Using a pasta maker to mill grain.

I struggled for a long time to roughen the rollers enough to pull the grain through at an even pace. What really made a huge difference was conditioning the grain before hand with a spray bottle till it was the texture of damp leather. I read about the procedure here...

http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Malt_Conditioning

Previously I was getting too much flour and stuck sparges with my roller settings. After conditioning, the same settings gave me a beautiful crush at a reasonable pace.

I can't believe I just read all of this... I have been slowly putting together equipment so that when I do AG it will just mean buying the grains.

Out of curiousity, how have the drill bits been holding up to scoring the pieces? My hubby is wondering?

I can see one day buying the $$ crusher, but if this works for $20 or less and holds up for a while I don't see the harm in giving it a go...

The drill bits fair just fine, they are quite hard compared to the soft rollers. Pasta rollers work well. IME running the grain through twice helps to get a nice crush as the rollers are quite small. The pasta rollers no doubt will work, but for short money milling my hats off to the corona style.

Well I don't really know what the corona style is, or where to get one, so I think I will be adding a pasta roller to my "to buy" list... will be sure to give feedback and pics, especially since the hubby likes to come up with his own way to do things once he gets into making stuff...

Lard's tunderin' jaysis, bye. A Newfoundlander taking up my invention! My pasta roller mill invention has made it to the ROCK!

I am truly honoured.

Yes, very impressive, Nostrildamus. Congrats.

How are you folks dealing with the stray kernels that fly out of the mill? Using something as a barrier (which might cause them to fall into the bucket), or just letting them fly where they may?

Pickngrin said:

How are you folks dealing with the stray kernels that fly out of the mill? Using something as a barrier (which might cause them to fall into the bucket), or just letting them fly where they may?

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My hopper takes care of all that. There might be the occasional piece that makes it by, but 99% get's milled.

Yeah, I built a hopper on top and a four sided little box that sits under the mill and directs the crushed grain into the bucket. I usually find some uncrushed stuff stuck in the bottom portion of my mill and so once I'm done grinding I shake it out over another bowl and run it through the mill.

I would like to say thanks to those who started this thread and made this project possible. I like building things, and I like saving money. I think this was a fantastic way to do both.

Here is a look at how mine came out. It is hard to see in the picture but I used self taping screws to hold the hopper on. I cut and hammered the bottom of the hopper. Folded it in towards the rollers.

I have been having issues with quite a bit of grain going uncrushed--about 10% I'd say. I have to send it back through the mill in order to get it to where I'd like it. But when I do that I get a **** load of flour and I don't really like that. I have weather striping along the top of the mill and my hopper (home depot bucket) sits flush on that. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Sounds like the rollers are off a little bit. One side is closer than the other or your rollers are off round.

Not what I wanted to hear! They do move a little bit side to side but I thought they were both moving equally. Oh well. Still not a big enough problem for me to stop milling my own grain with it. I'll just have to mill it twice.

mine has that gap too. The roller slides a bit back an forth. It might be easy to fix with a rubber grommet on one end to hold it in place. I was thinking about that a bit last night.

BigJay13 said:

I have been having issues with quite a bit of grain going uncrushed--about 10% I'd say. Any thoughts or suggestions?

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If you look at your rollers, look at the one that moves when you turn the dial.
On the fixed roller the top plate pretty well sits on top of it, on the one that moves that plate doesnt move when you turn the dial..
I think that's where my uncrushed grain goes through... Although i don;t think mine is 10%, just a handfull per 10lb grain.
I've never thought of a way to fix it yet though.

Before I broke mine, I'd put some foam insulation under those plates, which kept any grain from falling through - I also had quite a bit going through that gap.

Wow... I just read this whole thread! I'm trying to get started with AG on a budget. A mill isn't on the top of the priority list, but this is cheap enough to give it a shot.
Iroc, is the buddy deal knurling still available?
Do you guys recommend knurling over the drill method, or vise-versa?

BigJay13 said:

Not what I wanted to hear! They do move a little bit side to side but I thought they were both moving equally. Oh well. Still not a big enough problem for me to stop milling my own grain with it. I'll just have to mill it twice.

Click to expand...

I used mine last weekend to do 30lb grain bill. About half way through, getting annoyed that the roller was slipping to the gap, I found a solution. I cut a small piece of thin gauge steel. Some guys call it tin, for heating ducts. I folded a small piece in half and just stuck it in the gap. Worked great. Keep the roller in place and also kept grain from falling through it. The last 15lb or so went perfect.

I just spent an hour and a half reading this and I am headed to Wal-mart to check on a roller! - RedIroc- is the offer still on the table for knurling?

I think you are going to have to do something about the rollers.
They are smooth. I'm betting that the grains won't get trapped and crushed. Instead they will just glide over the rollers. .

Those rollers are intended to sheet the dough while also not stick to it. That requires a nice glassy finish.

Take the rollers out and abrade the living BeGeebus out of them maybe on a 25 grit abrasive belt lengthwise and you'd be more likely to draw the grains in.

It's a great idea tho'. Ebay has those things for cheap. Might we worth the effort of taking one apart.

Then there is the question of the internal gearing. Will it stand up? Only one way to tell. First ya gotta open one up.

I have been contemplating a crusher using concrete rollers cast around steel shafts driven with small sprockets and chain.
Concrete is a very flexible material to work with and can be sealed with epoxies.

I got mine made a while ago (pics here) thanks to RedIrocZ-28 for knurling the rollers for almost nothing. I have run about 100lbs of grain through it and it is going strong. Last batch I got 82% efficiency, I was averaging around 75%, but changed my mash technique a little. I run the grain through once, don't bother with another run. I think setting 4 or 5.

Sorry it took so long to update.

I have been using my for 8 months or so now with no problems. But I was wondering if anyone has lubricated the gears? If so what did you use to do it and how often?

Thanks

yeah, i did lube the gears with some keg-lube. I took the whole thing apart when i tried to figure out how to mod it to get the rollers roughed up, and when i put it back together i lubed it. If you do i think you need to close the holes on the bottom of that side to keep dust and stuff out.

I diddn't put tape on those holes right away and can only imagine what all is in those gears with my lube. Really, i should take it apart and clean it, just never did. It's still going after about 130 # of grain.

Next update to my mill:
i want to make a stand so the grain will get milled without me standing there holding a drill. Once i get my mill totally the way i want it i will try and post some pics.

I have over 300 lbs through my pasta mill. It has been great, but it is starting to fall apart.

I figure I'll get another one from Michael's, rough up the rollers, and start crushing. $15 and 1 hour building it seems like a good deal for another 300 lbs of crushing.

btw, She hasn't crapped out yet, and I don't plan on replacing her till she does. I might get to 500 lbs.

brown_dog_us said:

I have over 300 lbs through my pasta mill. It has been great, but it is starting to fall apart.

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WOW... that's alot of grain.. that'd be 30 batches for me..
How is it starting to fall apart? rollers getting loose..? gears grinding?

sorry to hear about it tearing up finally though..

Anyone interested in a converted pasta to grain grinder? I've used the suggestions from this post to fabricate an adjustable grain crusher. After reading some of the posts I bought enough materials to make (2). Fortunately (or unfortunately) nothing went wrong with fabrication #1 so I just made another one as a spare but haven't used it. It has a sheet metal hopper, riveted together for 9 lbs of grain and a 3/4" plywood base with a support for the drill. The base also has a circular addition to fit into the 'homer' bucket. Works great on setting #3 (a bit coarse for my liking) or #4.

If anyone is interested I'm thinking $50 for it, or will swap for a refractometer. PM me so we can set something up.

Thanks for your interest.
BB

bbbrew how about a few pics. The weak point of this roller is that you are limited to the preset adjustments for the roller gap.

I give you the fact that the adjustment setting is limited by the position of the eccentric shaft. On #3 you get 0.070" and on #4 you get 0.050" space between rollers respectively. I don't think this would to hard to make a lockdown on the eccentric shaft to give an infinite amount of adjustability. From what I have seen on a couple of other store bought models, the adjustment moves only one side of the roller causing a wedge shape to occur. However, a longer roller will certainly minimize the opening difference between one side or another.

One last comment on this grinder. After reading the 47 pages of feedback, it certainly seems like an economical device for us homebrews on a budget.

The offer still stands (see post #465) if someone is interested.

BB

I think the best "adjustment" with this roller may be to go smaller and condition your grain with water ( Kaiser or BYO or other ways).

I have been having good luck with my crush. I actually bumped it up larger. But this one started slinging parts after a year, so we will see how the new one works. That is, when this one fails. I just stuck in a bigger bit and kept going. Done another couple batches with it this way. Why use my NEW $15 mill when the old one (free from a friend) is still going. After over a year and 200+ lbs of grain.

Any jersey brewers looking for a pasta roller, I have one all set and ready to crush mounted w/ hopper. It works well, I just prefer the corona, that's all. $15 bucks and I'll throw in a ghetto cooler mash tun that works fine for batch sparging. PM for details.

Think I'm gonna give this a whirl.

Jump out to the garage and knurl up the rollers on the lathe (footnote: Knurling increases the diameter a bit.)
Have a customer laser cut up some scrap metal for the hopper, and probably a little beefing up.

(I'm just getting started and doing smaller batches, so can work nicely)

I've been trying to use my pasta roller now for the last few batches. I've been running into a few problems though. It works great for the first 1/2 kilo of grain I put through it, but then a fine flour dust seems to fill in and stick to the knurled bits and it will no longer pull the grain through.

Has anyone else run into this problem? I solve it by breaking out the drill and knurling some more, but again that only lasts for a short while.

Hey great idea for a Grain Mill, I have an Atlas Pasta Maker that I got a while back when me and the wifey first got married. We hardly ever use it so I'm going to convert it to a grain mill. My idea is to take the rollers out and instead of roughing them up I'm going to put some skate board grip tape on them super strong adhesive and the roughness of course sandpaper. I don't know if it will work but I'm going to try it. If it doesn't work I can try to get the grip tape off and roughen the rollers. I got this Idea from work where we bought a machine called a phlat cutter that does 2D CAD cutting and the rollers for feeding the material are made the same way. I'll let everybody know how it works.

Kazi

Well I tried going to the Local Surf/Skateboard shop. They are out of business. Dag gone economy! Well I had to change tactics so I went to the local HD and found tape that they use for Stairs and Ladders for extra grip. Ended up being about $13.00 for a roll made by 3m which is more than enough. I only partially disassembled the pasta roller and was able to apply the grip tape, cleaned rollers with lacquer thinner and trimmed with a razor knife. The tape is very sticky. I haven't tried to Mill any grain yet but thought I would share some picts of what it looks like so far. I will update once I mill some grain. Here's a link to Photobucket where I've uploaded the images.

http://s926.photobucket.com/albums/ad107/kmacva/Grain Mill/

Kazi

Well, I ground a Small amount of grain with the handcrank with the Grip Tape Pasta Mill. It has no problem feeding grain. the grip tape does add some thickness to the rollers so on the Atlas mill settings 1 is wide open Setting 4 is closed. I used setting one. I'll have to see how the grip tape lasts but since it made for walking on and outdoor use I have high hopes that it will last. If not I can replace the grip tape one roll is 180"Long. I have mostly intact Hulls and not a lot of flour, but a nice grind consistency IMHO. My total time on this conversion was about 1 hour including the trip to HD for the tape. Now I'm going to work on a hopper and motor power. Here a link to the picts I took.

http://s926.photobucket.com/albums/ad107/kmacva/Grind/

Kazi

Chips said:

I've been trying to use my pasta roller now for the last few batches. I've been running into a few problems though. It works great for the first 1/2 kilo of grain I put through it, but then a fine flour dust seems to fill in and stick to the knurled bits and it will no longer pull the grain through.

Has anyone else run into this problem? I solve it by breaking out the drill and knurling some more, but again that only lasts for a short while.

Click to expand...

A while back I had made (2) crushers. The actual pasta roller has been much more reliable. The second one that I knurled the rollers constantly loosens up on the adjustment and then just quits grinding. I took a look at the adjustment settings. If you set it and forget it might as just spot weld it in place. I was thinking though that milling out (grinding out with a dremel for those that don't have a mill) the pre-punched holes and just put in a lock nut so that it would have infinite adjustment and could be locked down more securely would be better. If I have a couple of minutes tomorrow, I'll post a couple of pics of my thought.

But coming back to the first crusher. It is always been reliable. I've got about 150 lbs though it now and it still works well. The last two batch, I conditioned milled by following the BYO article in the prior month edition. I steamed about 7 lbs in my fine mesh bag for 15 minutes in the boil kettle with 1.5 gallons of water. And then did the other 7 lbs. My efficiency was a bit low both times but I been having problem reconciling this (see http://https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/help-effieciency-180953/). However, the crush seemed to be less flourly and a nice husk which was still intact.

Someone had a photo of their crusher in this discussion and now I know why they didn't put all the covers back on it. It really is a pain if something goes wrong and you have to start fiddling around. At this point, alls you want to do is get making beer, not fixing problems.

BB

kmacva said:

Well, I ground a Small amount of grain with the handcrank with the Grip Tape Pasta Mill. It has no problem feeding grain. the grip tape does add some thickness to the rollers so on the Atlas mill settings 1 is wide open Setting 4 is closed. I used setting one. I'll have to see how the grip tape lasts but since it made for walking on and outdoor use I have high hopes that it will last. If not I can replace the grip tape one roll is 180"Long. I have mostly intact Hulls and not a lot of flour, but a nice grind consistency IMHO. My total time on this conversion was about 1 hour including the trip to HD for the tape. Now I'm going to work on a hopper and motor power. Here a link to the picts I took.

http://s926.photobucket.com/albums/ad107/kmacva/Grind/

Kazi

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Great idea with the anti-slip tape! Please keep us posted on how long it lasts (ie will it at least do a complete batch). The problem I was having with flour bits clogging up the grippers might not be so bad with the tape as the grit faces out as opposed to in.

Well I used the grip tape pasta mill Saturday to mill 11 lbs of grain. I can see some ablation of the grip tape here and there, I'd estimate well less than 1 percent of surface area. I used a cordless drill on low speed with a 3/8" spade bit to drive it. I'd estimate I could probably do at least 8-10 Eleven pound batches before it might need replacing. It could be more since it's gotten rid of any weak spots. I will say the grain goes through like there's no tomorrow, absolutely no feed problems. I'm going to keep on experimenting. You might only need to apply the grip tape to one roller, it might help with longevity too. Like I wrote earlier it only took a partial disassembly to apply the grip tape to the rollers, they do not have to come out. Also I used a blow gun with my air compressor to clean it. Over all I am pleased with how it worked. Saved me some money on a commercial grain mill, more money to buy grain.


Kazi

A local machine shop just quoted me $465 to knurl 2 rollers! Seriously?! Anyone have a contact in the NYC or Westchester area?

WoW!!! You could buy a lathe and do it yourself for that price. That is nuts

hlumbard said:

A local machine shop just quoted me $465 to knurl 2 rollers! Seriously?! Anyone have a contact in the NYC or Westchester area?

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IMO not worth spending any additional money maodding a cheap pasta mill. Scar the hell out of the rollers w/ a drill bit.