Supply and demand. The less of a demand there is for something, the more it becomes a “specialty item”, which get sold at a much higher price. And what the market will bear. Because there is less demand for it, there are fewer companies producing it, which makes there be less competition, and everyone knows that competition is what brings down prices.

There is, however, more demand for gluten free grains than there is for gluten free flours, which is why the cheapest way to live gluten free is to just avoid using gluten free flour. While it is a nice idea and cheaper to just avoid things needing flour, and just use grains instead, life gets awfully boring just having rice and potatoes and rice and potatoes and rice and potatoes, with no noodle type thing, no pizza type thing, no bread type thing, no pie type thing, no cookies, no cakes, etc… And you can bet that if you have kids, they won’t be content without those things either. 

So, the question is- do you buy those things ready made gluten free, do you buy gluten free flour with which to make them, or do you make your own?

You can make your own gluten free flours with a coffee grinder, as I’ve explained in this post, but I’ll be honest, it’s annoying enough that I don’t bother to do so most of the time. And it doesn’t work for making bean flours, like chickpea flour. And coffee grinders overheat quickly, so you can only do a little bit at a time, taking breaks in between, so that it doesn’t overheat and kill the motor. Of course, I found the straining and regrinding to be frustrating and annoying.

In short, I was spending a lot on gluten free flour. 

And I didn’t want to be.

I decided to buy the Blendtec Kitchen Mill Grain Grinder
because of all the industrial grade (meaning powerful enough to not overheat, and actually does a good job grinding grain), it was the cheapest, and had terrific reviews.
I had read about the BlendTec grain grinder on a few different blogs, and everyone who’s used it has only had good things to say about it.

It also helped that it was being sold by Amazon.com, which meant that I could use my free Amazon.com gift cards which I earned free from Swagbucks, to pay for part of the cost of the grinder.

It also helps that the Blendtec Kitchen Mill
is light and compact- because I don’t live in the US and didn’t want to have to pay for shipping overseas if I could help it, I wanted to get something light and small enough that a friend of mine coming to visit from the US would be able to bring it with her. I also want to be able to store it easily in our small apartment. At 6 pounds and being able to fold up small, this grain mill meets those criteria.

So, how much was this grain grinder, you ask?

179 dollars.

Whoa. Hold it right there, I know you’re saying. That’s EXPENSIVE!

Yea, it is, but so is keeping on buying gluten free flours, honestly.

Lets do some math over here.

Assuming I would be paying 179 dollars out of pocket for this grinder, and assuming the difference in price between gluten free flour and gluten free grains is $1.80, after 100 pounds of flour, the grinder would have paid for itself already, and anything after that is savings.

But, I had no plans on paying 179 dollars for my grinder.
I used my Swagbucks Amazon.com gift cards to pay 100 dollars of those 179, leaving me with only 79 dollars out of pocket for this grinder, which would pay for itself after only 43 pounds.

And I know 43 (and 100) pounds of flour sounds like a lot, but when you’re making everything from scratch, it isn’t so much anymore. You can go through 5-10 in a week or less.

So I decided to order the grinder.

Imagine my chagrin of finally having my grain grinder arrive, and discovering that because of the difference in electrical currents between the US and here, I needed a transformer to run it. And the transformer I had didn’t supply enough electricity to run it.
I went to the hardware store sure that I could get the transformer I needed easily and cheaply, and discovered instead that most stores didn’t carry transformers for 1000 Watts. And the one that was willing to order one for me quoted me a price of around 300 dollars! That’s twice the price of the grinder! Three times what I paid for it!

I seriously was ready to write off my grain grinder as a lost cause. Because paying 300 dollars for the transformer was ridiculous. It would make it only pay off to have bought it after 210 pounds. And laying out 300 dollars at once!

I asked around and discovered that there was a local guy who had a transformer “factory”, where he made high quality transformers for much cheaper than the quoted price.