Gristmill

grain · medieval machines · food production · history

Grain becomes flour. A gristmill takes cereal grains like wheat or corn and grinds them between large rotating stones to turn them into flour. This flour is then used to bake bread and make other foods.

Powered by water or wind. Most gristmills used flowing water or wind to turn the heavy grinding stones. A waterwheel or windmill would spin the stones continuously, making the grinding happen automatically without people having to do it by hand.

The whole building matters. The word gristmill can mean either just the grinding machine inside, or the entire building where the grinding happens. Gristmills were often important buildings in towns and villages.

Chaff gets removed first. Before grain goes into a gristmill, it has to be cleaned of chaff, which is the dry outer covering. Once the chaff is separated, the cleaned grain, called grist, is ready to grind.

Essential for communities. For hundreds of years, gristmills were vital to villages and towns because they turned raw grain into the flour people needed for bread. Without them, families would have had to grind grain by hand at home, which took hours of hard work.