I always mill my tomatoes raw, and use different screens according to what kind of product I am making and how many tomatoes I am processing. The finer the holes in the screen, the more tomatoes I can process before the screen eventually clogs. The fine-holed tomato screen is great for making large quantities of a smooth sauce with no skin or seeds. For a slightly chunker sauce with some seeds I use the pumpkin screen with larger holes, but it requires cleaning after about 25 pounds of tomatoes. The salsa screen has the largest holes (1/4") for a nice chunky sauce or salsa, but needs cleaning after about 15 pounds of tomatoes.
The reason for the cleaning is that skin pieces stick to the holes and clog them. Continued milling causes some small skin pieces to enter the sauce. Not a big deal, but neither is cleaning the screen - just scrape it with the back of a knife under running water. I keep two salsa screens so I can just swap screens and continue with large batches. Some skin always gets through with the salsa screen, but not enough to adversely affect the salsa.
I love my Victorio mill - I have been using it for five years now without any problems, and it saves me hours of work compared to blanch & chill skin removal. It's easy to clean too, just rinse the parts under hot running water. Wonderful machine!
TomNJ/VA
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