Portable Barley Crusher (PBC)

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flushdrew42

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Figured I'd give this it's own thread, since it didn't really belong in the "motorized grain mills" thread.

My buddy and I went "dutch" on a barley crusher, and wanted to make it easy to transport between our places, since we would rarely be brewing on the same days etc.

Several designs, and several beverages later, he stumbled upon these rectangular buckets of sunflower seed packages...
pbc1.jpg

purchased 2 of them, and came up with this idea...
pbc9.jpg

and after making multiple parts to allow the bottom bucket to be the catch bucket, and the lid to be attached to the top bucket or "crush bucket" if you will... this was the basic design.
pbc12.jpg

the bottom of the buckets have ridges, so these pieces were made to make the crusher mount square, and provide rigidity to the bucket bottom, after the hole was cut.
pbc3.jpg

they were then glued into place
pbc2.jpg

then bolted to the bucket.
pbc4.jpg

pbc5.jpg

the crusher was then bolted in place
pbc6.jpg

a hole was drilled for the shaft...
pbc7.jpg

and finding that it was too short to get the drill chuck put on... we had a buddy make this
pbc11.jpg

from a solid piece of round stock stainless.
here's how the hopper fits
pbc8.jpg

pbc15.jpg

here's how the shaft collar extension looks. and the hopper mounting screw access holes
pbc13.jpg

pbc14.jpg

pbc12.jpg

it works pretty flawlessly, you can add a bag to the catch bucket for ease of cleaning etc... the bungee strap was selected after measuring it
hope you guys approve of it! :) also... let me know if any of you want sunflower seeds... i have about 100 bags left...
 
Great idea and a really nice build. I didn't see how you'll adjust the mill - it looks like it might be a little tricky, but that's a relatively infrequent task. It's compact and easily transportable - ingenious.
 
adjustments will have to be made with the hopper off, and the mill out... it's a *slight* oversight, but as you said, we hope it's pretty infrequent. we could always pop a couple holes in to get at those adjustment locations.

thanks for the compliment!

it's incredibly light, and the handle is padded! :)
 
Interesting build. Took me ages to load the pics. Perhaps next time you could size them down? They're huge.
 
we've sold a bunch of the seeds at $1 for 4 bags. paid off the buckets.
unused buckets were $14 each from amazon plus shipping.

we wanted the square buckets because the hopper would not fit as cleanly in a round bucket.

we also did crush 4 bags just to test the crusher... it performed perfectly!

thanks for the compliments.
 
I opened this thread, went to the bathroom, got a beer, came back and it still wasn't done loading....

It looks like it will work great for being portable. It seems to me it could have been done with one bucket though by mounting the mill on the underside of the lid. When stored the mill would be upside down in the bucket, then flip it over to use and have a wood collar to hold it in place.
 
I like the compact design!!!!
One small square corner of the room when not in use. That is a good way to conserve room in your "Man Castle"
The pics could have been downsized because they do load slow at their curremt size, but hey the whole project looks and works way cool,
and it keeps it portable and handy too!!!!


Wheelchair Bob
 
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