Hubby bought this for me for my birthday and I absolutely love it! I have to bake gluten free for his health, and it is very difficult to find organic gluten free whole grain flour, especially those that have good textures for affordable prices. With this mill I can buy whole grains, grind what I need when I need it and not worry about the rest going rancid. This mill can make various textures as needed, from coarse cracked grains for hot cereal (porridge) all the way to superfine textures for fine baking in a single pass. I also love the options it opens up that simply aren't available without something like this. For instance, we have recently discovered black rice, and I have been a big fan of porridge for breakfast for most of my life. I make black rice porridge from cracked rice and it is amazing! I'm wanting to make black rice bread at some point too!
Function: I have found that the trick to a superfine texture in a single pass is to crank the stones as tight as they will go, and then back them off just a bit. Start up the mill, pour the grain in and watch it come out all fluffy! I do this even with long grain brown rice.
-I do not find the sound terribly loud or uncomfortable at all, and I am quite sensitive to too loud noise. It has a medium pitched sing to the stones when I turn it on and before I add the grain. While the grain is grinding, it is actually a lot quieter than when it's empty, sort of reminds me of the garbage disposal sound (sorry for that mind picture, just trying to explain!) and overall it is much quieter than my food processor, which another reviewer compared it to.
-The grain hopper is a bit small, the tension wheel for the stones takes up a good bit of the interior volume. I haven't measured it, but it probably only holds 3 cups or so.
-Due to the small hopper size and the way the flour comes out and kind of piles in the bowl, I haven't found that it's a set it and walk away type of thing. I don't have to constantly babysit it, but I do need to be there to turn the bowl, or brush the flour down into it, or add more grain.
-It is NOT at ALL dusty or messy to grind grain. Grain goes in the top and flour pours out the spout very gently. There is no dust or residue even on the counter around the bowl when I am done grinding.
-I have used a thermal gun to measure the flour temperature after grinding superfine in one pass, and it is a somewhat high temperature at around 115F. I don't know enough about rice and other gluten free grain flours to know if this changes the structure like it can for wheat.
-I'm very pleased I can get a nice, fine texture in one pass, because putting anything that's been ground already through the mill is really somewhat labor intensive. The hopper is designed for grain, so if I put anything in it that doesn't flow easily, I have to constantly brush it down into the milling chamber. I tried milling some teff flour to a finer texture than it came with, but I don't really think it was worth the effort... The small hopper, the big knob in the middle of it, the fact that I had to stand there and constantly use a brush to push the flour into the milling chamber, just not worth it. Even re-milling cracked grain is a chore. Re-milling is doable, but a chore.
-The mill is quite hefty, but even with a bad back I don't find it difficult to pick up and put away because it is so sturdy, and the spout makes a great hand hold.
-Some of the older reviews I have seen online for this mill mention it coming with a separate set of stones and a separate insert for the milling area, for swapping out due to allergies, but mine did not come with this. I don't think they are included in this latest version. I actually haven't seen any kind of insert in the milling area or spout at all, it is just the plain bamboo case.
Packaging: The packaging for the mill was really outstanding, in my opinion. I was worried about something so densely heavy flopping around in the standard Amazon box, and sure enough when I received it, it was (one piece of packing paper in a too large box for something this heavy? Really, Amazon? Couldn't have used air packs?? ...back on topic). But the box that Bosch packs it in is really sturdy, and the mill was very well supported in it with multi layered form fitting cardboard, so it hadn't been bashed around at all, even in the loose Amazon box.
Price: I have seen people argue that something like this mill is soooo expensive, but it can pay for itself very quickly, especially if you have to bake gluten free, or deal with other food allergies, or want organic, or multiples of the above. One 3lb bag of Authentic Foods superfine flour is almost $15 (no other rice flour is worth using, it's all horrible). I bought a 12lb bag of organic long grain brown rice at a local big box store for about $12. That's $1 a pound compared to $5 a pound, AND it's organic, which Authentic Foods is not. And that is only one price comparison, if you bake gluten free then you probably have 4 or more grains you bake with to get a good texture, and I have found similar savings in the other grains I use. This mill is about $100 more than the common impact mills, but I think the increase in function and decrease in annoyance is more than worth it. Being able to very specifically control your output to exactly what you need is a huge benefit (yay, porridge!). Not having to deal with the extreme noise and mess of impact mills is very worth it to me (small kitchen, awkward house, I simply don't have a spare cabinet or a room that can be coated in flour to run it in.) Even if you only do a moderate amount of baking (me), and have to deal with food allergies, this mill is worth it. If you do a lot of baking, it's definitely the way to go!
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