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Product Description
It's a pretty big claim to call your product "The World's Best." But we know that after you have used the Wonder Junior Hand Grain Mill that you will agree. For years hand grain mills have either been really cheap or really expensive. And unfortunately their ability to perform has been directly related to their cost. The cheap ones perform poorly and the expensive ones perform great. When we designed the Wonder Junior we set out to create the perfect storm in hand grain mills. And we wanted the versatility and high quality of the most expensive mills in a price range that was affordable to the homemaker. We found the perfect storm with the Wonder Junior Hand Grain Mill.
The Wonder Junior is the highest quality most versatile hand mill available. You can create super fine flour or coarse cracked grains for cereals. By simply swapping the stone heads for the stainless steel burr heads you can grind flax or any other oily or wet grains, you can grind herbs and spices, soy beans, and legumes. And you can even grind fresh coffee. In all these applications you are assured to always have the perfect fresh nutritious ingredients for your family even if the power is out. Professionals agree that the Wonder Junior Hand Grain Mill is THE handmill to own
Features and Versatility
The Wonder Junior Hand Grain Mill has amazing features at a very reasonable price. The whole mill is powder-coated making it safe to wash for easy clean up. The hopper is large and holds over one quart. The octagon shape of the hopper makes it easy to fill. And because the Wonder Junior is one-piece construction you don't have to worry about the hopper coming off during milling like many other hand grain mill models. One of the greatest features of the Wonder Junior is its heavy-duty patented double clamp.
No returns on used products
15% re-stocking fee on un-opened products.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
217 of 221 people found the following review helpful
By Leila
Amazon Verified Purchase
Here's what I wanted in a mill:
1. The ability to grind very fine flour.
2. A mill that could be cleaned well enough to grind gluten-free flours after grinding wheat.
3. A hand-powered mill to have on hand for emergency preparedness.
Since I couldn't afford 3 separate mills, I settled on the Wonder Junior Deluxe.
Here's how it met my requirements:
1. This mill can grind a very fine flour, but only if you grind it coarsly, then again on a finer setting. The problem with this is the second grind takes a VERY long time. Doing a single grind, I was able to grind 4 cups of hard red winter wheat into bread flour in 20 minutes. I was grinding like I was trying to set a world record though, just to see how fast I could physically grind wheat. I do not grind this fast on a regular basis. For comparison, I'm a relatively small female, and not in the greatest shape, but even my husband had trouble keeping up that pace. My four-year old can't even turn the handle. We thought the single-grind flour made gritty, heavy, bread, so I've been double grinding. It takes me about an hour and a half to grind the same 4 cups of wheat berries into fine flour, putting it through the mill twice. I do the first grind as coarse as possible, but still cracking the grain, hoping that the larger particles will feed through faster.
2. This mill can be cleaned well, but I had to use a Waterpik to get all of the wheat out of the auger. At least this mill can be washed - some can't. It is not very easy to wash, and I have to let it dry overnight before using it again. However, if you're not worried about gluten contamination, you don't need to do much more than just brush it off between uses.
3. I suppose this mill meets my "emergency preparedness" requirements. If I couldn't afford flour and had to grind my own, this would do the job, provided I had enough time. If I didn't have electricity, it would still work.
After getting frustrated by the amount of effort and time this mill took, I decided to try to hook it up to a foot pedal. I took apart some old exercise equipment for a pedal and sprocket, bought a bike sprocket and chain, and made a contraption. It works, but it's still really slow to grind flour this way. I found pedaling lying on the floor took way less effort than sitting. At one point, I gave up on this mill, and bought the Kitchenaid grain mill attachment for my mixer. After a couple of months, this attachment broke my mixer, so now I'm back to grinding flour by hand (and now kneading dough by hand too!).
Some other thoughts:
The mill seems to be built well. I've been using it regularly, and nothing looks like it will break any time soon.
It is capable of grinding rice flour almost as fine as store bought flour (again, double grinding).
It does not make consistently sized coarse meal. You get a mix of sizes, from fine flour to large pieces.
I haven't found much use for the steel burrs. Using them on grain, it is difficult to turn the handle, and it jerks as grain gets caught in it. I tried making peanut butter with the steel burrs. I had to use a knife to chop the peanuts into approximately quarter-peanut sized pieces to get them to feed through. It did make a nice creamy peanut butter. However, it took so long and made such a gooey mess, I don't think I'll be trying nut butters again.
It took grinding 15-20 pounds of grain to break in my stone burrs, not the "pound or so" that the manual says. I started throwing away the first couple of spoonfuls of flour, and I stop grinding when there was still grain visible in the auger. I don't know if that made the difference, or if the burrs just finally broke in. At least there are no more pieces of sand in the bread now.
So from what I know and have read, here are my recommendations: If you can afford the Country Living mill, buy it, not this mill. If you want to grind a lot of flour (and have electricity), get an electric mill (but not the Kitchenaid mill attachment!). If you need a hand-powered mill to grind fine flour, and this mill is all you can afford, it does work; it's just really slow and requires a lot of effort. If you are preparing for a complete disaster, consider whether or not you are really going to need to grind fine flour in that situation. For much less than the price of this mill, the Back to Basics mill will make coarse flour perfect for making hot cereal (or even slightly gritty pancakes or flatbread).
I'm on a tight budget right now, and justified the price of this mill with the money I could save on bread, so that's why I've been crazy enough to keep using it. What I really need now is two electric mills - one for wheat, and one for gluten-free grains.
**UPDATE**
I bought and installed the re-designed (new in 2011) auger. It works very well on things like corn and beans. However, now I can no longer grind wheat into fine flour, even when I double grind, and the handle is harder to turn. I have to add half white flour to bread to keep it from coming out a brick.
My original auger got rusty from washing the mill (so be really careful if you wash it - or better yet, don't get it wet). I am so unhappy with the new auger that I'm going to clean the rust off my old one and re-install it. Unfortunately, this is not an easy process, so I can't switch back and forth between the augers depending on what I'm milling.
1. The ability to grind very fine flour.
2. A mill that could be cleaned well enough to grind gluten-free flours after grinding wheat.
3. A hand-powered mill to have on hand for emergency preparedness.
Since I couldn't afford 3 separate mills, I settled on the Wonder Junior Deluxe.
Here's how it met my requirements:
1. This mill can grind a very fine flour, but only if you grind it coarsly, then again on a finer setting. The problem with this is the second grind takes a VERY long time. Doing a single grind, I was able to grind 4 cups of hard red winter wheat into bread flour in 20 minutes. I was grinding like I was trying to set a world record though, just to see how fast I could physically grind wheat. I do not grind this fast on a regular basis. For comparison, I'm a relatively small female, and not in the greatest shape, but even my husband had trouble keeping up that pace. My four-year old can't even turn the handle. We thought the single-grind flour made gritty, heavy, bread, so I've been double grinding. It takes me about an hour and a half to grind the same 4 cups of wheat berries into fine flour, putting it through the mill twice. I do the first grind as coarse as possible, but still cracking the grain, hoping that the larger particles will feed through faster.
2. This mill can be cleaned well, but I had to use a Waterpik to get all of the wheat out of the auger. At least this mill can be washed - some can't. It is not very easy to wash, and I have to let it dry overnight before using it again. However, if you're not worried about gluten contamination, you don't need to do much more than just brush it off between uses.
3. I suppose this mill meets my "emergency preparedness" requirements. If I couldn't afford flour and had to grind my own, this would do the job, provided I had enough time. If I didn't have electricity, it would still work.
After getting frustrated by the amount of effort and time this mill took, I decided to try to hook it up to a foot pedal. I took apart some old exercise equipment for a pedal and sprocket, bought a bike sprocket and chain, and made a contraption. It works, but it's still really slow to grind flour this way. I found pedaling lying on the floor took way less effort than sitting. At one point, I gave up on this mill, and bought the Kitchenaid grain mill attachment for my mixer. After a couple of months, this attachment broke my mixer, so now I'm back to grinding flour by hand (and now kneading dough by hand too!).
Some other thoughts:
The mill seems to be built well. I've been using it regularly, and nothing looks like it will break any time soon.
It is capable of grinding rice flour almost as fine as store bought flour (again, double grinding).
It does not make consistently sized coarse meal. You get a mix of sizes, from fine flour to large pieces.
I haven't found much use for the steel burrs. Using them on grain, it is difficult to turn the handle, and it jerks as grain gets caught in it. I tried making peanut butter with the steel burrs. I had to use a knife to chop the peanuts into approximately quarter-peanut sized pieces to get them to feed through. It did make a nice creamy peanut butter. However, it took so long and made such a gooey mess, I don't think I'll be trying nut butters again.
It took grinding 15-20 pounds of grain to break in my stone burrs, not the "pound or so" that the manual says. I started throwing away the first couple of spoonfuls of flour, and I stop grinding when there was still grain visible in the auger. I don't know if that made the difference, or if the burrs just finally broke in. At least there are no more pieces of sand in the bread now.
So from what I know and have read, here are my recommendations: If you can afford the Country Living mill, buy it, not this mill. If you want to grind a lot of flour (and have electricity), get an electric mill (but not the Kitchenaid mill attachment!). If you need a hand-powered mill to grind fine flour, and this mill is all you can afford, it does work; it's just really slow and requires a lot of effort. If you are preparing for a complete disaster, consider whether or not you are really going to need to grind fine flour in that situation. For much less than the price of this mill, the Back to Basics mill will make coarse flour perfect for making hot cereal (or even slightly gritty pancakes or flatbread).
I'm on a tight budget right now, and justified the price of this mill with the money I could save on bread, so that's why I've been crazy enough to keep using it. What I really need now is two electric mills - one for wheat, and one for gluten-free grains.
**UPDATE**
I bought and installed the re-designed (new in 2011) auger. It works very well on things like corn and beans. However, now I can no longer grind wheat into fine flour, even when I double grind, and the handle is harder to turn. I have to add half white flour to bread to keep it from coming out a brick.
My original auger got rusty from washing the mill (so be really careful if you wash it - or better yet, don't get it wet). I am so unhappy with the new auger that I'm going to clean the rust off my old one and re-install it. Unfortunately, this is not an easy process, so I can't switch back and forth between the augers depending on what I'm milling.
164 of 167 people found the following review helpful
If money is no object the country living mill is better and twice as expensive. The other well known mill in this price range is Lehman's "Our Best Grain Mill." I've owned a Lehman's best for 16 years. It's inferior in every way. The hopper is a plastic funnel stuck in a hole and will fall off if you look at it wrong. The Wondermill Junior hopper that holds the grain is an integral part of the body. The Lehman's Best Grain Mill metal burrs are cast iron and subject to rusting. The WM Jr metal burrs are stainless steel, the Deluxe also includes stone burrs. The Lehman's clamp is an inferior one screw design. The WM Jr is secure with a soldid two screw clamp design.
If the deluxe is out of your budget there is also the less expensive basic and the only difference is you do not get the stainless steel burrs (just the stone burrs) and you do not get the clamp, you can screw it to a table. Both items can be added later. The stone burrs are best for grinding flour.
Yes the WM JR does a great job of grinding everything from wheat for flour to making peanut butter with the stainless steel burrs.
If the deluxe is out of your budget there is also the less expensive basic and the only difference is you do not get the stainless steel burrs (just the stone burrs) and you do not get the clamp, you can screw it to a table. Both items can be added later. The stone burrs are best for grinding flour.
Yes the WM JR does a great job of grinding everything from wheat for flour to making peanut butter with the stainless steel burrs.
81 of 81 people found the following review helpful
By starlog
Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought one of these from an Amazon seller in November 2009, after I got to play with one in a store. It has a very smooth grinding motion and feels sturdy.
Well, lazy me, I didn't try to use mine until today, February 10, 2010. I found I was missing pins on the housing and figured that I would be SOL since it had been so long. My husband called Wondermill's number and got an answering machine. I'm now thinking, great - they'll probably never call back. Can you tell I've previously had bad experiences with customer-no-service at various companies?
About 15 minutes later, the phone rings - hey, Wondermill called! After a few minutes of explanation, my husband was told the pins should have been pre-installed in the housing and they would be shipped to us. My husband also mentioned to the guy that the backing plate on one of the grinding stones was slightly out of position and asked if it would affect its operation. He was told that it probably wouldn't, but to try it after the pins were received, and they'd send a new set of stones if there's a problem. WOW - great customer service (I'm now feeling all warm and fuzzy).
A few minutes later, they called back to verify that he was clear on the set depth of the pins, since there are no instructions for factory-installed parts. Since we're handy people, we didn't ask to have them installed, but I'm sure they would have done that for us. Nice follow-up!
I'm VERY pleased with their response and highly recommend them.
Update: I forgot to update this sooner... The pins arrived, my husband installed them, and the mill works great! If I were grinding a lot of flour on a regular basis, I'd add an electric motor because it does take some time to grind flour. It's not hard - just not fast. BTW, freshly-ground flour is tasty!
Well, lazy me, I didn't try to use mine until today, February 10, 2010. I found I was missing pins on the housing and figured that I would be SOL since it had been so long. My husband called Wondermill's number and got an answering machine. I'm now thinking, great - they'll probably never call back. Can you tell I've previously had bad experiences with customer-no-service at various companies?
About 15 minutes later, the phone rings - hey, Wondermill called! After a few minutes of explanation, my husband was told the pins should have been pre-installed in the housing and they would be shipped to us. My husband also mentioned to the guy that the backing plate on one of the grinding stones was slightly out of position and asked if it would affect its operation. He was told that it probably wouldn't, but to try it after the pins were received, and they'd send a new set of stones if there's a problem. WOW - great customer service (I'm now feeling all warm and fuzzy).
A few minutes later, they called back to verify that he was clear on the set depth of the pins, since there are no instructions for factory-installed parts. Since we're handy people, we didn't ask to have them installed, but I'm sure they would have done that for us. Nice follow-up!
I'm VERY pleased with their response and highly recommend them.
Update: I forgot to update this sooner... The pins arrived, my husband installed them, and the mill works great! If I were grinding a lot of flour on a regular basis, I'd add an electric motor because it does take some time to grind flour. It's not hard - just not fast. BTW, freshly-ground flour is tasty!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best money I've ever spent on a grinder
Versatile and does a wonderful job. Easy to clean and sets up in a flash. I bought two and will never buy another brand!
Published 1 day ago by Tater
3.0 out of 5 stars
OK, but not great.
This grinder would keep you busy grinding if you had a large family (5-6) It is difficult to turn and can be very slow. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mitch Bennett
4.0 out of 5 stars
Get ready for a work out.
This grain mill is great and does the job but is a bit of a work out. I bought it in case of a power outage and I am very happy with it. It makes a nice flour.
Published 2 months ago by Aleta Jenkins
5.0 out of 5 stars
wonder junior hand mill
I like this grain mill easy to use and clean up well made.grinds my wheat berries nicely for my homemade breads.love the versatility of this grain mill.
Published 2 months ago by TIFF
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great item!
This mill is very well built. I was amazed at how tough the construction is.
Loved the fact that it had the drill attachment enclosed. Read more
Loved the fact that it had the drill attachment enclosed. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mary
5.0 out of 5 stars
great product
This product is built to last and is not made of any plastic or aluminum parts that may break or need replacing in the future. Good, solid construction. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Droogie
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thank You Wondermill
I am so glad to be able to grind fresh grains for baking gluten and corn free. This mill is not as slow as others made me think. Read more
Published 3 months ago by DanyB
5.0 out of 5 stars
Works as advertised
Works great and very sturdy. I was able to get a fine grind in one pass, but trial and error seems to show that I can get fine grain a lot easier by making two passes. Read more
Published 3 months ago by SargeGC
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonder Junior Deluxe Hand Grain / Flour Mill by Wondermill
Excellent - best value for money around - especially the drill adapter. Good to have for that day when my dried food storage is required. Read more
Published 3 months ago by paul briggs
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love the mill
It does surprise me how very long it takes to grind wheat, but I do like the mill. It was a bit difficult to put together, but it is what was advertised. Would purchase again. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Susan J. Draper
