Post by tomatoes on Mar 28, 2018 14:52:35 GMT 10
I have just had the chance to have a play with a Marcato Marga Mulino Manual Grain Mill. I have only recently seen these available so perhaps they are a new product (or new to Australia?). Marcato has good pasta machines - both manual and electric.
This grain mill looks very similar to a pasta machine. It clamps to the table and has a handle to turn, with three steel rollers inside. There is a dial on the side, very like with a pasta machine, to change the distance between the rollers. The whole thing is very solid feeling.
FLOUR: In the instruction book it tells you that for flour you should start at the widest setting, and put the grains through at each setting getting narrower until you get to the narrowest (3, 2, 1, 0), so you put your grain through four times. This is what I did, and it was very easy to turn and made nice flour, but putting it through four times was time consuming. Perhaps in reality you could get away with less times. I didn't try it. For half a cup of wheat, it took me about 4 -5 minutes but I wasn't rushing, and I counted from the time I scooped the grain out of the tub, so it wasn't just turning time - remember that between each pass through I took the dish and emptied the grain back into the hopper - and I counted all that time. That means larger quantities wouldn't take proportionally longer. You could do perhaps 1.5-2 cups in 10 minutes??? This was also the first time I used this mill.
FLAKES: For oat flakes you just chose your thickness and turn the handle. I started with the thickest setting but most of the oat grain passed through whole. I turned it a couple of settings on, and in one pass had nice rolled oats. I already have a manual flaker that was more expensive (but is a beautiful machine!) and I think this one took a similar time and produced a similar result. If I had one of these first I probably wouldn't bother getting the more expensive one - especially as this machine is good for flour too.
CLEAN UP: As with pasta machines and other flour mills/flakers - this machine cannot be washed on soapy water. You clean it by wiping off all the flour. It comes with a brush to help with that, but it was still a bit of a nuisance. If I was using it a couple of times a week I probably wouldn't be as fussy with cleaning it. The instructions say to ensure you get all of the flour off the rollers before packing it away; this is near impossible. I just gave it a pretty good clean with the brush and a dry tea towel.
PROS:
CONS:
OVERALL:
Remembering that I have just had a very quick try of this mill/flaker, and haven't used it long term, I would say that I really like the machine. If you are only milling small quantities of flour occasionally, it is great for that. I'd be very happy with it as my main flaker. I'd be very happy to have it as a back up to my electric mill.
This grain mill looks very similar to a pasta machine. It clamps to the table and has a handle to turn, with three steel rollers inside. There is a dial on the side, very like with a pasta machine, to change the distance between the rollers. The whole thing is very solid feeling.
FLOUR: In the instruction book it tells you that for flour you should start at the widest setting, and put the grains through at each setting getting narrower until you get to the narrowest (3, 2, 1, 0), so you put your grain through four times. This is what I did, and it was very easy to turn and made nice flour, but putting it through four times was time consuming. Perhaps in reality you could get away with less times. I didn't try it. For half a cup of wheat, it took me about 4 -5 minutes but I wasn't rushing, and I counted from the time I scooped the grain out of the tub, so it wasn't just turning time - remember that between each pass through I took the dish and emptied the grain back into the hopper - and I counted all that time. That means larger quantities wouldn't take proportionally longer. You could do perhaps 1.5-2 cups in 10 minutes??? This was also the first time I used this mill.
FLAKES: For oat flakes you just chose your thickness and turn the handle. I started with the thickest setting but most of the oat grain passed through whole. I turned it a couple of settings on, and in one pass had nice rolled oats. I already have a manual flaker that was more expensive (but is a beautiful machine!) and I think this one took a similar time and produced a similar result. If I had one of these first I probably wouldn't bother getting the more expensive one - especially as this machine is good for flour too.
CLEAN UP: As with pasta machines and other flour mills/flakers - this machine cannot be washed on soapy water. You clean it by wiping off all the flour. It comes with a brush to help with that, but it was still a bit of a nuisance. If I was using it a couple of times a week I probably wouldn't be as fussy with cleaning it. The instructions say to ensure you get all of the flour off the rollers before packing it away; this is near impossible. I just gave it a pretty good clean with the brush and a dry tea towel.
PROS:
- Easy to set up and pack away (after cleaning).
- Pretty inexpensive - RRP seems to be about $275, but most places it is for sale at $155-163, which is a great price for a mill. A few places that sell it take afterpay too.
- You can buy a motor attachment for it (which I think goes with the pasta machine too - so you could buy one motor for both) "Marcato Atlas Pasta Machine Motor Attachment" - $288 RRP, but for sale at $179 (at everten.com.au) - I have no idea how much this would speed things up. I think this could be quite handy for pasta making though (not sure I can justify the money) and it gets good reviews for that. I don't mind doing pasta by hand, but sometimes I just run out of hands!
- Great to be able to do both flour and flakes.
- Easy to use - not much strength needed, so it is a job the kids could do.
CONS:
- The bit where the flour comes out is quite low. The only thing apart from a flat plate that I could find to fit underneath it was a rectangle take away container. If doing more than a cup or perhaps two of flour at a time you would have to stop and empty it regularly. The hopper isn't that big, so perhaps you'd only work with max of 2 cups at a time anyway. I'm not sure if it would hold even that much. I notice in pictures of the item online that some of them look like they have a larger white (plastic) hopper and a dish that fits underneath that would be much larger than my take away container. The one I tried was all stainless steel but it looks like there may be two different models with the one with plastic hopper and dish being better for larger quantities. If you're considering getting one of these machines, you may want to check this.
- It was pretty time consuming putting the grain through several times. I generally use about 2.1 kg of grain at a time, so this would take me a very long time to mill!!
OVERALL:
Remembering that I have just had a very quick try of this mill/flaker, and haven't used it long term, I would say that I really like the machine. If you are only milling small quantities of flour occasionally, it is great for that. I'd be very happy with it as my main flaker. I'd be very happy to have it as a back up to my electric mill.
