Whisper Mill Dead


My Whisper Mill just died this morning.

I was grinding Spelt [to make the bread I needed to make today], the WM clogged up the shoot, and instantly shut off itself, fuse throw. Fine, that happens sometimes with spelt. No biggie. It happens so fast.

I cleaned the flour shoots all out, dumped out the grain left in the “hopper”, re-set the fuse switched, turned it on, voila, it worked only to within a few seconds start sending up black whisps of smoke and flipped off again.

Or course this all happened in a split second time frame, hardly any time between things happening. No time to react any faster than the machine itself died as doing.

I am totally deflated over this.

At least I have enough flour for a couple loaves of bread … but I can only hope my lifetime warranty will cover what happened.

I think, hope, hope, hope, it’s just the fuse.

But it means sending it away to Utah to be inspected/fixed.

This has reinforced the idea that I love my WhisperMill, but would love to have a CountryLiving motorized mill too.

My old standby is a Kitchen Aide Grain Mill attachment. I am too spoiled to ruin my Kitchen Aide by grinding rough flour out of grain to make a measly small loaf in 100 times the time it takes to get enough fine flour to make 6 loaves or more with the WhisperMill. Grrr.

I figured this day would come sometime. Just wasn’t hoping it would be so soon.

Some people don’t seem to have trouble with their WM’s … well the old models seemed to have worked better, so I’ve heard. I didn’t get into the market for a mill until WM had changed manufacturing to Korea. I then waited until the supposed bugs were worked out of their new facility manufacturing of WM’s. So I’ve had it for … over 3 years, I think. Years are running together for me, and I can’t distinguish time periods of some things :veryshocked:

It figures this happened today too, feeling so dull myself, full of words that I write and delete, rain, overcast weather, blahs.

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12 responses to “Whisper Mill Dead”

  1. Oh man. I’d be “totally deflated” too. 🙁 I quit making bread not to long after I told you I was enjoying the Sourdough method. Just too hard to keep up with the amount this large family needs…doing it all by hand. Ugh. My wrists, elbows, shoulders seemed to always be stiff and sore…

    Anyway, even if the fresh flour has to wait a while, you still have a mixer right? There’s a brighter side. 🙂

  2. Yes,I still have my mixer! This is why I like getting stand alone things, no mixed use appliances. 🙂

    Things works like workhorses, but sometimes even they die suddenly.

    So I have my mixer, but no good flour.

    I despise store-bought whole-grain flour [dense and not sweet], and things made with unbleached flour are blech, blech, blech now — except for if I make my long many rise french bread [with unbleached flour]… that’s a tasty pale base for butter and garlic, or sandwich materials, or as toasted.

  3. Joel,

    Here’s the warranty info, which includes the phone number. 🙂

    Service or repair procedure

    1. You may contact Creative Technologies Customer Service Department or your Dealer and resolve the problem.
    2. Ship with Transportation charges Prepaid to:

    United States:

    Creative Technologies
    Attn: Service Dept.
    1959 South 4130 West, Suite F
    Salt Lake City, UT 84104
    TEL 801-977-8226
    FAX 801-977-8215

    Canada:

    Creative Technologies c/o Hill’s Pantry
    1269 – 2 Avenue South
    Lethbridge, Alberta T1J OE7

    ENCLOSE:

    o Your name, address, phone number
    o Explanation of the problem
    o Production code # (located on the bottom of the mill)
    o Purchase date
    o Where you purchased your machine

    3. Creative Technologies will determine if repairs are covered under the terms of the warranty.
    4. Repairs performed by persons other than an Authorized Service Repair Center void the warranty.

  4. Hi. I have used a Whisper Mill for years and the problem you are experiencing is just because the mill is still a bit clogged. This is what I do when my mill gets clogged like that. I unplug the machine and clean out the tube and the opening to the machine with an ice pick. I then take it outside and plug it into an extension cord with out the flour canister attached. I reset the machine and turn it on( You must hold onto it tightly or it will fly out of your hands). Let it run and blow all of that impacted flour out. It should work fine after that.

  5. Tina, it’s dead. It’s not that it’s clogged up, per se. It sent up black whisps of smoke and there is NO electricity working in it at all since that moment [as well as the AMP button being locked tight as if it was superglued in]

    I’ve had it clog up before, and cleaned it out just fine. It was “normal” for that to happen with Spelt usually every so often, not every time, but every so often, less so with Prarie Gold.

    So this isn’t the first time I’ve had a clog up. It’s the only time I’ve unclogged it and had to re-clog immediately. So I took extra special precaution in the above actions and really unclogged it by bringing it out on the deck and blowing it out well without the tube attached … I didn’t write about that, but it is what I had done.

    So I am familiar with the clogup features of the WM and that it is something to expect now and then. My experience as written in this post is that of a different one, it’s not the “normal clogup”. It was seemingly at first, but after unclogging it clogged up and then when unclogging that one it died. It was definite die. I haven’t yet sent it in. It’s still here, so I checked it out and it’s still dead.

    Thanks for your experience with WP clog ups. I have normally successfully dealt with them that way, using kitchen items to unclog the tubes and taking it outside and blowing it out without anything attached to it.

    I can attest to the fact that that works. But if the WM wants to die, it will and does, it did for me this one time. 🙁

  6. I have a question on how to grind spelt. I recieved a 50 lb bag of it, but it still has the hulls ( or whatever they are called) on it, and didn’t grind at all in the wisper mill I borrowed from a friend. I have ground wheat in it before without a problem, and wanted to try spelt, but am not sure what to do with this. If you peel off the husks, there are kernels inside, much like wheat kernels. I have been looking online trying to find a solution to this without having to peel each kernel out by hand… or do I just grind the whole thing up together, which the wisper mill doesn’t seem to want to do for me. I had also tried whole oats once, and same problem, it didn’t grind at all. So, any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Michelle

  7. Michelle,

    I can’t help you much, only to let you know the Whisper Mill grinds grain … which usually refers to the “kernel”.

    Wheat I buy is “triple cleaned”, that means it’s husked and then sifted or some such method to remove anything that shouldn’t be there, husk, stones, dirt, etc.

    So when I buy grain it’s triple cleaned, whether it’s Spelt, Prairie Gold, Kamut, etc.

    Grain as you are speaking of may be animal feed grade … not saying it is.

    Grain as you are speaking of can [I do think] be ground in a stone grinder, such as the Country Living Grain Mill, but I wouldn’t really want to use it, the husk is husky and it would make the grain flour totally different that it would be if ground huskless.

    Stone Grinders grind what a Whisper Mill cannot. A Whisper Mill is particular to needing only cleaned grains and certain types of grain … Spelt, for instance, is a higher moisture containing grain and has a tendancy to clog up a Whisper Mill more so than Kamut or Prairie Gold wheat, which I used my dead Whisper Mill for those three types of grain.

    You can’t grind oily things like nuts in one. It has to be something that is clean and will become flour. The steel teeth inside the unit are injured if they come into contact with a stone, for instance, the machine has to be repaired, and that’s not under warranty.

    Wheat and Oats of all types need to be de-hulled before grinding in a Whisper Mill.

    A 50lb sack of grain with hulls on it is not a 50lb sack of grain in the food market place. I have no idea what you can do with it to get it cleaned. It’s something a feed mill could do, but yours is people food, and then again, it’s only a 50lb sack, peanuts to a big feed mill.

    I don’t know the conversion ration of grain w/hulls vs. grain w/no-hulls — but it’s primarily something that you know by looking at the grain — the Whisper Mill won’t mill it.

    I wouldn’t consider using flour milled out of grain and husks myself either.

    That’s my opinion though. Not that there isn’t a way to do it for you. You just need to find the answer which you are looking for. I hope you find it!

  8. Well, that is pretty much the answer I was looking for. I will see if my guniea hens will eat the spelt then. I was given this bag, and if you think it might not be food grade, or have any suggestions as to what to do with it, I will trust that. I do want to try spelt someday, but I will be sure to get the right kind. ( any suggestions on that?? and where to get it??) My husband dislikes wheat products, he has Crohns and it bothers him, so now my kids don’t like wheat either because of his complaints. I was hoping he might like spelt and it would be a compromise for us. The wheat is hard on his body. I personally love wheat and all grains, so, it is a bit of a bummer for me.

    Well, thanks again, this is the first place I have been able to get any help for this.

    Michelle

  9. Lisa, I haven’t had a Whisper Mill since the one I wrote about in this post. We sent the WM in for warranty repair and never saw it again. The company changed, new ownership or something (I’m talking about the actual manufacturer, not the dealer who we bought it from) and our machine was “lost” in the translation, not just us, others had problems too.

    Thus, I haven’t been around a Whisper Mill since late 2004. I subsequently bought a Nutrimill. I did have a problem with the motherboard on it once, they repaired it and returned it to me. FWIW

    As it goes, if you have a Whisper Mill and need to reset it, either press or hold-press, whatever works will work. You won’t hurt it trying either way.

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