My Ugly Junk- Corona Mill Station...

Rivenin said:

how to motorize your corona!
GFs daughter, she didn't want to stop! but i had to pull her aside 'cuz we still had like 5lbs of grain and i was at strike temp already!

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My drill's efficient, but not nearly that cute!

Thanks for all the great ideas...here is my Junk! This pail has the bottom cut out, it fits inside another pail for crushing.

rico567 said:

My drill's efficient, but not nearly that cute!

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In my experience your drill won't laugh and walk away when the novelty wears off. Sigh, teenagers!

Whew. 20 lbs. of base grain has been milled. Holy **** that was a lot of work.

Next project is definitely attaching a drill to the mill. I'm sweating balls right now and am about to take my 3rd shower of the day.

Ace_Club said:

Whew. 20 lbs. of base grain has been milled. Holy **** that was a lot of work.

Next project is definitely attaching a drill to the mill. I'm sweating balls right now and am about to take my 3rd shower of the day.

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It is a lot of work! My drill stopped working and I had to do the same thing a couple of weeks ago. I was worn out before I even started to brew. I bought one of those Harbor Frieght high tork/low speed 1/2 inch drills someone on here mentioned for my next batch. Definitely check that out. They had them on sale for $39 plus shipping (about $50 for me) I went through two 3/8" drills that were not up to the the task. This one is heavy! :rockin:

Some folks from here need to go over to this thread. There's some of that anti corona ignorance going on in there, and I can't be the only one defending our beloved corona, and setting people straight.

Revvy said:

Some folks from here need to go over to this thread. There's some of that anti corona ignorance going on in there, and I can't be the only one defending our beloved corona, and setting people straight.

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Didn't know about that thread- went there, did my best, hope the thread doesn't get locked......

That was a great post Rico...

Just used my Corona for the first time and got 88% efficiency.

Unfortunately, I took it apart and washed it afterwards. In the morning, after air drying I see that there is some rust present that I will have to scrape off. Guess I need to coat it with a little vegetable oil to keep it clean and rust free, and then just use compressed air to clean it in the future.

I'm sure you figured this out by now, but I see no reason to wash the mill. A dry rag to remove the majority of dust is the closest mine ever sees to a good cleansing. This is the ugly junk thread after all. BTW excellent eff. I'm still in the low 70s but it is a predictable low 70s, and i'll take it.

Ace_Club said:

Just used my Corona for the first time and got 88% efficiency.

Unfortunately, I took it apart and washed it afterwards. In the morning, after air drying I see that there is some rust present that I will have to scrape off. Guess I need to coat it with a little vegetable oil to keep it clean and rust free, and then just use compressed air to clean it in the future.

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Yeah, water on a Cast Iron mill is bad juju. FWIW, I've never cleaned mine.

wyzazz said:

Yeah, water on a Cast Iron mill is bad juju. FWIW, I've never cleaned mine.

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No, I've never cleaned mine either. I guess I just assumed the cure would be worse than the disease. The most I've ever done is reach down in there with a small brush and brush the caked-on grain dust out of all the nooks and crannies in the mill.

I had cleaned it when it first arrived to get the machine oil off of it, but there was no rusting because the coating was still present. After using it, I'm sure a little ground off which resulted in the small bits of rust.

Oh well, after I clean the rust off and oil it up, I'll make sure to just brush off the dust in the future.

I did follow the instructions I had read (I believe in this thread) about cranking down the gap until I was scared, and had no issues with sparging. It flowed perfectly through my SS braid!

just got mine finished, turned out looking fairly presentable.

Great job......but maybe too "presentable" for ugly junk......

Extra points for reusing the box.

Points subtracted for purchasing a Wal-Mart bucket, you can always just go to the bakery and ask for one of their empties.

P.S. Welcome to the club!

wyzazz said:

P.S. Welcome to the club!

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Sam's Club?

I'm planning on joining soon. I hate having my grains fly all over the place during the grind. The "in the bucket" design is a great fix for that problem.

Thanks HBT community.

well, as i dred looking forward to brewday just because of grinding 12-20lbs of grain... although the next day i feel like the hulk haha. i eneded up trying an older drill i had laying around, was fine for the first 20 seconds, then bogged down and started smoking. So i read on here on what drill to get. ended up picking up one of these from harbor freight.

was the best thing i had ever bought for brewing to make things easier! (besides the no chill buckets)
i barely press the trigger and it starts turning my mill without any effort. it's rather amazing! $45!
except now i have to find a sheild and such 'cuz i made a slight mess in the frontroom... i felt like tim allen
So now i get to put it through the reigns tonight with an 18lb batch of brew. Cross your fingers!

oh and i couldn't find a nut driver large enough for the bolt i was going to get, i ended up picking up a wing nut driver
(this dobobbyhicker)

Pretty nifty actually, that way i dont chance loosing the wingnut over time incase i need to go back to manual.

So I've modified my mill quite a bit (drill powered, removed the pin and replaced with a screw and nut, JB welded everything) but now my problem seems to be that as I grind my mill gets looser and looser(yes I use that wingnut to hold it). I find myself constantly having to readjust the tightness. Its very frustrating the lack of consistency. I think I'm just gonna break down and buy a barley crusher once I save up enough.

Thundercougarfalconbird said:

So I've modified my mill quite a bit (drill powered, removed the pin and replaced with a screw and nut, JB welded everything) but now my problem seems to be that as I grind my mill gets looser and looser(yes I use that wingnut to hold it). I find myself constantly having to readjust the tightness. Its very frustrating the lack of consistency. I think I'm just gonna break down and buy a barley crusher once I save up enough.

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I assume we're talking here about the clamp that holds the mill to whatever sort of horizontal surface you've mounted it to. Mine worked loose after about 20 batches, and I was able to reach down under it with a screwdriver, use the screwdriver as a lever and get it good and tight. Then I put two screws into the wood through the notches in top, and no problems since.
If you mean the wingnut for adjusting the fineness of the grist, mine has never worked loose once I got it set.

I mean the second one. The wingnut that holds the crush setting. The whole contraption loosens up every pound of grain or so.

Hmm....mine has never loosened since I got the crush dialed in. I've got the "Victoria" type, and there are enough threads on that adjustment screw that I would put a lock nut on there to jam the wing nut if mine started doing that.
From the pix in this thread, looks like the "Porkert" version has lots of thread, too. The actual "Corona," not so much....

wowza... i need to adjust the mill some more and crush quite a bit more, i got just a tad under 60% eff. on my last brew. Wowza, no whole kernels that i saw, might need to mash longer with some more water maybe thin it out to 1.4/1.5qts a pound and see what happens, still haven't fully dialed it in yet, but the last brew day i had i was at 70. hrm...

After seeing this and other threads about corona mills, it occurred to me that my grandma had one of these that hadn't been used for many years, so when I was visiting last week I brought it home with me. First of all, thanks to everyone who posted their rigs in this thread as it made it nearly brainless to put this together.

Mill brand: Estrella

Parts list:
5 gallon bucket - $2.54
Bucket lid - $1.27
5/16-8 coarse thread bolt - $0.69
6"x4" vent pipe reducer - $5.98
4" drawband connector - $2.28
Total - $12.76

I also used a scrap piece of 2x4 and 4 deck screws which I didn't include in the build price since most people probably have these laying around.

The build:
I mounted the mill to the 2x4 and figured out where I wanted it centered by sitting the 2x4 on top of the bucket and tracing the edge of the bucket on the 2x4. Then I took the 2x4 off and traced the bottom edge of the bucket centered inside of the top edge diameter lines. Using a miter saw, I made several cuts to get a close radius in between the top and bottom diameter lines. I had to make several rounds of cutting the radius before the board was the right size to sit down in the bucket but not be too narrow. Then with the mill mounted to the 2x4, I drilled and screwed the 2x4 to the bucket. I placed a light inside the bucket and traced the outline of the 2x4 to figure out where to place the screws.

After that I drilled a hole for the bolt that will turn the mill. To do this, I marked the inside of the bucket and used a flashlight to locate the mark on the outside.

For the hopper and lid, I decided to leave the hopper affixed to the mill intake and split the lid in half. With the drawband tightened it is surpsignly sturdy considering it is only holding onto a less than 3/8" lip, but you can lift the whole deal by the hopper without it coming off. I used a jigsaw to cut the hole for the hopper and split the lid and half and it worked beautifully.

These pictures were taken immediately after completing the build I need to take it apart and clean it up, then time to go get some grain and try it out.

Lookin' good! Now you just need to take a razor knife and cut the bottom off that bucket, it's so much easier using the Bucket-In-Bucket(TM) system.

https://picasaweb.google.com/JustinLowry31/MotorizedMillBuild#5624382041663072242
https://picasaweb.google.com/JustinLowry31/MotorizedMillBuild#5624382052131699778
https://picasaweb.google.com/JustinLowry31/MotorizedMillBuild#5624382059927786370
https://picasaweb.google.com/JustinLowry31/MotorizedMillBuild#5624382074942392114

A fellow homebrewer and I built this mill with the help of this thread. So, in respect, we decided to add our motorized grain mill to this ever growing thread. It took about 4 weeks to build but with about 4 hours of labor.

Comments?

ps. how do I put a photo directly into my post?

Lowry0031 said:

A fellow homebrewer and I built this mill with the help of this thread. So, in respect, we decided to add our motorized grain mill to this ever growing thread. It took about 4 weeks to build but with about 4 hours of labor.

Comments?

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Fixed those for ya! It looks good Bro, care to provide any details on how you motorized it?

wyzazz said:

Fixed those for ya! It looks good Bro, care to provide any details on how you motorized it?

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Well, my buddy took a motor from an old copy machine probably 15 years ago. We took that motor wired it up with a capacitor (to make it spin the correct way every time) and a switch.

Connecting the drive shaft to the corona mill was the hard part. We first bought a pipe that we were going to drill holes in (and tap for set screws) however, after thinking about how difficult it would be we were back to the drawing board. My buddy ran the problem by his old man and suggested to use a very stiff hose and using hose clamps. So, we tried that.

Attempt 1: the hose clamps (on the motor side) wouldn't go small enough so the shaft was slipping.

Attempt 2: we slipped beer siphon hose on to the motor shaft (to build some girth) and attached the larger hose. Tightened down, added test grain, flipped the switch and voila. Crushed grain!

Excellent thread. It will certainly save me $100+ from buying one of them "fancy" grain mills. This will definitely be my next piece I pick up in an effort to have a fully functional single tier brewing setup. Well that and finally being able to take full advantage of the group grain buys.

I saw many people posting about picking one of these up for around $25 or so, however; in my search for the el cheapo grain mill I found the one I plan to order tonight when I get home from work. I found one online for only $19.95 with free shipping!

http://grantfords.com/product_info.php?&i=B000U5NZ4I

awesome! just dont get frusterated if your numbers turn out low, just tighten up the grind till you get them!
i'm still dialing mine in, but last one was 70% so i think i'll just work around that for now

+1 to not getting frustrated or discouraged with low numbers.

My first go with my mill was about 60%. I've cranked it down now and my last two batches were both 84% (according to my measurements and BeerSmith software).

I read here somewhere to crank it down until your scared you'll get a stuck mash, then crank it another 1/4 turn down. Seems to have worked for me. I did get one stuck mash (out of 4 so far), but even that's not the end of the wold.

I just got my new mill. Is there a summary on which mods need to be done? This thread is huge!

happyvdubber said:

I just got my new mill. Is there a summary on which mods need to be done? This thread is huge!

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Honestly i would just tighten it down and grind some until you see what you like, brew with it, check efficiency. I bought my Victoria and just tightened it as much as it would reasonably go and until the crush looked right.

I get 76-78%+ on a typical 10G batch.

You can do the mods, but try it tightened before you get creative.

All I did was replace the cotter pin in front with the correct size SS bolt, and then started tightening per the above post. Tighten until you get scared, then give it another twist.

Seriously, these things are so crudely made that there's bound to be so much variation that it would be impossible to give any sort of specific adjustments. My front plate still has some wobble in it, but I get a great crush and hit all my numbers when brewing.

Mrott said:

Excellent thread. It will certainly save me $100+ from buying one of them "fancy" grain mills. This will definitely be my next piece I pick up in an effort to have a fully functional single tier brewing setup. Well that and finally being able to take full advantage of the group grain buys.

I saw many people posting about picking one of these up for around $25 or so, however; in my search for the el cheapo grain mill I found the one I plan to order tonight when I get home from work. I found one online for only $19.95 with free shipping!

http://grantfords.com/product_info.php?&i=B000U5NZ4I

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That everyone- including me- got from 'crazy sam' or whoever...
For a couple $ less

Nice one. I just scored a free Corona last week and had a decent 78% efficiency for my second all grain brew! Mine didn't come with a hopper so here is how I rigged it.

I have everything but the drill to do it your way though. Going to get on it!

I replaced the cotter pin with machine screw, JB welded the grind plate, and added 3 washers to the tensioner frame. I must not have done a good job aligning the grind plate because it is not parallel to the opposing grind plate.

rack04 said:

I replaced the cotter pin with machine screw, JB welded the grind plate, and added 3 washers to the tensioner frame. I must not have done a good job aligning the grind plate because it is not parallel to the opposing grind plate.

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I did the screw, no JB or washers. My plates aren't parallel, either, but it just doesn't seem to make any difference. I get a great crush.