Fresh Milled Flour | Grinding Wheat in My Nutrimill Grain Mill
- Ashley Qurollo
- May 4
- 4 min read
May 4, 2026
“What would you like for a snack?” I asked.
“A piece of bread,” my little one answered.
I can’t tell you how many times this short dialogue has happened between my children and me, probably hundreds of times. And honestly, this short conversation is what prompted me to start this amazing journey into baking my own bread with whole grains.
After toasting, buttering, and jamming (is that a word?) literally hundreds (probably thousands) of pieces of store-bought bread, I knew there had to be something healthier for my children’s evening snack.
I started limiting how much bread my children could eat in a day for health reasons. But kids need carbs—healthy carbs to be specific. So what’s a mom supposed to feed her voraciously hungry children?
Let’s be real…no kids want a carrot or a kale salad when they are starving from using up a lot of calories playing out in the yard. They want something that will stick to their ribs. They want bread.
So I went back to the snack time drawing board.
The kids want bread?
Then let them eat bread.
But it’s going to be healthy bread—the kind with all the nutrients still intact, not the kind with the good stuff sifted out or bleached into oblivion.
Today I’m going to share the start of my journey baking whole grain bread with fresh milled flour at home. If I can do this, so can you! I hope to inspire more people to embrace the healthy benefits of fresh milled flour at home.
Let’s get started!
You might be wondering, what exactly is a grain mill?
A grain mill is simply a machine that crushes and grinds wheat berries (they look like rice) into a usable flour. There are a variety of grain mills ranging from hand-cranked mills (no electricity needed—perfect for preppers and anyone living off grid) to electric mills of varying styles.
While it sounds quaint to hand-grind my own grain, the reality of that process is not very practical at this point of my life. Yet, a hand mill does sound like a neat kitchen addition someday…
So I opted for an electric grain mill that requires only a flip of the switch. I bought the Nutrimill Harvest with white trim, and I love it. It’s perfect for my baking needs and satisfies my personal aesthetic tastes (pun intended). I wanted something pretty sitting on my counter.
What are the benefits of milling grain at home?
By milling my own grains (commonly referred to as wheat berries) at home, I am monitoring the process of milling and can ensure that no nutrients are extracted along the way. The three parts of the grains—the bran, germ, and endosperm—are still in my flour thus making up what is known as “whole grain.” Nothing has been taken out or extracted. All the good stuff that God designed for us to enjoy in bread is still there.
Where can I get a grain mill and wheat berries?
I chose the Nutrimill Harvest. I went straight to the Nutrimill website to order a mill, but they were sold out at the time and backordered for months. I ended up ordering my Nutrimill grain mill from Pleasant Hill Grain in Nebraska.
Azure Standard is a great resource for wheat berries and that’s where I have bought mine from.
A friend and "bread mentor" of mine gets her wheat berries from Ancient Grains.
What are some recipes that I can make with fresh milled flour?
Before we even dive into recipes and where to find them, I want to take a moment to explain something very important about baking with fresh milled flour.
Fresh milled flour is also known as whole grain flour because it still has all three parts of the wheat berry present in the flour. So the flour tastes a little more dense than all-purpose flour and it behaves differently in the baking process than all-purpose flour.
Whole grains and all-purpose flour are not the same and cannot always be used interchangeably. It took me a while to realize this, and in my initial amateur understanding, I thought that I could just substitute whole grain flour into any recipe.
If I want to bake a recipe with fresh milled flour, I need to use a recipe that is specifically designed for fresh milled flour (can also be labeled whole grain). There are conversion charts that can help me adjust for fresh milled flour, but whenever I can, I like to find recipes specifically designed for whole grain flour.
Many recipes call for a mixture of all-purpose flour and whole grain flour. I’m still very much in the learning and experimentation phase of baking whole wheat bread, so I’ve just been exploring baking with only whole grains. But eventually I want to get comfortable combining whole grains with all-purpose flours.
So far, I have really enjoyed this book specifically for fresh milled einkorn flour. We really like the flatbread (page 28) and the chocolate zucchini bread (page 43). I will say the photos appear to be stock photos, not ones taken of actual einkorn baked goods. But it's still a good cookbook.
The quintessential book by Carla Bartolucci has a few recipes for 100% whole grain einkorn. My very first loaf of sourdough einkorn was Carla’s No Knead Artisan Bread (page 31).
Farmhouse on Boone has some great 100% fresh milled flour recipes. We really liked Lisa’s chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Learning to bake bread with fresh milled flour is certainly an adventure! Grinding my own flour feels quaint and also self-sufficient, like I have stepped back in time and my family is actually relying on me to feed them their daily bread. Sure, we can run up the road to the store and buy a loaf, but I’m really enjoying the challenge of providing quality bread that actually nourishes and satiates.
Do you bake your own bread? If so, do you have any tips, tricks, or recipes to share?
Happy baking, friends!
-Ashley
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Hi, Ashley! Great article!!! We have been using a Wondermill for years. We usually buy our wheat from a local feed mill. It isn't a fancy type of wheat, but it is affordable and locally grown. As for baking, we use our fresh wheat flour in almost every recipe we used before- we just substitute fresh wheat flour for half of the called-for white flour. I have a few recipes (like a cookie and a waffle recipe) that use all whole wheat, but overall have not had good texture/flavor results with all whole wheat. There's nothing like a piece of warm buttered homemade bread right out of the oven!!!