NEW WonderMill Wonder Junior Deluxe Review

by Grain Mill Guide

Some of My Experience

Hand grain mills are kind of a fascination of mine. I have several hand grain mills myself, good and bad ones. I have the following hand grain mills: Back-To-Basics (and the Victorio, which is the same thing), Retsel Uni-Ark, Sunshine Nugget, Lehman’s Best, Family Living, Country Living, and both the New and Old Wonder Junior Deluxe. I use all of these hand grain mills to see how they work and perform so I can learn the positives and negatives of each mill. My father in-law also has the Diamant hand grain mill (a $1,299 hand grain mill), which I hope to use a bit some time soon and I have plans to acquire a few other hand grain mills in the next year to experiment with. With all the experience I have had using these hand grain mills the one I recommend the most is the NEW WonderMill Wonder Junior Deluxe hand grain mill, it has some huge improvements that make it the best choice.

Is Hand Milling Easy?

Before I start to tell you the great things about the NEW Wonder Junior Deluxe, I want to make clear that hand grain milling is a little bit of a chore no matter what hand mill you have. Some hand grain mills are easier than others and some take forever longer than others but none of them crank as smooth as butter, unless you are grinding butter. Remember that you are grinding hard grains into fine flour, it is hard to make that a super easy process to do with out electricity.

How Easy Is The Wonder Junior?

I would say that the Wonder Junior Deluxe is as easy to turn as the Retsel Uni-Ark, much easier than the Lehman’s and Sunshine Nugget hand grain mills, and just slightly harder to turn than the Country Living grain mill. Here is what makes the Wonder Junior Deluxe easier than these other hand grain mills: OUTPUT POWER! The New Wonder Junior Deluxe can output a 1/2 cup more flour per minute than even the Country Living grain mill can, and even more flour output when compared to some of the other hand grain mills. So for the same amount of work or less I am done milling faster, that equals much easier to me.

Another item that makes the Wonder Junior Deluxe easier is the included table clamp mount, even the old Wonder Junior Deluxe came with this nice mount. The Wonder Junior’s mount is very wide and has 2 clamps so that you will have less wobbling or chance of the grain mill coming loose. I also like that the 2 knobs are far enough apart that you can turn them with out rubbing your knuckles the one next to it. Many mills do not even come with a mount, they just bolt through your table.

The flour guide is also a great addition to the New Wonder Junior Deluxe. Many of grain mills of this style (even the old Wonder Junior) spray flour out of all sides of the circular milling burrs requiring you to have a bread pan or wide bowl to catch all the flour, and even then you’ll have a little bit of flour dust to clean up. The new flour guide catches all the flour coming out and guides it to a small width, perfect for my 2 cup capacity measuring cup or any other container. Even the Country Living is not that clean of a grain mill without its special flour bin, that is sold separately, I always have to clean up after it.

WonderMill is Always Improving

One thing I see about the WonderMill Company is that they are continuously making improvements to both of their hand and electric grain mills to make them better and easier for us to use. This can really be seen in this New Wonder Junior Deluxe with its flour guide, cleaning brush, and new aggressive grain auger. A dealer, that I know well, tells me that they have more plans for the future of their grain mills. As I look at the other hand grain mills available, I don’t see any improvements over the years except in the available colors or something like that. It is comforting to put your trust in a company that actively seeks to improve their product instead of being satisfied with their current status quo.

Will It Hold Up? You Bet

The Wonder Junior Deluxe may not be as heavy duty as the Country Living grain mill but the Country Living is a bit over kill in my opinion, though some you may like overkill. The Wonder Junior Deluxe is built to last and take all the strain and use you give it. When compared to the Uni-Ank, Sunshine Nugget, or Lehman’s hand grain mills, the Wonder Junior stands out in thickness, quality, and strength. I have complete confidence that this mill will last me a lifetime.

I Mill More Than Just Grains

One thing I like about the mid-priced hand grain mills is that they are designed to do more than just mill dry grains and such. Mid-priced hand grain mills can usually grind nuts, spices, oily grains, softer grains, seeds, and similar items to these; The New Wonder Junior Deluxe does all these items better than any grain mill I have used, and it has been fun to try different items in some of my experiments. One item that I do not recommend trying to mill is dried carrots or other dried vegetables, dried carrots seem to turn into a hard substance and will require some hard scrubbing to get off the milling burrs. Other than that, I have not found much that doesn’t go though this hand grain mill. Willitgrind.com is a WonderMill website that shows many of the things you can grind with the New Wonder Junior Deluxe, if you are interested in seeing more of what you can grind.

Money Is Always a Factor

I wish I could say it wasn’t true but most of us can’t just blow a chunk of money on a hand grain mill. So why not buy the cheapest grain mill? Well, I would rather do without a grain mill rather than buy a cheap hand grain mill that is not durable or requires too much time to use. Of all the mid-priced hand grain mills out there, the Wonder Junior Deluxe gives you quite a bit more for just a little more cash than the others. After the mid-priced hand grain mills the price tag doubles for not that much added bonus, and for $400 many of us can not afford to make the investment anyway.

Motorizing

Motorizing is probably an area where the Country Living grain mill shines above the rest but only if you have the money to take advantage of it. The Wonder Junior has a motorizing pulley available if you want to figure out how to motorize it yourself but no full motorizing kit. The Country Living grain mill has a full motorizing kit available for about $350 extra. Some would call this an advantage but I don’t get to excited about it because, for the $750 it costs to get a Country Living and its motorizing kit, I could buy a Wonder Junior Deluxe and a good electric grain mill with $200+ in saved cash in my pocket (see my article on this).

UPDATE: WonderMill has come out with a Drill Bit Attachment that allows you to hook your Wonder Junior up to your high powered drill. This attachment costs about $30, not bad when compared to other motorizing options and costs. I have recently bought this attachment and will update this article when I have had plenty of time to test its use.

Am I The Only One

As I have searched the internet, I see many others who recommend the Wonder Junior Deluxe grain mill. From Amazon customers
to professionals like theSurvivalistBlog, theSurvivalMom, Vickilynn Haycraft, James Stevens, and other who are looked up to in there specific fields, they seem to like the Wonder Junior Deluxe as the hand grain mill of choice. I hope you do not get set on the Country Living grain mill just because you think there is no other choice for quality because that would be far from the truth. As with others on the internet, I can really recommend the WonderMill Wonder Junior Deluxe for your consideration for a top quality hand grain mill.

Why Not an Electric Grain Mill?

Some may ask why anyone would want a hand grain mill rather than an electric grain mill. I personally have both and for different purposes. An electric grain mill is nice for normal kitchen use to make bread flours, bean flours, and corn flours fast and with no effort. A hand grain mill gives you a few things: use with no electricity (preppers, survivalists, and green minded people like this feature), coarser grind setting for cereals or cracked grains and such, ability to grind items that will clog or ruin your electric grain mill, and specialty flours like almond flour and nut butters (though nut butters is not an quick process in a hand grain mill). There are many advantages that a hand grain mill gives you that an electric grain mill can’t do but if you just plan on using a grain mill for making bread flours, and electricity is not an issue, then a good electric grain mill is the way to go for you.

Got Questions, Post Them Below

If you have further questions about the Wonder Junior Deluxe hand grain mill, please use the comment reply box below to ask and I will try to check back regularly to answer those questions. As I learn more or think of more to add, I plan on updating the review text.

Purchase: You can purchase a Wonder Junior Deluxe hand grain mill from Kodiak Health Products.

Need Some Grain Mill Recipes? Check out GrainMillRecipes.com for great recipes using any grain mill.

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