Steve, I ground dent corn from Hickory King that we grew, using a Corona hand mill. I also took the kernels off by hand (how else?) we only had a few cobs. Just enough for 2-3 corn breads. I use the Corona mostly for nut meals, but it works well for corn too. I had the exact same problem you describe, but I attributed it to the type of corn. The year before, I grew Hopi blue and had no problems with the chaff or germ not grinding right, with the exact same grain mill. This, the flavor, and the horrible pest problems lead me right back to growing Hopi blue, and I will not grow HK again. This year I am sacrificing the corn patch for more tomatoes, so no corn at all. However, I loved the Hopi blue, never had corn bread that good! I did not care for the corn bread we made with the hickory king. I had to do the same thing you describe, sift the chaff from the ground meal. Same exact problem with some coarser grains getting in there too. I saved it in a baggie and I was going to add it to the mush I make sometimes for our dogs. I wonder if it would work to cook it as grits? In any case, I have wondered if this might be the difference between flour corn (Hopi blue and others) and dent corn (Hickory king and many others)? The blue just ground so well by comparison.

Oh, Glenda, I'm sorry I didn't see this post till now. But you've e-mailed me so we've come to the conclusion that no, the Nutrimill does not grind corn coarse enough for chicken feed.

Why grind your own meat.... 1. Save money. When you can find cuts of beef that is less per pound than quality ground beef, you are money ahead. 2. You can add as much fat as you'd like. I usually add 10% fat to meat ratio for ground beef. 3. You can choose different grinds. You may like a coarse grind if you add ground beef to chili or for hamburgers, instead of the typical fine grind. A fine grind is a good choice if you are going to make a meatloaf or meat balls because a fine grind helps the meat to compact. 4. Before we went on a gluten-free diet, I would make "wheat meat" from gluten (flour) and water and would grind a 50/50 mixture with meat as a low-cost, high-protein, meat extender. 5. Grind your own sausage and you'll save a lot of money. All you need is to find the spice mixture you like. For sausage the ratio of fat to lean meat should be 30:70. Don't make sausage too lean or they will be dry and crumble. Use coarse (Kosher) salt in sausage mixture. Don't use table salt or iodized salt because they can give the sausage an "off" flavor. The ratio is around 1 oz. of salt to 3-pounds of meat. Sausage will taste better if you refrigerate it overnight after it's made so the seasonings have a chance to meld. 6. You can also grind different kinds of cooked meat for sandwich meat. I grind it and put it in small packets I vacuum-seal and store in the freezer. It only takes a few minutes to thaw - add mayo, relish, etc. for roast beef or ham salad sandwich meat. My sister-in-law would buy a jumbo "torpedo" of bologna and have me grind it for her. They literally lived on bologna salad sandwiches.....(belch) 7. It helps to have meat partially frozen, a good cutting board and sharp knife for de-boning. 8. When finished, run a slice of bread through the grinder to help "clean" it. 9. For ground turkey I often find turkey thighs on sale and will remove the skin and de-bone them to use for ground turkey. The thighs are much tastier than turkey breast, plus they have a little more fat. Be sure to follow food safety recommendations concerning grinding and storage. The link below includes information for a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: Culinary Arts Product Review

Agree that growing corn in this manner isn't worth the effort and has a low rate of success. But if you want to do it then you need to understand the nitrogen needs of corn. It needs a lot of it, in consistent amounts, and are normally applied at stages of growth to trigger changes in the plant. Plus coffee grounds are a low-dose source of usable nitrogen and dependent on an active soil food web to covert what nitrogen they do contain into a form usable by plants. The same thing applies to using compost in containers. That active soil food web does not exist in a container. Container growing of any crop has its own set of guidelines for what can be used to fill the container and when and how they must be fed. They are quite different from gardening in the ground. The color of the container itself is only a very minor issue. So for best odds of success, use a high quality soil-less potting mix (not soil) to fill the container and provide regular supplements of a high nitrogen liquid fertilizer at at least 3 stages - when the plants have their first set of true leaves, when the plants are 12-18" tall, and again when they are 3' tall. Also suggest some reading about this question over on the Container Gardening forum here. Dave