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If you want to work with freshly milled grains, you’ll need the right equipment. Fortunately, there are many easy solutions found in a well-stocked kitchen without forking over tons of cash on excess equipment. However, you will likely reach a time when milling flour in a blender or sourcing wheat berries from the grocery store won’t cut it.

Grain Mill

Of course, you can’t really mill grains without some sort of method to do that. There are lots of options out there ranging from the less expensive Impact Mill to $1000+ mills.

For most home kitchens, you’ll need an electric grain mill. Hand-crank grain mills work, but take way, way longer.

I have a Nutrimill Harvest, which I really enjoy. You can adjust the fineness of the grain by turning a dial, and it’s makes real stoneground flour. Plus, it works with many different types of grains (wheat, oats, corn, etc).

There are lots of brands out there to choose from including Nutrimill, Mockmill, Country Living, and more. Again, I have a Nutrimill Harvest and haven’t tested all the other options, so I can’t speak to how well they function.

Definitely make sure you read the reviews of the product you choose to understand the pros and cons BEFORE you buy.

Stand Mixer

You certainly can hand mix all of your doughs, but be aware that most freshly milled grains take longer to develop the gluten than traditional store-bought grains. For example, I knead my sandwich bread in a stand mixer for over 15 minutes!

You might get a good workout kneading it by hand, but most of us don’t have time to do that. That’s where stand mixers come in.

Unfortunately because freshly milled grains are so heavy and require so much kneading, the average stand mixer can’t handle the effort. KitchenAid has even admitted that their mixers aren’t intended for bread!

Getting a good quality mixer is one of the most expensive parts of baking bread from scratch. You can get yourself a heavy duty KitchenAid or Ankarsrum mixer for $700+, or you can spend about half of that on a mixer designed for whole grains.

Personally, I have a KitchenAid 7-quart KitchenAid Pro-Line mixer with a DC motor and over 1 HP of mixing power. They actually discontinued the line in 2023. Similar sized products do not have the same strength and for a robust motor, you have to spend $800+.

Even with this heavy duty mixer, I can still only knead doughs on speed 2, which is quite slow, and I tend to max out at about 4 loaves of dough at a time.

If I didn’t have this mixer, I’d just buy a Universal Plus mixer from Bosch! They have the same parent company as Nutrimill and are made intentionally for bread bakers.

The Bosch Universal Plus mixer can handle up to 14 pounds of whole grain flour in one batch, so you can make more bread with all of your freshly milled flour without burning out the motor. It’s also great for mixing cookie dough, muffin batter, and all of those other things we love to make, so it’s a real multi-tasker!

Whole Grains & Wheat Berries

There are lots and lots of places to shop for whole grains and wheat berries, but I like to keep things simple.

My number one source for whole grains is Azure Standard.

I already order from them every 1-2 months, so I can add 25 lb bags of soft white wheat or hard red wheat anytime I need some. I’ve been impressed with the quality and their selection of ancient grains, too, like einkorn, emmer, spelt, and more.

If I can’t find what I need from Azure Standard, Nutrimill also sells whole grains and wheat berries on their website, so you can order from them directly.

Other great places to look:

• Pleasant Hill Grain
• Amazon (for Palouse & Great River grains)
• Local farmers

Baking supplies

You’ll also need a roster of basic supplies, like:

• Fresh yeast
• Oils (coconut oil, olive oil, etc)
• Sweeteners (honey, maple syrup, sugar)
• Salt (I use either sea or kosher salt)
• Baking soda and baking powder
• Buttermilk (for scones, muffins, etc)

Again, I tend to shop for these at Azure Standard as they have great prices and very high quality products. You’ll often see their products in my photos, too!

Baking Equipment

If you’ve already been baking from home for a while, you probably already have all the basic tools and equipment you need, like:

Mixing bowls

I have so many bowls of so many different sizes. They’re great for catching the flour from the mill, making doughs, and batters, etc.

You need at least 3 – small, medium, and large. I recommend having at least 2 in the same size for proofing two loaves at the same time.

Baking pans

I still bake with regular loaf pans I bought years and years ago as they’re perfect for sandwich-sized loaves.

Many of these things can be sourced secondhand from thrift stores, so check there first before spending a ton of money!

If you want to bake a lot, consider investing in:

• Several Pullman loaf pans
• 6 quart cast iron Dutch oven
• Stainless steel half sheet pans
• 9×13 baking dish (for cinnamon rolls, etc)
• Muffin pan
• Square pan (8 or 9 inch)
• Round cake pans (8 or 9 inch)

If you want to make pancakes and English muffins, it’s nice to have a griddle, too!

Baking equipment

There are a few other items to help pull off the bake every time.

• Parchment paper or bread slings
• Dough whisk
• Bowl covers (to cover your bowls without plastic)
• Bread lame
• Bread knife
• Pastry brush
• Instant read thermometer
• Wire racks for cooling
• Spray bottle (to mist loaves before baking)