Customer Reviews

KitchenAid GMA Grain Mill Attachment for Stand Mixers

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This attachment reveals a design flaw in the Kitchenaid Mixer design. Inside every Kitchenaid Mixer you have a transmission/gearbox that drive both the mixer and the accessory drive shaft. This gearbox has a PLASTIC cover that holds all the gears in place.

The grain mill attachment places the *most* stress on your kitchenaid, more than any other attachment you can buy. What happens is when you're grinding wheat, it heats up that gearbox and the plastic cover starts to flex, and if you run it more than 10 minutes it'll heat up enough to break the plastic.

I bought this attachement for my wife for Christmas 2004. It broke the transmission and stripped the gears on the mixer in January. We removed the cover and saw the cracked plastic. Kitchenaid promptly sent a replacement mixer even though ours was "out of warranty". This tells me that they KNOW about their design flaw.

We got our shiny new Kitchenaid Mixer the next week. My wife took it out of the box, attached the grain mill and started it grinding flour. Within 10 minutes the plastic cover failed on the new one. Kitchenaid sent out a new one, again. We're now on our third mixer and we're looking to get a refund from Kitchenaid for the Grain Mill so we can go out and buy a real wheat grinder.

It's really sad. All Kitchenaid needs to do is put a metal gearbox cover on the transmission and you could grind wheat into flour non-stop. I can't believe that they're willing to stake their good name on a plastic part!

This product does a great job...what the manufacturer fails to tell you that your local distributor probably would, mine did, is that you need to first run the wheat through on a really course setting. Then run it through on a finer setting. I actually take the time to run it through 3 times. It doesn't take that much longer, and its worth the time. I have found if I do this, my machine doesn't have to work as hard.

This is a great an "cheaper" way of getting a wheat grinder. ;o )

Generally I've been satisfied with all Kitchen Aid attachments, but this one is a little different. For the price I could buy myself a stand alone grain mill with more features and save the load on my beloved workhorse.

If you want to take the time to grind twice just for one loaf that's okay,BUT, if you are interested in grinding 5 or more pounds at once this is not the mill you want. Try the Grainmaster with the lifetime warranty.

I have had the pleasure of milling all the wheat we use for bread with this mill for almost 5 years. It does a terrific job. I have never double milled and do not find that step necessary. The resulting flour makes the greatest bread.

I've used this several times with my Professional 5 Plus mixer with no problems. I have started from the coarsest setting and progressed to the finest. I have also started with the finest setting and worked the other direction to get the desired coarseness without any problem.

The Professional 5 has all metal gears which may be why I haven't had any problems like others have had. It could be I haven't used it enough yet.

This is very noisy, with a slightly high pitch, grinder. I gave 4 stars because the grinder will only grind low-moisture, non-oily grains.

I would have given this product 5 stars, but I wanted to give an accurate assessment of the item as grain mill in general. This item is best used for small batches. After milling 2 cups of spelt berries at the finest setting, the unit became too hot to touch and I let it sit for an hour before starting up again. If you mill at a coarser setting, you can mill more and also mill faster. If you are mindful and enjoy the whole process, the extra time is not an issue. If you want mill on a medium or large scale, you do not want this unit. If you want to mill enough for a couple of loaves now and then, it is a great buy. I bought it because I already had a KitchenAid and it was much cheaper than spending $300 or more for a dedicated grain mill.

As the other person noticed, you need to run wheat (at least my hard red spring) through the mixer more than once. I do once on 3 clicks and once on 1 click to get a more fine grind.

I have found that my mixer, the Professional 5qt, is somewhat overtaxed by this. Kitchenaid and I went through 4 mixers (at their expense) before I figured out what I was doing wrong (indeed, I was following the directions all along, but that wasn't enough).

I own a KitchenAid 6 quart Professional mixer with 525 watts of power and purchased this grain mill so we could grind our own wheat for bread.

It was a complete disaster. Not only does it completely stress out the mixer but it does not grind nearly fine enough for flour. Following other advise to run the grain through 2 times, we filled the hopper with the berries and before it finished (on medium grind) the mixer was so hot we had to stop the machine for about 45 minutes. Trying to run the medium grind to a finer grind totally cooked my beloved mixer and broke the bearing before the grinding was complete. (We did have the metal gear box but that didn't stop the damage that this mill did).

I agree with most of the reviews here purchase a real grain mill and save your mixer!

We have had this grinder for about 3 years now and we love it. I usually mix 4 cups of wheat and 1 cup of soy beans together to grind into flour for bread making and have had no problems.
I've heard many stories of people having their motors burn out from the usage of this attachment. If you keep in mind a few things, you shouldn't have any problems. First off, you should only grind no more than 5 cups at one time, otherwise you risk burning out your motor. Also, I only put my setting on '2'. It may take a bit longer to grind, but I still have a mixer to use afterwards. You can also grind your grain twice. First time on a coarser setting then run it through again to a finer grind. I've never had to do this as using the #2 setting on my mixer and only grinding 5 cups max has given me no problems.
FWIW, I have The Professional 5 mixer with a 350 Watt motor.