How to Make Flour Using a Mortar & Pestle

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By G. K. Bayne
eHow Contributing Writer

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Mortar and Pestle

Mortar and pestles have been used since antiquity for making flour, grinding spices, creating medicines and making salves and potions. Early mortar and pestles were made with wood, and many cultures used hollowed out tree trucks and rocks as a mortar and pestle to grind flour from wheat, seeds and nuts. Making flour today, using a mortar and pestle, is time consuming and hard work considering that grain mills or even a blender will do the job with little effort in a fraction of the time.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Wheat berries
Measuring cups
Flour sifter
Large bowl

Step 1

Fill the bowl of the mortar 1/4 full of wheat berries. Wheat berries are the whole wheat seeds and they can be purchased at many health food stores either in packages or in bulk. Depending on the size of your mortar and pestle, the amount will be anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 cup of wheat berries.
Step 2

Use the pestle to pound the wheat berries in the mortar, breaking the seed hulls.
Step 3

Hold the pestle firmly and begin grinding the berries against the bottom of the mortar, using a circular motion until the majority of berries have been ground into a fine powder.
Step 4

Pour the ground flour into a flour sifter. Sift the flour into a large bowl.
Step 5

Regrind the larger wheat leavings in the sifter, if desired. Otherwise, throw the leavings in the compost.
Step 6

Continue grinding and sifting until the desired amount of flour is achieved.

Tips & Warnings

Most modern day mortar and pestles are made from porcelain or ceramic instead of wood. Mortar and pestles can be used to grind acorns into flour, much the same way as American Indians did in the past. The flour can be used to replace equal portions of wheat flour in bread or muffin recipes for a unique nutty taste.