KoMo Fidibus Classic
Part of the Grain Mill Comparison
The KoMo Fidibus Classic Grain Mill is an earlier design from Wolfgang Mock who designed around 75% of the home mills in use in Europe. The good folks at Pleasant Hills Grain loaned this mill to us, and they were great to deal with throughout the review, and even after. It is a refined and elegant design, which required no real setup - just take it out of the box and set it on a countertop. Adjusting the grind of the grain is easy to do, just turn the top of the mill clockwise for finer grind, counterclockwise for coarser grind. It can be adjusted over a very wide range very easily.
People in the Grain Mill group on Facebook say the finer the grind, the better the rise in the bread. They also suggested milling the middlings a second time to get finer particles. The middlings are the grain particles that are too large to go through the sieves that sort the flour. So, I remilled the flour that didn't go through the 20 and 50 grid sieves. The KoMo happily reground the middlings, but they didn't feed through the mill by themselves, so I had to push the middlings into the hopper by hand. In later baking tests, I just ground the flour once and called it done. (Sieving flour is a pain in the neck and in the back.) You can see in the chart below that regrinding the middlings did produce more flour with small particle size. Whether it was worth it is another question altogether.
I have to say it - this is a beautiful mill! The most attractive of the bunch! When I was a wood shop teacher I would have given the joinery at least a B+ or A-. Maybe even higher. The fit and finish are just gorgeous, especially for a consumer product. My wife is very concerned that our counter tops in our kitchen look neat. To that end, appliances that aren't used daily are banished to closed cupboards. But when she saw the KoMo Fidibus Classic Grain Mill she told me, "This one can stay on the countertop." Wife approval is not easily come by. However, that woodwork (and approval) comes at a price - the woodwork is hand made which is quite likely a large part of why this mill is almost twice the cost of the MockMill.
Ease of use is a consideration. The Komo makes it easy to change the grind over its full range, just turn the top of the mill. Easy peasy. Which makes it easy to switch from cracking grain to grinding flour. The MockMill is slightly more difficult to adjust.
And that leads to the question, does the KoMo deliver? Or is it a no-go showboat?
Cost | $499.00 list |
Time to mill 1,300 grams | 9:24 |
Time to mill 891 grams of middlings | 1:45 |
Sound level while milling | 89db @ 1 meter |
Flour temperature while milling, first milling | 129.6F (54.2C) |
Flour temperature while milling, second milling | 95F (35C) |
Comments: | The KoMo Fidibus Classic Grain Mill made beautiful flour. While not the fastest mill, it was far from the slowest. I could easily live with this mill, and the flour it makes. The 12 year warranty is a big plus! Bottom line - yeah, it delivers!
The only downsides are that it is slower than the WhisperMill or MockMill 100, and it is rather pricey. |
Now, let's look at particle sizes.
Stopped by Sieve | First pass | Second pass of the middlings |
> 20 Grid | 15 grams | 14 grams |
20 - 50 Grid | 876 grams | 628 grams |
50 - 100 Grid | 343 grams | 226 grams |
< 100 grid | 49 grams | 22 grams |
Please note that there were losses due to flour stuck in the sieves so the numbers above may not add up to 1,300. The Komo produced somewhat less finely ground flour in our sieving tests, 392 versus 435 grams. Since both machines produced flour that made excellent bread, it isn't clear if the difference is significant.
But, what about the bread?
Both the MockMill and Komo produced good flour that made great breads for me. It is hard to choose between them strictly on the basis of the breads they produce.
You can find the mill at Pleasant Hill Grains.