How a Kitchen Tool 40-Years in the Making is Helping People Affordably Take Back Control of their Food
September 2018 – Sponsored by Mockmill
For Julie Koyle and her husband, Jade, quitting store-bought flour fast became a no-brainer. Julie had learned that flour from the store typically sits on the shelves for weeks or months. “I knew that couldn’t be good, right? All those chemical preservatives can’t have been doing our family’s health any favors. l also learned that factories remove the most nutritious parts of the grain so it doesn’t go rancid on the store shelf.”
Awakening to the savings, flavor, nutrition, and simpler life she and her family were missing out on, the Koyles, from Teton, Idaho, took the plunge to start milling their own flour. “It’s so much easier than I ever expected. There’s nothing stopping anyone from doing this,” says Julie.
“Milling our flour at home is a big win-win for us,” says Jade Koyle. “It starts with buying the grains we want at very good bulk prices. We also grow some ancient grains on our small farm. Unlike flour from the store, grains keep for years without going bad. If there’s a better way to be more self-reliant I’ve yet to see it.”
Today, millions of Americans like the Koyles’ are intent on making safe and healthy food choices for themselves and their families, and they’re playing a big part in what’s emerging as the next level of a worldwide food revolution – creating your own fresh flour from whole grains.
Fresh-milled flour can be used to make all kinds of homemade foods such as breads, pancakes, pizza, cookies, cakes, waffles, pasta and more.
How Do People Mill Flour At Home?
Modern technology has made milling easier than ever. Newbie and experienced home millers alike are turning to an affordable, compact, push-button milling machine that’s garnering rave reviews from home bakers, homesteaders, gardeners, and even artisan bakeries.
“When we need flour it’s always right at our fingertips,” says Julie Koyle, “Having this small stone grain mill in our kitchen makes life so easy and cooking so much more fun.”
In centuries past, locally operated (and often government-controlled) stone grain mills sustained communities worldwide. Then in just ten years (1880-1890) the industrial revolution swept them all away in favor of centrally produced factory flour, shipped and long-hauled across the world and stored on shelves for weeks or months until purchase.
Then, 40 years ago, after experiencing the extra taste of freshly-milled flour, German inventor Wolfgang Mock designed a small stone flour mill for home use. Mock pioneered the production of several popular, yet all-too-costly, home-scale stone mills over the course of the next decades.
Now a proud grandfather, and more disturbed than ever at today’s corporate-run food system, and with his desire to equip every home with the freedom of milling their own flour, Wolfgang has redoubled his efforts and created an all new line of mills, aptly named, The Mockmill.
To give his new mills a modern look, and in keeping with his strict sustainability principles, the standalone Mockmill is housed within Arboblend®, a revolutionary bioplastic made from 98% renewable (vegetal) materials.
Wolfgang Mock’s determination to put consumers back in affordable control of their family’s food can be seen in the free grain kit worth $80 he’s organized especially for Mother Earth Readers when they buy the Mockmill at a discounted price atthis website link.
We even tested the Mockmill out in the Mother Earth kitchen with impressive results. You can see the video at the bottom of this page.
The Many Ways People Are Using The Mockmill
The Mockmill can be used to create flour from all kinds of grains, seeds, spices and herbs.
Bill McDorman, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance sees the Mockmill as a game-changer for both his organization, and his own health…
“My mission is to bring local seeds to the local food movement. The Mockmill is a big deal for us because it now means anyone who sources or grows their own seeds or grains locally can now turn them into flour. Then, personally, I’m always looking for ways to get closer to my food. I’ve learned that I get healthier the farther and farther away I am from processed food. Up to 70% of our calories come from grains and having a mill just opens up all sorts of new possibilities in my own food system. The Mockmill is over half my food now – to me it’s indispensable. Mills were out of reach for so long, but now, thanks to Wolfgang, this technology is open to everyone.”
What would Bill, the author of Basic Seed Saving, want everyone to know about the Mockmill?
“That’s easy. The flavor! Fresh-ground grains are just on a whole other level. Everything l make just tastes better, my pancakes, my pasta, my bread. People truly don’t know what they’re missing. Then they try it and bingo, game-over, they’re never going back. To my mind, the Mockmill is the most exciting addition to the real food movement to come around in a long, long time.”
For a fifth-generation homesteader like Melissa Norris, founder of the popular blog, Pioneering Today, her Mockmill is all about controlling the quality of their food. “I love knowing l can mill any grain I want to create a fresh and truly whole food for my family, from cornmeal to ancient grains or a custom pastry blend for my great-grandmother’s pie crust recipe.” For Melissa, also the author of The-Made-From-Scratch-Life, self-sufficiency is in her blood, “We already grew most of the foods we eat, it just made sense to start milling all our own flour too. I needed a mill that could handle large amounts of milling at once, without overheating or running things through it twice to get a fine texture on baking day, the Mockmill provides all that and more.”
Of course, the home bakers among us definitely aren’t looking for any extra work or clean up. We just want to quickly add as much taste and flavor to our foods as we can. Wardee Harmon, head of Traditional Cooking School with over 600,000 subscribers, says, “The Mockmill is so pretty, compact, and tidy on my counter. If I need flour, I just put a bowl under the spout, turn it on, and pour in my grains. It doesn’t run hot, it doesn’t blow flour anywhere, it’s easy to clean. That’s huge in my book. Anyone who’s owned a home flour mill before knows that’s not always the case.”
Author of the popular, “Sourdough A-to-Z” eCourse, Wardee is enjoying the obvious comforts of home milling, “Knowing the flours I’m baking with for my family are the healthiest and freshest they could possibly be just gives me a lot of reassurances that you can’t get from store-bought. We all want whole grains in our foods, the Mockmill creates them right before your eyes.
After hearing so much positive news about the Mockmill, we decided to put it to the test here in the Mother Earth News kitchen. You can watch our video below this article.
Once we gave the Mockmill a thorough test-drive we were so excited about what the Mockmill makes possible, we went to Wolfgang Mock’s team to see what strings we could pull for Mother Earth News Readers who really want to get started home milling.
They generously agreed to a special offer that makes it easy and exciting for even a total milling novice to get started. They allowed us to offer you a discount on the Mockmill itself, plus a free organic grains kit, all valued at $80!
Mother Earth News staff put the Mockmill 100 to the test
Important Disclosure: Out of enthusiasm for how the Mockmill has benefitted his family, Jade Koyle recently came aboard the Mockmill team as a way of fulfilling his mission to support sustainable farming in the U.S.A. He, Melissa Norris and Wardee Harmon also proudly promote the Mockmill to their distinct website audiences and subscriber bases as “essential tools they recommend.” Einkorn.com, PioneeringToday.com, and TraditionalCookingSchool.com, share in the proceeds when a Mockmill is purchased through their website.
