Flour Mill for grinding grain?

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Guinness

Guinness

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I picked up a flour mill at a yard sale this week-end.

It uses an electric motor to turn a round stone, grinding the wheat against a SS plate. It has a coarseness setting to control the gap between the stone and the plate.

I'm hoping to use it to mill grain. Anyone tried something like this? Looking for tips!
 
Don't do it. When you mill grain you are only breaking open the husk to allow the hydrolysis of the starch into sugars. Using a flour mill will crush the grain into too fine of a paste and you won't get the needed efficiency.

Listen to this podcast of Brew Strong on the Brewing Network for more information
http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/605
 
Thanks for the link to the podcast, downloading it now.

When I looked at the mill, and set it to its coarsest setting (opening up the gap between the stone and the plate) there seemed to be a lot of space. I thought maybe that setting was intended for making cracked wheat bread, and be close enough for my purpose.
 
Guinness said:
Thanks for the link to the podcast, downloading it now.

When I looked at the mill, and set it to its coarsest setting (opening up the gap between the stone and the plate) there seemed to be a lot of space. I thought maybe that setting was intended for making cracked wheat bread, and be close enough for my purpose.
Click to expand...

If you do brew in a bag instead of 3-vessel, you can successfully use (in fact, it's better for efficiency) a much finer grind than the batch/fly spargers. But a flour mill might easily be way too fine even for that.

Do you have the ability to test it out before buying?
 
Since it appears that you have already bought the mill, it sure won't cost much to give it a try. Run a pound or two through it and play with the adjustment and see what she'll do. It might work better than expected. No need to leap to a conclusion without giving it a try.
 
Stone grinding plate = shredded husks which = tannins and astringency. You can ground the barley kernels into flour if you want as long as the husks stay intact. It's just hard to grind the kernels really fine without shredding the husks.
 
Can we see a picture or the mill or can you tell us what it's name is? Rather than folks speculating how bad or good it will be, how many tannins it will produce, and other armchair quarterbacking, let's know EXACTLY what you have, first THEN we can tell you if it's good or not.

For all we know perhaps it has the capability for milling corn as well, maybe replacing the stone with another plate, or gapping it or modding it. But until we know what you have, I think it's foolish to start giving advice.

I'm not going to venture any opinion, until I know EXACTLY what you have, and any advice from anyone else needs to be taken with a grain of salt, (or grain perdiod ;)
 
If you use a flour mill you will end up with a fine powder and it will take forever for you to sparge. This is the reason they set a gap on grain mills. If you mill threw a grain mill you will get a better efficency and it will take less time to sparge. A flour mill is just not a good idea.
 
Seems like the consensus here is that it's a bad idea. You're right though Catt, I did already pick it up, because it was a nice mill in good shape, and I figured I'd get some use out of it for brewing or something else!

After looking into it, I'm happy I did. It turns out it's a pretty high end home use mill. It's a Lee Engineering S-600. Turns out it's a $700 unit! Here are a couple of links
http://www.eminstrumentswi.com/lee.html
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/13634/lee-household-flour-mill

It does have an adjustable gap, and can be used for corn - it mentions making cornmeal out of popcorn

update: I ran 1/2cup of Crystal Malt through it with the largest gap setting, and it's almost there. What came out wasn't flour, but finer grind than just cracked hulls. There are some recognizable pieces, but the part that is ground is too fine for my liking. If I could set the gap just a little wider...
 
Lamarkid7 said:
If you use a flour mill you will end up with a fine powder and it will take forever for you to sparge.
Click to expand...

As said before, this is a big problem for 3-vessel brewers. Single vessel/brew in a bag brewers have far, far less problems with stuck sparges. BiaBers actually really want much finer mills than 3-vessel brewers--there's not nearly the same problem with stuck sparges, and it actually helps their efficiency a lot.

It's surprising to me how many peope who choose to brew one way don't realize that there's a whole other world of all-grain brewing where stuck sparges really aren't a major problem. People get locked in their own world and think everyone's doing the same thing they do, when that's really not always the case.
 
Guinness said:
Seems like the consensus here is that it's a bad idea. You're right though Catt, I did already pick it up, because it was a nice mill in good shape, and I figured I'd get some use out of it for brewing or something else!

After looking into it, I'm happy I did. It turns out it's a pretty high end home use mill. It's a Lee Engineering S-600. Turns out it's a $700 unit! Here are a couple of links
http://www.eminstrumentswi.com/lee.html
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/13634/lee-household-flour-mill

It does have an adjustable gap, and can be used for corn - it mentions making cornmeal out of popcorn

update: I ran 1/2cup of Crystal Malt through it with the largest gap setting, and it's almost there. What came out wasn't flour, but finer grind than just cracked hulls. There are some recognizable pieces, but the part that is ground is too fine for my liking. If I could set the gap just a little wider...
Click to expand...

What did you pay for it? I would bet you could get $350 on Ebay for it if it's in good condition as you say it is. There are gourmet and purist types that would kill for one of those mills. I say sell it and use the proceeds to get a malt mill or some other brewing equipment. OTOH, you may be one of those that can put a flour mill like that to good use. Either way, looks like you scored.

I'd give it one more shot with some wet conditioned malt just to see what happens.
 
I'm with Catt. If you don't plan on using for anything other than brewing.....sell it, spend $120 on a barley crusher (or whatever grain mill you want), and spend the remaining profit on buying sacks of grain. Depending on what you paid, you could make out like a bandit. :rockin:
 
SumnerH said:
It's surprising to me how many peope who choose to brew one way don't realize that there's a whole other world of all-grain brewing where stuck sparges really aren't a major problem. People get locked in their own world and think everyone's doing the same thing they do, when that's really not always the case.
Click to expand...

Let's be honest. There are no stuck sparges, because there is no sparge. If you am brewing to achieve a specific style that has a target gravity I bet most of the time you will not hit that target. I am not suggesting that you can not make good beer with the BIAB method but for those of us that enter contests and try to be authentic it is not the best option. BIAB definetly has it's applications but is not all things to all brewers as you suggest.
 
Catt22 said:
What did you pay for it? I would bet you could get $350 on Ebay for it if it's in good condition as you say it is. There are gourmet and purist types that would kill for one of those mills. I say sell it and use the proceeds to get a malt mill or some other brewing equipment. OTOH, you may be one of those that can put a flour mill like that to good use. Either way, looks like you scored.

I'd give it one more shot with some wet conditioned malt just to see what happens.
Click to expand...

$350? Ha, I didn't pay $50 :ban:
Have to love yard sales!

You've got an excellent point, and I may sell it and buy a roller mill, although I have done BIAB, so maybe it's just the thing for me. Anyways, it's a good problem to have. I've been reading a bit about the mill, and it's a very interesting machine I've fallen upon.
 
I would ask that this this thread not be hijacked into a brewing style debate, and that we simply discuss the merits of this mill.

Thank you
 
Guinness said:
I would ask that this this thread not be hijacked into a brewing style debate, and that we simply discuss the merits of this mill.

Thank you
Click to expand...

Just curious, did you ever try this mill for the original purpose? After reading the whole thread, I know would really like to know if all the fears came true. I personally would have given it a shot. One batch wouldn't have hurt.
 

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