My New Milling Station

**John Beere** · 07-24-2008, 03:41 AM

So I took the day off and finally got off my arse to build a milling station for the new MM3-20 mill by Monster Brewing I bought back in May. I don't know why I'd been procrastinating, I've had everything I needed but just couldn't get motivated.

I only had a loose design in my head when I started - this is what I came up with. Its powered by a 1/2 hp GE motor I picked up off eBay.

I wanted the footprint as small as possible (it's 16" deep x 24" wide) and for one of my 15 gallon containers to fit directly under the mill. That couldn't happen due to the large sheave - so I built this little shoot that you see in the photo above attached to the mill.

Here is inside the hopper - not sure how much grain it will hold as I didn't do the math, but its pretty good size.

And a pic of it all from the rear.

**bradsul** · 07-24-2008, 03:54 AM

Very nice! Much smaller than the one I built but I was looking for storage as well.

Out of curiosity, what speed are you running your mill at? I still haven't been able to settle on a speed I like, currently running at 190RPM. I should mention I have an MM-2 but like I said I'm just curious.

Edit: Also how is your dust kick-up with that design? I find I get a fair bit if I leave the door on my milling side open while it's running.

**John Beere** · 07-24-2008, 04:02 AM

Its running at around 180~200 RPMs. I did the math back in May when I bought the sheaves, belt, and motor - but for get the specifics.

Don't know just yet on the dust kick up... will report back in a day or two.

**mysteryberto** · 07-24-2008, 04:22 AM

Looks great very clean and compact. How much did it cost you to build?

**John Beere** · 07-24-2008, 04:39 AM

Well, the stand consists of four 2x4s, one 3/4" 2'x4' sheet of sanded plywood, one 1/2" 2'x4' sheet of sanded plywood, and four casters - roughly $70. I got the motor off eBay for around $50 shipped. The sheaves and belt came from grainger.com for around $50. That is Monster's 3-roller 2" diameter. It was around $240 shipped.

So $170 for everything but the mill...

**John Beere** · 07-24-2008, 11:06 PM

Used the milling station for the first time today. There was initially an issue with the shoot that took some time to understand. I made two modifications to the design of the shoot. The first was to cut 1.5" off the back side so I could get to the non-powered roller if it didn't catch. The second was to cut a 6" square piece of plastic wall board that slides through the back of the shoot which keeps the grain from falling into the mill before its up and running.

Man can this thing eat through some grain... TOTAL overkill. heh.

After I modified the shoot, its working perfectly. No noticable dust is being kicked up and nearly 100% of the grist is falling into the bucket.

Looking down through the hopper with the plastic stopper in place:

Backside of mill:

polarbearbrewing · 07-25-2008, 04:09 AM

looks awesome!

brrman · 07-25-2008, 08:47 PM

Wow that is really creative. I just got my Barley Crusher this week and will be looking to make a milling station pretty soon.

**John Beere** · 07-31-2008, 12:18 AM

Took today off to brew... decided to take some video of the milling station in action. This is it eating through a 20 lb grain bill in under 2 minutes.

[youtube]zcCJoBb1b84[/youtube]

Hmm.. looks like YouTube doesn't embed anymore? Here is the direct link to the video:

You Tube

**bradsul** · 07-31-2008, 12:24 AM

Have you thought about laminating some arborite to the inside surfaces of the hopper? You'd probably not have to manually feed the grain with a nice slick inside surface.