Frequently Asked Questions

That depends on what you’re paying for in flour. Buying premade organic foods doesn’t give you full control of what you put into your body. Many things labeled as “natural” and “organic” can be more expensive. The price and quality of the ingredients you buy for home grinding will control your costs.

Commercially milled and treated all-purpose flour is chemically treated to minimize cost and prolong shelf life. The reason most people mill their own flour is for baking and dietary reasons more than cost.

We are proud to say that all of our grains are grown in America. We try to source as many grains as possible from local midwestern farms.

Absolutely! The white and whole grain flours in grocery stores are often treated with chemical agents. During the commercial flour milling process biochemical changes are made to the flour to increase shelf life. The purpose of commercially milled flour is to make money and not be healthy. By grinding your own flour you preserve all the nutritional value. The flour created with the Lee Household Flour Mill contains no additives of any kind creating healthier bread and baked goods for you and your family.

Whole grains are different than processed grains in that they contain healthy carbohydrates, which promote good health by delivering a variety of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytonutrients. Whole grains also digest more slowly than refined grains. A slower digestion process doesn’t cause a spike in insulin levels, so you’ll be less hungry as you eat. When eating an appropriate quantity of food, whole grains can help you curb overeating, resulting in weight loss and overall health.

The fit of the stone is tight in order for the mill to maintain tight tolerances. One trick to remove it is to rotate the stone while pulling it out. This helps to keep the stone from getting lodged.

A high concentration of flour dust suspended in air is explosive, as is any high concentration of powdered combustible material in the presence of oxygen. Although there have been explosions at commercial flour mills, such as the Washburn flour mill explosion near Minneapolis in 1878, flour explosions in home kitchens are very rare. Cooks should not let the fear of fire discourage them from baking or keeping flour at home. Flours stored in airtight containers pose virtually no risk of combustion because they lack the surface area to ignite. Also, the Lee Household Flour mill is designed to contain flour dust.

Our stone mill is not designed to mill moist grains, but if you mistakenly grind moist grain, or a high gluten grain at the finest grind setting, there will likely be a stubborn layer of flour left on the inside of the mill. If it doesn’t come off with the regular brush, try a bottle brush, a firm toothbrush, or another coarse brush. When milling sprouted grains, make sure the grains are sufficiently dehydrated prior to milling. You can also watch our video on cleaning the mill.

While almost all the grain will feed down and be ground into flour, a small amount of unground may remain in the mill.

The easiest way to put the nylon cover on the bowl is to attach the cover to the mill opening then start at one edge of the bowl and stretch it across until the elastic sits below the lip of the bowl all the way around. Make sure the elastic is snug around both the bowl and the outlet to prevent flour from leaking out and creating a mess.

The best way to tell when the mill is done is to listen to the sound of the motor. You’ll hear it speed up and see there is no more grain in the hopper.

The time needed to grind flour depends on:

• The type of grain being milled
• The moisture content of the grain
• The grind setting of the mill

Four cups of a soft grain with the mill set to coarse grind could take less than 2 minutes. In general, if you fill the hopper all the way to the 8-cups line with a hard grain and set the control lever to fine, it will take between 20 and 30 minutes. If you only need a few cups of flour to make one loaf of bread, it should take about 10 minutes.

Unfortunately, the company that manufactured and serviced the 500, 600, S-500 and S-600 Lee Household Flour mills is no longer in business. Royal Lee Organics does not have replacement parts for those models.

If your legacy mill is no longer working, consider an upgrade to the new Lee Household Flour Mill S-700. It has all the benefits of our original mill with even better technology. The motor is maintenance free with lifetime-lubricated bearings. No brushes to replace… ever. Milling at home is faster and easier than ever with the latest Lee Household Flour Mill.

Yes, the Lee Household Flour Mill uses a stationary aluminum oxide stone for grinding grain into flour. This traditional milling method removes the need for sifting by fully grinding the grain kernel. Because our mill does not rely on a ‘stone on stone’ design, there is no risk of stone fragments in your flour. The air current from the rotating disc rubs each grain kernel against the stone, reducing them to fine flour.

The centrifugal force increased due to the slightly higher RPM motor.  The actual amount of increase will vary based on the type of grain you are milling. Smaller grains, lower increase. Larger grains, larger increase.

All interior parts, with exception to the outer housing (die cast aluminum), are stainless steel. There is no plastic inside the mill.  The disc, mill blades, and adjustable ring are all stainless steel.  The only plastic parts are: the grain hopper, power switch, power cable cord grip, electrical terminal insulation, and a small amount in the motor construction…

Generally, yes. Most often, flours are substituted due to wheat allergy or wheat intolerance. While many types of flour can be substituted for wheat flour in equal portions, other types may require slightly more or less. Also, because non-wheat flours lack gluten, it is usually necessary to compensate for this in other ways.

Yes. Commercial flour millers and the Lee Household Flour Mill reduce grains and seeds to particles the size of a micron. This is called micronization. By definition, it is the pulverization of a substance into particles of just a few microns in size. To give you an idea how small this is, one micron equates to .001 millimeter.

There are plenty of small insects that will work their way into bags of flour and other pantry items, but the most likely culprits are weevils. These are a species of tiny beetles that get into flour, cereal, rice and other pantry items. The reason they were dead is because there is little nutritional value in most store-bought flour.

Sprouted grains are grains of wheat, rice, barley, etc. that have begun to sprout. Grains are actually the dormant seeds of cereal grasses. Given the right temperature and moisture, they will sprout. As the popularity of raw food diets increases, many sprouted grain and sprouted legume products are becoming available in stores. You can also sprout your own grains, and use your home mill to grind them into flour.

Sprouted grains are even more nutritious than whole grain for these reasons:

1. They are easier to digest than unsprouted grains and are lower on the glycemic index, which makes them more agreeable to anyone with blood sugar level concerns.
2. They have higher vitamin content—almost twice the vitamin B6 and folate, and four times the niacin.
3. The sprouting process releases enyzmes, vitamins and minerals within the grain and makes them more easily assimilated.
4. They have more protein and less starch than non-sprouted grains.

At Royal Lee Organics, Intelligent Healthful Living® is not just a slogan, it is a way of life.

Intelligent – If you are here, you are looking to make an informed decision about your food choices; you are already aware of the effects of commercial processing, pesticides and genetic modifications, and want to make the best choices for you and your family.

Healthful – You realize organic whole foods retain their natural nutrient complexes. You seek to ensure freshness and minimize spoilage of the staple ingredients for your food.

Living – What you eat is the cornerstone of a healthy lifestyle. You are looking to simplify meal planning and create tasty, simple and healthy meals.

If you are curious about baking healthier zucchini bread, apple crisps or chocolate chip cookies, congratulations, you are practicing Intelligent Healthful Living®. At Royal Lee Organics, we want to be a trusted partner in making yours a healthy kitchen.

We always recommend milling only as much flour as you need for whatever you are making. However, we understand there is often flour left over after you’ve milled. Here’s what you need to know:

• If left in a container in your pantry, freshly milled flour will go bad in about 2 days. There are some who say it should last for 5 days, but we think this is pushing it. Rancidity has been found in freshly milled flour as soon as 2 days after being milled.
• If stored in the refrigerator in a sealed container, freshly milled flour should be good for 10 days.
• If stored in a container in the freezer, freshly milled flour will be good for 30 days.

The drawback to hand operated mills is that it can take a long time and a lot of energy to hand-mill as much flour as you need for baking. They also don’t mill as fine of flour as electrically powered mills do.

The Lee Household Flour Mill produces extraordinarily fine flour in a short amount of time. It is also designed to fit on a kitchen counter under most standard kitchen cabinets and can easily be stored out of the way inside a cabinet if desired. In general, you’ll find our electric mill far more convenient and efficient than a hand powered one.

Emphatically, NO! Re-milling flour can damage the motor. While other, less efficient home flour mills may recommend or even require re-milling, this is not the case for the Lee Household Flour Mill. Our mill produces the finest flour of any home flour mill on the market, completely eliminating the need to re-mill. The adjustable settings let you select from coarse to extra fine milling, giving you just the right flour without having to mill over and over.

No. Even if the motor were to overheat, there is an automatic shutoff which will power off the motor if it nears a dangerously high operating temperature. Also, because the Lee Household Flour Mill uses a stationary aluminum oxide milling stone (against which the grain is flung at high velocity by a rapidly rotating impeller), there is no possibility of damaging the stone once all the grain in the hopper has been milled because there is nothing coming into contact with it.

Yes. Freshly milled flour attracts insects, and the flour trapped inside your mill will become rancid in just a few days if not cleaned out. To keep your mill and your kitchen free of pests, and to ensure the flour you mill is free of any old, rancid flour, you should clean out the grinding chamber and brush off the mill stone after each use.

You can order replacement parts for your S-700 model Lee Household Flour Mill on our website. All of our parts and accessories have been carefully made with expert precision specifically for the Lee Household Flour Mill. Replacement parts meant for other flour mill brands will not be compatible with our units and may even cause damage if installed improperly.

If you have a question about any parts not shown in our parts section, please contact us. We are happy to help with any replacements or repairs you may need per our Lee Engineering warranty.

All the grains listed at the Flourpedia page of this site can be milled with the Lee Household Flour Mill.

You should avoid milling any oily seeds, grains or nuts. The moisture in them will gum up the grinding stone on the mill. This is indicative of any stone mill.

First, it is built to last. The new Lee Household Flour Mill is a refined version of the original Lee Household Flour Mill, which is nearly legendary in its ability to provide decades of service. It has a reassuring solidity to it and is built with pride in the United States.

Second, the Lee mill is capable of producing an extremely fine whole grain flour—as fine as any commercially milled flour. The difference this can make in your baking will be readily noticeable in the texture and flavor of your baked goods.