For almost a year I have been milling my own flour. I’ve been baking my own bread for several years and wanted to get into whole grain baking. As mentioned in an earlier post, I decided to purchase a home mill after much research. I love it. The bread is so much better with freshly milled flour. The sweetness of the grain comes through in a way I did not know I was missing.

Most grains including hard red wheat berries are easy to find locally. Mother’s Market, Sprouts, and Whole Foods all have bulk bin sections where you can find it and soft white wheat berries. Soft white wheat is lower in protein and more like an all purpose or pastry flour. I love baking with hard white wheat berries. Nutritionally, it is the same as the red, but more mild in flavor.

I’ve been buying my hard white wheat berries from the Palouse Brand through Amazon.com. The grain has been wonderful. I have no complaints. I did want to find organic and I felt badly for the delivery people having to lug 25lb bags of grain to my house regularly. The boxes were usually somewhat squished, although the grain was fine.

I hoped to find a local source and happened through Instagram to find a wonderful store in Silverlake, CA called The King’s Roost. They are a DIY shop with tools like grain mills, candle making supplies, and workshops. They are part of the Los Angeles Bread Bakers and make group purchases of flour and grain. It’s open to the public to get in on bulk sales, which is great. I was able to get 50 pounds of organic hard white wheat berries for $42, which was considerably less than Amazon or anywhere else I could find. Shipping is what usually drives up the cost. The catch is that you have to pre-pay and wait for enough orders to fill up a truck. You don’t know when you will get your grain. You also have to pick it up within one week of delivery as the store is small and he can’t store the grain long term. I called ahead and spoke to Roe, the owner of the store. He was gracious, informative and kind. I ordered my grain on his website and actually had it within 2 weeks. That was faster than normal, but I wasn’t complaining.

As a bonus, Silverlake is awesome! We found a wonderful vegan cafe, Flore Vegan, just a few doors up. We had our grain, a wonderful brunch, and a great visit to their store. Roe has all of the Mockmills in stock along with many KoMos. I love my KoMo, but wouldn’t mind trying out the Mockmill 200 someday.