Using Your Corona® Mill to Grind Grains & Beans by Hand

The Corona® bean, grain, and corn mill

The Corona® Mill is designed to produce medium-fine to coarse (or grist-style) flour from virtually any dry grain or bean and works superbly for this application. It makes wonderful fresh grits and corn meal for baking. While a single grind does not typically produce powder-fine flour appropriate for pastries and light, delicate breads, the flour may be sifted and/or quickly run through the mill a second time for a finer product.

The Corona® Hand Mill is made of high-quality materials and does not need any special maintenance. However, we include some tips for use:

The First Time You Use the Corona® Mill

The grinding plates of the Corona® are formed by casting and contain slight irregularities. These irregularities will create drag as they rub together the first few times the mill is used. Grind about one pound of grain on the finest (tightest) setting. This allows the plates to wear together properly. Be prepared to put some force into the grinding during this early stage. Soon the grinding plates will be broken in and grinding will be a simpler, quicker task.

How to Get the Results You Want

The Corona® Mill's plates are easily adjustable. By loosening the Lock Nut and loosening the Adjusting Screw to the coarsest setting (widest plate position), grain may be cracked (i.e. cracked corn, bulgur wheat). Simply tighten the Adjusting Screw a little (moving the plates closer together) to make a finer grain product (i.e. grits or meal). Tighten the screw further for the finest setting to make grist-style flour.

Any manual mill consists of grinding grain between two plates (or burrs), either steel or stone. The bran on the outside of the grain is like God’s wrapping paper on the grain. When the kernel is being ground between the two plates, the wrapping paper comes off and simply flattens and falls through the grinder, only to curl up when it lands. This produces a grist style flour that usually needs to be sifted, prior to making a cake or other bread requiring fine flour. Most old recipes called for sifted flour, but the “white” flour we have today is already so powdery fine, it does not require sifting, thus sifting no longer appears on most modern recipes. Grist style flour has been used for hundreds of years to make excellent breads. Recipes designed for commercially ground flour will need to be adjusted to work properly when using whole kernel grist style flour, due to the higher fiber and lower starch content, but rest assured it works well. The Corona Mill is currently used for this exact purpose in many parts of the world today! And remember, if you want a finer grind, you may simply pass the flour through a second time without any sifting. The only way to achieve powdery fine flour is to sift the flour and then regrind, realizing that some parts of the kernel will not ever grind powdery fine in any manual mill.

The Corona® Mill: Grind Anything!

Want to know more? Find a parts breakdown for the Corona® Mill...or get some tasty recipes.