Building a dummy-proof grain mill (pictures)

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ajfabb

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portland, or, us
I just chronicled my ordeal making a usable, safe, grain mill out of some basic parts from Crankandstein. I think the grinder turned out pretty nice but I spent way too much time on it. Check out the pictures and let me know what you think. I do not recommend this project unless you have loads of free time.

Barley mill for Portland homebrew store.

Someone needs to go into the business making something like this.
 
Agreed, nice work

Just curious, can you fit a 5 gallon bucket under the exit chute? The reason I ask is that every once in a while our store will get a customer that wants an entire 50 pound sack crushed. Of course we decided that an employee will do all of the crushing so we set up our barley crusher to simply turn with a corded drill.
 
I just chronicled my ordeal making a usable, safe, grain mill out of some basic parts from Crankandstein. I think the grinder turned out pretty nice but I spent way too much time on it. Check out the pictures and let me know what you think. I do not recommend this project unless you have loads of free time.

Barley mill for Portland homebrew store.

Someone needs to go into the business making something like this.

Hats off to a very nice wood project, it looks a lot warmer or pleasing to the eye than a painted steel frame especially in that super clean looking LHS.
A couple in my area once looked worse than a public storage area as a store.
Can you get back to this forum with a long term report of the mill under the use in your LHBS store?

I have the twin of your mill but called a Monster Mill with three 2" diameter rollers. At a friends stainless fab shop another business friend came in that owns a steel case hardening business, after looking at my rollers said he would case harden them free no biggie. I believe this will be great not only on the rollers surfaces but also the end journal shafts for long term wear as well extending the bushing life. This on the polished out production grooves in the journals first. I came up with 194 RPM's at the rollers or 101' per minute roller surface speed.
 
Hey I really like your store setup! I'm curious, are customers able to grab whatever quantity of grains they want? Like, 10.25 lbs of Crystal 60L or something? I would much prefer that to the 1 lb bags my LHBS has. Seems like it could save a lot of employee time of packing and labeling bags too.
 
Thanks for the replies everybody. A 5 gal fermenter just fits under the chute.. this was by accident really. The main issue I have now is dust production. Having the chute and enclosed rollers helps a ton. If you hold a plastic bag tight around the chute there is really no dust, but if you have an open receptacle underneath it, a decent amount of dust kicks up. I'm open to ideas on controlling dust. It is not a huge issue but we also sell stuff like nice beer and wine glasses so less dusting is always better.

Cheers!
 
what about a chute extension? make it of a heavy mil plastic, and have a bracket to hold it in at the top for easy replacement?
 
Maybe make a skirt out of heavy transparent vinyl or something similar that could be attached tightly around the chute and over the collecting vessel.
 
The main issue I have now is dust production.

Enclose the bottom part, install a see through door and a cheap exhaust system (2 gallon wet/dry vacuum cleaner).

Cheers,
ClaudiusB
 
Thanks for the replies everybody. A 5 gal fermenter just fits under the chute.. this was by accident really. The main issue I have now is dust production. Having the chute and enclosed rollers helps a ton. If you hold a plastic bag tight around the chute there is really no dust, but if you have an open receptacle underneath it, a decent amount of dust kicks up. I'm open to ideas on controlling dust. It is not a huge issue but we also sell stuff like nice beer and wine glasses so less dusting is always better.

Cheers!


If your side panels were straight and not cut away then a 5 gallon bucket could fit inside with a clear plexiglass door across the front then you would have almost a sealed unit preventing your dust problem, follow me here. Make a boxed wood duct that extends over and seals to your mills frame at the mills discharge or dust area with a 4" hole, use wood for a sano looking in matched wood you have. Run this duct down the frame leg. Off this to a hole in the leg to a boxed in chamber under the milling stand but use the same large round filter that shop vacuums use on this box chambers air outlet mounted up high. After the filter at the air discharge mount a small 3" 12 volt computer fan motor not a 4" high CFM fan. Your looking for a slight negative vacuum only. This should collect the dust and have most of it settle to the bottom of this boxed in chamber. You would have to add a door or a way to empty it out on the opposite side leg or a plexiglass panel in the front to see the check on the dust level collected. Make sure you use a ball bearing computer fan. If you used those flexible magnetic strips on the frame as well the plexiglass door it would make for a dust tight seal besides the negative pressure is also in the dust collection chamber. Just an idea to think about that's a cheap and easy fix built as was first planned.
 
Thats really nice! You should trademark your plans and offer the blueprints to a company for production. Very nice job.
 
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