My Ugly Junk- Corona Mill Station...

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I finally got to taking a photo of mine in action. This is the 7th and 8th batch I have used it on.

ugly_corona_pml.jpg
 
I present my ugly junk!


1st time I used my mill I made a royal mess.

Hopefully the next time with my setup it'll be smooth and easy.

Ill find out this weekend :)

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atimmerman88 said:
Hand crank is just a back up, cordless drill for the heavy crushing :)
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The plexi almost makes it look too professional. Can you add some duct tape to the edges?

I wish mine had that little cover over the crush end. Grains go flying in all directions when I used the drill, that's why I'm a hand cranker.
 
Can't complain at all about my mill, finally got it dialed in an hit 82% efficiency. Feels so good to get over the hump of having serval down around 50%.

Hip Hip Hooray for Cheapo Mills
 
After reading through almost this whole thread I finally searched for "DiscountTommy" and managed to get one from that site at $25 shipped. Thanks for doing all of the leg work! A trip to home depot / some work and I'll hopefully be done with the 60% efficiently club. :mug:
 
philber said:
The plexi almost makes it look too professional. Can you add some duct tape to the edges?

I wish mine had that little cover over the crush end. Grains go flying in all directions when I used the drill, that's why I'm a hand cranker.
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Put milk jug over plates. I inverted one, cut larger opening below original mouth, and slit halfway down center. Channels grain downward. See my pics
 
I've done two batches so far using my Corona. I got 75% efficiency on the first batch, and it looks like about 72% efficiency on the second batch. I think I need to work on the rotating grind plate some though, it is REALLY wobbly, and isn't keeping a consistent distance from the static plate at all. I'm ending up with some near whole or whole grains at some points and flour at others.
 
I got my discount tommy mill mounted and put through its first batch last week. Looks like I got 75-77 pct, so I'm thrilled with that.
Will be brewing again this weekend, then plan on buying a 50 lb sack of base grain.
Thanks for all the input here!
 
BeardedIdiot said:
I've done two batches so far using my Corona. I got 75% efficiency on the first batch, and it looks like about 72% efficiency on the second batch. I think I need to work on the rotating grind plate some though, it is REALLY wobbly, and isn't keeping a consistent distance from the static plate at all. I'm ending up with some near whole or whole grains at some points and flour at others.
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I have the same issue as you! If you find a solution let me know what it is please

Cancel that, check page 8 of this thread.
 
I've found that even though the plate is wobbly, if you go for no whole grains (tighten until this happens) you'll be golden. I get a lot of flour but also a fair amount of husk pieces so it's fine. You need just enough husks/pieces to create a filter bed. In fact, one side of my mill spits out more flour and the other side spits out more husks and pieces. It averages out, 80% every time, no off flavors.
 
tre9er said:
I've found that even though the plate is wobbly, if you go for no whole grains (tighten until this happens) you'll be golden. I get a lot of flour but also a fair amount of husk pieces so it's fine. You need just enough husks/pieces to create a filter bed. In fact, one side of my mill spits out more flour and the other side spits out more husks and pieces. It averages out, 80% every time, no off flavors.
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I'm getting similar results with mine. I get some flour but I also get a lot of husk pieces and I'm hitting 80-85% each batch...
 
tre9er said:
I've found that even though the plate is wobbly, if you go for no whole grains (tighten until this happens) you'll be golden. I get a lot of flour but also a fair amount of husk pieces so it's fine. You need just enough husks/pieces to create a filter bed. In fact, one side of my mill spits out more flour and the other side spits out more husks and pieces. It averages out, 80% every time, no off flavors.
Click to expand...

I'm going to have to try this. I've been worried about too much flour, however I'm getting too many batches in the 50ish percentage range.

Thanks for the update.
 
My first batch was with straight American 2-Row. The second batch was straight American Vienna. I think maybe the vienna grains were slightly smaller than the 2-row, because I had more issues with whole grains in the vienna than the 2-row, and I didn't change anything on the mill between batches.

I also am going to have to pick up either a harbor freight drill to run this, or else pick up a couple of v-belt pulley's to use with my 1,725 rpm motor. I nearly burnt out my poor Dewalt corded drill doing 8.5 pounds of 2-row, and almost burnt out a heavier duty adjustable corded drill from work doing 10.23 pounds of vienna.
 
About these corona mills... Can they be used to make flour at home? My wife is wanting something to crack flax seeds and also wants to grind her own flour.
 
Huaco said:
About these corona mills... Can they be used to make flour at home? My wife is wanting something to crack flax seeds and also wants to grind her own flour.
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I imagine so there original purpose is a flour grinder.
 
Huaco said:
About these corona mills... Can they be used to make flour at home? My wife is wanting something to crack flax seeds and also wants to grind her own flour.
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When I purchased mine from Amazon, all the negative reviews were from people trying to make finely ground flour.
 
JoeyChopps said:
Well I stand corrected. I thought he could pull it off. Hopefully he didn't buy one on my crappy advise.
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Nope... thought I would wait out a few other responses first. Hmm... I may need to rethink this plan. Maybe this mill for cracking flax seed and an actual grain mill for making flour.
Thanks for all the replies guys...:mug:
 
wilserbrewer said:
Corona mills are really corn grinders, not grain mills...I think you can make corn tortillas, but "gold medal" type flour is doubtful. Flour mills usually use a stone for a very fine grind.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/18963/corona-mill-and-tortillas
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Yeah, you can actually buy the stones that fit on them,

Sunshine Corona Stone Conversion Kit

corona_stones.jpg


Turn that old Corona mill you bought into a quality Stone Flour Mill

The regular Corona Mill is fine for grinding course cereal; however, if you desire to grind fine flour and get it the first time through, you need our Sunshine Corona Stone Conversion Kit.

The kit includes everything you need to turn your regular Corona into the finest stone hand mill, capable of grinding your grains, like wheat, into the finest, lightest flour you can produce. Think about it – no more running your grain through the mill five times and still ending up with a coarse cereal.

You may purchase the stones only, and use the mill with the original auger, but we recommend that you also purchase the optional Modified Auger. The Modified Auger has been engineered to provide just the right feeding rate for the finer grinding milling stones. Using your old (unmodified) auger will make your mill much harder to turn.

With the Sunshine Corona Stone Conversion Kit, it’s like having two mills in one. Leave your mill as it is and you have a steel burr for grinding course cereal or any soft, oily grains or beans. Or change it to the stone burrs, which will allow you to grind fine flour in one pass.
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Should have my Discount Tommy mill this week, I'll get some pics up when it's done. Leaning towards a two bucket with some type of hopper extension, just not sure what yet.
 
Thanks for posting that link Revvy, I had no idea this existed. Has anyone tried out this stone conversion kit? My wife would love to grind flour with the corona mill.
 
Nice... I might be buying 2 corona mills pretty soon then. One for my wife with the retro-fit stones. And one for me to crush grains with! haha!
 
loud1 said:
Hey Revvy, Love the "Buddy Jesus" avatar.
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Thanks, I loved the movie Dogma. It was funny though, I found the pic when I was actually looking for something serious about spirituality and beer, the quotes by Martin Luther and other early church leaders as quoted in the book "The search for god an guinness" and this popped up in a blog referencing those quotes.
 
jerrodm said:
Thanks for posting that link Revvy, I had no idea this existed. Has anyone tried out this stone conversion kit? My wife would love to grind flour with the corona mill.
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I have half of the stone conversion kit on a mill I pieced together from two broken mills. The bigger/flat/part that turns is the stone part and the flour it makes is definately finner.
 
Haputanlas said:
I'm going to have to try this. I've been worried about too much flour, however I'm getting too many batches in the 50ish percentage range.

Thanks for the update.
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As long as you have some amount of pieces that are large enough to accumulate and form a filter bed, it's fine. Might have to vorlauf a little more but IDK, mine runs clear after a few quarts at most.
 
tre9er said:
As long as you have some amount of pieces that are large enough to accumulate and form a filter bed, it's fine. Might have to vorlauf a little more but IDK, mine runs clear after a few quarts at most.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I also have tons of extra rice hulls and can use them if needed.

:mug:
 
I think you're right. This looks a lot like my more recent crushes and I've been getting in the 50s-60s


I see what looks like at least 4 or 5 whole
 
Thanks guys, I tightened it up and kept cranking. Looks better to me! The key was that one side of mine was creating much finer particles, I put an additional washer on that side (one on the left, two on the right)
 
I agree with the other posters- the pic provided shows a crush that has too many big chunks in it, with what looks like a few whole grains. For my mill, I just followed the advice of 'wilserbrewer': tighten until you're scared, then tighten a bit more. I did that, and my OGs fell right into line.
 
Here is my setup. I get some grain sneaking out of the top of the shroud, and some dust, so I will likely add some sort of metal shroud that covers the entire top of the grinding plates.

Also getting some uncrushed grains, so will tighten down and see how that works.

$14.95 for the mill (local Mexican supermarket)
$4.50 for the wood (Home Depot)
$1 for the metal (leftovers from a previous project)
$4 for the downspout (Home Depot)
$3 for the driver (Home Depot)

$27.45 total. Not bad for a mill.

Mill.JPG
 

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