Mockmill 100
Part of the Grain Mill Comparison
Where the Komo is a beautiful piece of woodworking, the Mockmill is molded from Arboblend®, which seems to be a plasticized wood product. This makes for a very serviceable white case. All of which is to say, it doesn't take one's breath away if you're a lover of cabinetry and joinery. Still, the case is easy to clean and for the price difference, many people would pick the MockMill 100. Its appearance doesn't just bowl you over, but it is attractive in its own way. Like the cute girl next door compared to a model. However, can this girl next door really get the job done? We'll see. Soon.
As mentioned in the overview, this mill was designed by Wolfgang Mock who designed around 70% of the home mills used in Europe. The Komo Fidibus Classic is one of his earlier designs. Setup was simple, though a little more involved than the KoMo - it was necessary to open the top of the mill (which just popped off) and remove two spacers that kept the motor and grinding stones from being harmed in shipment, and then it was necessary to adjust the grind control. This wasn't difficult, and it will be a one time operation, unless you move to a new house or apartment in which case the spacers should be put back in place.
Ease of use is a consideration for people who crack grains. Adjusting the MockMill can be a bit more difficult than on the Komo. The MockMill has an adjusting lever on the side. As long as you can achieve the grind you want within its range of travel, life is good. The adjustment range is from fine to somewhat coarse. If you need to make cracked wheat, life gets more interesting. Where the Komo lets you just turn the top of the mill to adjust over the full range, the MockMill has a sliding lever on the side of the mill to adjust the fineness of the grind. When you go all the way to coarser and need to go further, you have to loosen the sliding lever which disengages it from the grinding mechanism, move it towards fine end its travel and re-tighten it. Then you can move towards coarser again. We had to go through this 3 or 4 times to get coarsely cracked wheat. And then we had to reverse the process to get back to grinding flour. This sounds more complex than it really is, and it wasn't a big hassle, but it was more complex than it needs to be.
Still, the bottom line is pretty obvious. Wolfgang Mock's newest design produces somewhat better flour at a faster speed and a lower price. I think he has a winner on his hands.
Cost | the $259.00 special price has ended, now it is $299.00 |
Time to mill 1,300 grams | 6:52 |
Time to mill 833 grams of middlings | 3:07 |
Sound level while milling | 91db @ 1 meter |
Flour temperature while milling, first milling | 122.2F (50.1C) |
Flour temperature while milling, second milling | 103F (39.4C) |
Comments: | The MockMill made lovely flour, and with it we made lovely bread. It is somewhat faster than the KoMo, which is a plus. The price is quite attractive for the quality of the machine, and the warranty is 6 years, which is generous though not quite as generous as the KoMo's 12 year warranty.
The only downsides are that it doesn't have the Komo's woodworking and it is more complex to adjust to make cracked wheat than it needs to be. |
Now, let's look at particle sizes.
Stopped by Sieve | First pass | Second pass of the middlings |
> 20 Grid | 12 grams | 10 grams |
20 - 50 Grid | 821 grams | 619 grams |
50 - 100 Grid | 352 grams | 181 grams |
< 100 grid | 83 grams | 9 grams |
Please note that there were losses due to flour stuck in the sieves, so the flour weights may not equal 1,300 grams. The Mockmill produced somewhat more finely ground flour in our sieving tests, 435 versus 392 grams. Since both machines produced flour that made excellent bread, it isn't clear if the difference is significant.
But, what about the bread?
You can find more information about the MockMill at their web page, and the good folks at Pleasant Hill Grains are also carrying this mill now.