making rice flour with coffee grinder???

[superdog]

hi all, i am new to this gluten free diet and it is fairly expensive since we got started, and i have spent 500 dollars last month just in food alone totally restocking everything with gluten free items. soooo, that leaves me with not alot left over to buy more, so my question is i want to make my own rice flour and i cant afford to put out another couple hundred for a wheat grinder, so my question is can i invest in a cheap coffee grinder to make my own rice flour? or will it turn out not fine enough to make breads and pizza dough with? just wondering as i really want to do this on my own as its so expensive to buy the rice flour. thank-you in advance for any help you can offer with this:)

[cruelshoes]

I don't know about the coffee grinder thing. But do you have an asian or indian market near you? That is a great place to stock up on many of the flours we need for very little money. I routinely spend $.33/lb for rice and tapioca flour and less than a dollar/lb for potato starch there.
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-Colleen
Dx 8/05 via bloodwork/biopsy
9-YO son Dx 11/05 via bloodwork/biopsy
Daughters have negative bloodwork - so far!

A woman is like a tea bag-you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water. - Eleanor Roosevelt

[superdog]

cruelshoes, you get it that cheap??? i am definitly going to have to look for an asian or indian market around here!! i paid 5 bucks for a 2lb bag of rice flour, guess i got really gipped?? ah well. and that xanthum gum i paid 15 dollars for a half pound--is that around the right price?? or did i get gipped on that too? guess i need to shop around a little better, it was the first place i found that carried this stuff, so i just bought it because i was so desperate for homemade pizza i was growing tired of salad and rice and veggies, so even if i overpaid big time, it was WELL WORTH EVERY PENNY i couldnt believe this pizza i made, i even took pictures, my kids are constantly asking for it and my hubby is from NY and he said it tasted like ny pizza, that it was better than dominoes and pizza hut, i was very happy and impressed myself with the results. although i used the base recipe from another pizza and changed things up a little to taste how i thought it should. guess i just got really blessed with that one

alright now i have strayed way off topic, so you dont think the blender will work if i dont find the asian or indian place?

[cruelshoes]

If I buy Xanthan gum locally, I pay $6.75 for a 6-ounce container. If you are buying Bob's Red Mill Xanthan, it is extremely overpriced in my opinion. Last time I bought any, I got it in bulk from MySpicer.com It was $49 or so for 5 pounds. See this link for some other ideas on getting it for cheap.

If you can find an asian market, I think you will also find that the flours are less gritty than others. I will let someone else chime in with an opinion on the coffee grinder for grinding rice, since I have no experience with it. If the $ outlay is low, I say try it out and see if it works.

Now cough up that pizza crust recipe....
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-Colleen
Dx 8/05 via bloodwork/biopsy
9-YO son Dx 11/05 via bloodwork/biopsy
Daughters have negative bloodwork - so far!

A woman is like a tea bag-you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water. - Eleanor Roosevelt

[mrsppmrxky]

I can't get my rice flour as cheaply as Cruelshoes. Here is it more expensive.

I ended up saving my $$ and purchasing my whisper mill online for $219. It will even grind garbanza beans a few at a time (that is just so the round seed do not get stuck in the shoot.)

IMHO, I think that you would be very unhappy with the grit of the rice flour from the coffee grinder. Not to mention it would be very time consuming to try and grind a couple of pounds of rice to cook with.

On some of your 'needs' xanthan, or more expensive ingredients, do a google product search and see if you can find it more cheaply. Some places it is way less even including shipping.

Amazon even has some things more cheaply purchased by the case. and they run specials with coupons off.

You could also use Guar Gum instead of xanthan and it is about 1/2 the cost for 2x as much.
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[superdog]

cruel shoes thanks for that link, i am going to order some shortly. as for that pizza crust, i am making some now as we speak and i tried to measure stuff as i was putting it in so i can share it, i hope i did it right, then i can post it. of course now that i have measured it probably wont turn out!!! i never measure when adding things to a recipe i just add it till it feels right. so we will see.

mrsp, thank-you for sharing that link(xanthum gum) with everyone, and for the info about the grinder. i was thinking the same thing about it not coming out fine enough, that is why i thought i would ask before i go out and buy something that might not work. i see i have alot more internet search to try to save some money:)

thank-you guys/gals again!!!

[kb9oyo]

When I first was diagnosed, I thought that I would try to make my own flour using a mix of various things that I had located on the Internet. This one called for grinding navy beans. I just assumed that I could use my food processer to break them up and grind them---WRONG!! I ended up using the small coffee grinder that we have which did work after a fashion. I had to grind it up in very small batches and then sift it and re-grind the coarse bits over and over until I finally got it all. It took forever, but it did finally give me an "all purpose flour" that I could sub in on some of our "normal" recipes. Since then, I am looking for an inexpensive wheat grinder, but I haven't found one yet that I can afford since my husband was laid off again in March. The coffee grinder did work, but it was tedious and seemed to take forever. Good Luck!

Sue B.
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Sue Beyer

[superdog]

cruelshoes, anytime i measure it doesnt come out right(the pizza crust) maybe i should just video myself making it and then get a precise measure from the video:) i just cant seem to measure and get the same taste, and trust me i have made several pizzas measureing these past few days and it just doesnt work with measuring for me maybe i could list a recipe such as throw some of this and some of that and this is what you get

kb9oyo, thank-you for the response!! at least i know i can do this temporarily till i can get a mill!!! which i tend to think will be sooner rather than later--hoping anyways. thank-you again!!!

[isto]

several GF cookbooks I just borrowed from the library suggest subbing xanthan for unflavored GF gelatin. You have to use twice as much gelatin as xanthan, but it is supposed to do the same thing. I haven't tried it, but just wanted to throw it out there.

I buy 55 pounds of potato starch for $34.
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[superdog]

well, guys/gals, i was given a coffee grinder, and its nothing fancy, just a coffee grinder where you put the beans right on top, i put my rice in there and hold the button down(as long as i want) and i let go of the button to check the fineness of it, and i do this till i think it is fine enough, and yes it does work!!! YIPPIE!!! i am soo very happy to make my own rice flour. tonight i am going to try it out in some bread and see how it tastes. oh i did try some corn in it too, that didnt work out so good, but who cares??? i got rice flour!!!!! hahahahahahahah, this is great, happiest day of my life, well just happy
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Gluten is my cryptonite

[cultureslayer]

Corn? I use cornmeal in cornbread. I love the "cornmeal" texture but if you don't, then soak the cornmeal in the milk from the recipe while you get everything else together and the texture will be very different. I've never felt the need to try to make corn flour after finding out by accident about soaking the cornmeal. FYI you might need to increase the liquids a little when you soak the cornmeal.
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Lauren
Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.