increasing barley crusher hopper size

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Get sheet metal already cut to smaller pieces, unless you have the tools to do it yourself. Since BC won't sell you their extension. I would start with a paper or cardboard template to figure out how it needs to be made. Poster board would probably work out better since it will be stiffer than paper and thinner than cardboard (or use card stock). You'll also need to figure out how you'll attach it to the base hopper.

The limits of that hopper was one of the reasons I sold the BC I had. BC not giving people an option to purchase the extension later was another. The larger hopper version was not in stock anywhere when I was looking.

If you don't have the tools to work with metal, you could try decent thickness plexiglass. Just make sure it's not too thin. You can cut it, heat it up (heat gun or even a hair drier would work) and form it as needed.
 
I made my BC hopper extension from a 12"x17.5" sheet of aluminum I picked up at either Lowes or Home Depot.

grain_mill_station_07_sm.jpg


Quicky instructions:

- cut across the sheet 9" from one end, leaving a 12x9 piece and a 12x8.5 piece. Cut both of those across their middles, ending up with two 6x9 pieces and two 6x8.5 pieces.

- fold 1/4" wide 90° bends along both short sides of the two 6x9 pieces

- assemble the four pieces into a square "cylinder", use some masking tape to hold it together, then clamp a sacrificial piece of wood to a bench and drill through the folded areas for short aluminum pop rivets.

Et voila! Mine nests securely in the maw of the original hopper and bumps the net capacity pretty close to the OEM extension.

grain_mill_station_03_sm.jpg


[edit] Later I added the plastic binder strips to protect from getting nicked by that sheer metal edge.
grain_mill_station_08_sm.jpg


Cheers!
 
Here is a small plastic trash can as a hopper from the Malt Mill site
hopper.jpg


Daytripper, beautiful job on the extension. It is not easy to bend sheet metal that cleanly (my dad was a tin-knocker). I would give up and use Al angle strips. Do you have a press brake?
 
Daytripper, beautiful job on the extension. It is not easy to bend sheet metal that cleanly (my dad was a tin-knocker). I would give up and use Al angle strips. Do you have a press brake?

Thanks for the kind comments. I don't have a brake, so I used a couple of pieces of hardboard in my bench vise to square things up then bent over the top of the forms. The aluminum was somewhere around 20-22 gauge so it really wasn't hard to do.

The plastic pieces are the spines for those clear plastic document binders you used to use in school. They're strong enough to not only protect errant fingers but to keep the extension square...

Cheers!
 
Did you have to adjust your crush after making this mod? Seems there would be more downward pressure which might affect the crush somewhat. Like this mod and may attempt same when I get a chance.
 
Did you have to adjust your crush after making this mod? Seems there would be more downward pressure which might affect the crush somewhat. Like this mod and may attempt same when I get a chance.

Why would a few pounds more do anything? Seriously, we're not talking about hundreds of pounds of pressure per square inch increase here. I can't see an increase of <100# of grain capacity making any difference with a quality mill.
 
Did you have to adjust your crush after making this mod? Seems there would be more downward pressure which might affect the crush somewhat.[...]

Nope, no change to the gap setting needed. There really wasn't any change in performance with the hopper extension, even the motor noise sounds the same...

Cheers!
 
By request I'm reposting this to get the pics lost with the forum runner change back on HBT...
Cheers!
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I made my BC hopper extension from a 12"x17.5" sheet of aluminum I picked up at either Lowes or Home Depot.

grain_mill_station_07_sm.jpg


Quicky instructions:

- cut across the sheet 9" from one end, leaving a 12x9 piece and a 12x8.5 piece. Cut both of those across their middles, ending up with two 6x9 pieces and two 6x8.5 pieces.

hopper.jpg


- fold 1/2" wide 90° bends along both short sides of the two 6x9 pieces (note: my original post was in error wrt the fold width - they are indeed 1/2" making the overall "square" 8" x 8.5" as drawn).

- assemble the four pieces into a square "cylinder", use some masking tape to hold it together, then clamp a sacrificial piece of wood to a bench and drill through the folded areas for short aluminum pop rivets.

Et voila! Mine nests securely in the maw of the original hopper and bumps the net capacity pretty close to the OEM extension.

grain_mill_station_03_sm.jpg


Later I added plastic binder strips to protect from getting nicked by that sheer metal edge.

grain_mill_station_08_sm.jpg


New: The same hopper extension works with the Cereal Killer mill I picked up a couple of months ago...

Cheers!
 
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