating, and neither publishes a service life for its milling stones or its impact heads, so the two mills are equally undocumented on noise and on wear.

Nothing on this page comes from operating either mill. Every instruction above is quoted from a manufacturer document, and where a document is silent this page says it is silent rather than filling the gap. We have not milled a batch on either machine, and no sentence here should be read as an observation.

The operating order on the Classic is one of those silences, and it is a large one. The Mockmill manual states its sequence four times; the NutriMill owner manual, Quick Start Guide and product page state none, and none of them describes how the mill behaves between the knob’s off position and the 10:00 position at which the manual states most grains begin to flow. Whether a Classic should be started empty or loaded first is not answerable from the published documents, and no inference about the knob drawn on this page or elsewhere is a substitute for the manufacturer stating it.

Texture cannot be settled numerically. Neither manufacturer states a micron figure or a particle size for any setting, so the Classic’s “Fine to Medium Coarse” and the Mockmill’s “very fine to very coarse” cannot be placed on a common scale, and the 400% adjustment range on the Classic’s product page is a claim with no stated baseline. A reader who wants a comparable fineness figure will not find one in the published documents.

Duration cannot be settled either. NutriMill publishes no milling rate at all, only a 20-cup batch ceiling, so a Classic batch has no published time. The Mockmill’s approximately 100 g per minute is published for wheat and is not stated for the other 40 foods in its table. Heat is in the same position: the Classic’s around 118°F is a manufacturer claim carrying no grain type, run length or ambient temperature, its specification list drops both the hedge and the unit, and no Mockmill source publishes a flour temperature to compare it against.

Several straightforward equipment questions have no published answer on either mill. No decibel rating exists for either, only NutriMill’s vacuum-cleaner analogy. No stone diameter is published for the Mockmill and no count of discrete lever positions. No nutrient-retention figure, motor duty cycle or component lifespan is published for either. Country of manufacture is stated for the Mockmill as Germany and is not stated on any NutriMill source fetched.

The document conflicts above are recorded, not resolved, and they cannot be resolved from outside. Whether the Classic’s hopper holds 12 or 13 cups, whether its bowl holds 20 or 21 to 22, and whether the Mockmill 100 weighs 6 or 6.6 kg are questions only the manufacturers can answer. Both companies print a service address on the documents cited in the source list below — L’Chef, LLC in St. George, Utah for the Classic, Wolfgang Mock GmbH in Groß-Umstadt for the Mockmill — which is where a reader with a batch to plan should take them.