wood rollers for malt crusher?

anybody ever successfully made a malt crusher using wood rollers? i was considering making a jig that uses 2 old wood rolling pins. i'm not wanting any wood in my mash tho, so wondering if anybody else had any luck using wood. basically, looking for any cheap/frugal design.

I have a hardwood rolling pin that I've used to hand crush a few pounds of grains. Already looks like it got hit by a 12 gauge. I was thinking about trying it, too...

yeah, wood just isn't nearly strong enough. even the metal and concrete rollers some use will still lose too much of the texture (gnurled?) over the years.

I've done less than 1lb with my wifes rolling pin and now her sugar cookies all come out with tumors.

I've seen plans using wooden rollers. IIRC, it worked well. Just use really hard wood and as large diameter as you can.

I used to have a mill I made out of wood. The roller was an old rolling pin. I ran some grooves into it with a router, and every 4th batch or so I'd have to regrind the grooves. The wood was birch. If you try it, I'd use something much harder than that, like oak or hickory. FWIW, I never tasted wood in the mash ever.

You can get some incredibly hard wood. There is a species around here that will wreck chainsaw blades. Local guys call it ironwood, but I'm sure that isn't the proper name for it.

See if you can get walnut or pear. When I was in GA I would help on trail days for a local climbing coalition and those two types of trees would take the edge off my chain before I could get through them, they were typically 1' or more in diameter.

Maple is pretty hard, but I imagine it would still get chewed up. I have used an unopened can of extract to crush grains with great results.

I cannot imagine making a crusher out of wood. It would eventually get chewed up and become useless. I'm making mine out of knurled steel, and it should last forever, but the tools are harder to come by (I work at a machine shop, so I'm good).

If you can find a metal TUBE (Large diameter pipe) you could use that as a sleeve for a wooden roller. This would omit metalworking tools from your requirements, and still give a durable roller. Use a larger diameter roller if you are not going to knurl it. It will help grab the grain and pull them into the crusher.