How to Grind Wheat in a Blender

I mentioned on my Facebook page a couple weeks ago that I had made bread using wheat that I ground in the blender.  Some of you were curious to see how it turned out, so I thought I'd share the post that I wrote over on my other blog. 

As requested, here are the results of my experiment with grinding wheat in the blender.  I love cooking with whole foods, but I've never baked with freshly ground wheat before.  I don't have a wheat grinder, and I certainly didn't intend on spending the money for one if it were possible to grind it in a blender.

Step one: Get some wheat berries.  I ordered mine from Vitacost since you get a free $10 coupon when you create an account.  I didn't feel like spending good money on an experiment when I knew it might not work.

I used hard white wheat berries, but I wouldn't think it would make much difference what kind you use.

Step Two:  Get your blender ready to go.  Do not let the brand name of my blender fool you.  KitchenAid mixers are definitely 10 steps ahead of any other mixer, but their blenders?  Eh...not my favorite by any means.  All that to say - even if you have a cheap blender, it will probably work just fine.

Step 3:   Add the wheat berries and start grinding.  I only ground about a cup at a time.  The wheat berries jumped so high when I turned it on that I was afraid if I added any more the flour would start flying out the top of the blender.

Step four: I found that I needed to let it run on high for about 2 minutes. If I ground for less time it still had chunks. And if I ground for more time, it didn't seem to get any more fine, but the motor started heating up the flour.

Step five: Bake some bread or rolls using your favorite whole wheat bread recipe.  I actually made some of both.  My bread didn't turn out too pretty, but you get the idea.

My conclusion:  The blender definitely does not get the flour very fine.  The dough feels very gritty when you're working with it.  But as you can see from the pictures, it is still very useable.  (How pretty your bread turns out just depends on how good of a cook you are - which I'm obviously not the greatest!)


I'm very curious now to try out a recipe I saw for Blender Pancakes!  You grind the wheat in the blender along with the other pancake ingredients and then pour them onto the griddle!

Has anyone else ever tried grinding wheat in a blender?  How did yours turn out?