Kitchen Tool Round-Up: Bosch Flaker

Anyone have a Bosch mixer? I love mine!

I got it a few years ago with some money I inherited. We’d been eyeing them for a long time but couldn’t justify the expense. However, my mom loved to cook and bake, so it seemed appropriate to invest my inheritance into some quality kitchen tools.

We are able to buy local organic grain here through a grain CSA: spelt, oats, rye, kamut, and several varieties of wheat. We bought a grain grinder (another post for that) and the flaker to round out the purchase and help us make the most of our local grains.

To use the Bosch flaker, you turn the machine on its side and attach the flaker to the shaft that normally turns the beaters for the mixing bowl. You put the hopper on top and a bowl of some sort underneath, turn the motor on, and start pouring grain into the hopper. In seconds, it begins spitting flakes out the bottom.

It sounds idyllic. It’s not as efficient as I’d hoped, though. I’ve learned to run the motor on 4 even though it seems extreme. Still, it jams constantly. I stand there with a bamboo skewer in hand and just keep jabbing the kernels into the flaking mechanism.

Sometimes a skewer goes all the way through. Oops.

I’m not sure if the flaker would work efficiently with better hulled grain. The area farmers that are part of our CSA have tried a variety of methods to remove hulls but apparently oat hulls are “stickier” than other grains. I find this to be a problem with cooking the oats into porridge, as well. The hulls don’t soften and just aren’t nice to eat.

At any rate, it took a long time to flake enough grain for a big batch of granola, and I had to take the mechanism apart several times to clean out the jammed kernels.

Will I continue to buy oats from the CSA? I desperately want to support them, but I’m eating way fewer oats than I used to because, even with a machine in the house to do the work, it’s still time-consuming and produces an inferior product.

Before I decide, I’ll buy a small amount of oat grain elsewhere that has been better hulled, and see if the Bosch flaker can handle that better.

Besides oats, I use the flaker for barley and wheat in small amounts. I love having a variety of grain flakes in my granola. I’ll share that recipe soon.