My Ugly Junk- Corona Mill Station...

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This thread encouraged me to save my money on a BC and go Corona.

My contribution
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Tried it out today, made a couple adjustments (had to tighten down, then a bit more, g/f reminded me of what you guys said, "tighten till scared...") and I got these results, I'm thrilled!!
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Great setup! Crush looks good too....I can't really make out any uncrushed grain in there.
 
Been one of those days where you can honestly call yourself a Lucky Bastard and thought I'd share the joy. Here's the story, (long post, sorry):

I'm an amateur vintner of Country Wines and found that I have a large hole in my pipeline with nothing to draft off of, (lost 6gal of Pear to "flowers of wine"). Rice wine would still be a few months out at its youngest, and we've always had trouble not drinking up my children before their time.

Recently had a friend gift me what he thought was a wine corker laying around from garbage picking, but it turned out to be a Super Agata Bench Capper. Nice Gift!

"Crap" I thought, "This smells like another hobby I won't be able to shut up about."

So I made up my mind to start my first batch of homebrew and went to a local wine store that has a small beer/wine ingredients section. I wrote down a recipe for a Newcastle clone before I went, without knowing the difference yet between an extract and AG brew. Started gathering the ingredients and just about soiled my nethers when I picked up a bag of malt extract. "15$ and I need two of these?!?!?" Didn't sit well AT ALL, so I picked up a Cooper's Stout kit which seemed like a good place to start at 17$.

Caught the bug pretty hard at this point and started researching properly into homebrewing. Found out that an AG brew would cut my costs pretty significantly. Also realized that extract brewing felt like "cheating" to me as a winemaker. (Fruit prep alone can take up more time than 1 AG brew day.) No offense to extract brewers, but it just feels like mixing different packets of koolaid together. No connection to the ingredients. (Please don't flame me for this, I won't care.)

So I started looking into equipment and wanted a roller mill like all the big kids seem to be using. The cost of those are relatively cheap, but I already have that $ allocated to the wine press I'm building. (HDPE 3/4" sheet is the cost of a roll mill and my forearms are tired and my hands stained.) Then I found Revvy's fun thread here and resigned myself to probably ending up with a Discount Tommy Victoria. Been watching the Ebay auctions and see y'all bidding them up slightly over 20$ every time. 30$ and in my hands was something I was about to pull the trigger on and could live with, having the collected advice here to lean on. (Thank you ALL very much!)

But today, TODAY, I went to see that friend who gave me the super agata. He was selling me an old table saw at a deal and I happened to ask him if he found a grain mill along with that capper. He told me "No," but that he did have what he thought was a mill laying around that he never seriously used. He told me I could have it, but he could borrow it back whenever he needed.

DEAL!

Then he went to fish it out, came back and handed me this bad boy, (Sorry for the large pics).

I feel so lucky, I could cry.


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Apologies if that seemed like boasting. Just very happy about my "Deal Day."

I do have one question for you all.

What is the best method for cleaning this beast up and removing the rust while keeping things "Food Grade"?

The 2 bucket solution seems about the best stand I could make for storage efficiency, even though this mill seems to want something elaborate made out of fine hardwoods and Corinthian Leather. (That will be what adorns the wine press!)

I'll document the cleaning and the build in this thread, along with copious amounts of Mill Pr0n.

Thanks everyone...
 
That is a gorgeous old piece......looks like it's got more iron in it than a lot of new cars. If I were going to use anything to clean it, I'd probably soak it in a solution of "Green Cleaner" overnight, then rinse. I'd then be tempted to use some PBW (an Oxi-Clean on steriods) for a soak, but as long as any surface crud that comes off easily has been removed, I'd be too worried abou taking off any protective coating. The thing looks like it's been painted, rather than galvanized, and something like PBW or Oxi-Clean is gonna want to lift that paint off.

For mounting solutions, the "Ugly Junk" thread is replete with ideas.....some, like mine, uglier than others. "Wilserbrewer" in particular is a fount of good thoughts.
 
smooreland said:
What is the best method for cleaning this beast up and removing the rust while keeping things "Food Grade"?


Thanks everyone...
Click to expand...

Cleaning it? Are you crazy, it has taken perhaps the better part of a century to develop that fine patina. You could take it apart and wire wheel the grinding plates to remove the rust. Maybe running a bag of feed corn through it would "polish" up the plates. IMHO, don't soak it in water, but if you do, dry it quickly in a warm oven.
 
I do understand about the whole patina over time argument and I welcome the caution. Antiques should be left alone as to their fit and finish.

That is the problem right there though. I won't be leaving this thing alone to gather time for theoretical value as an antique. I'll be using it as Mr. Straub intended, grinding up shoit.

My plan is hopefully to keep the outward appearance just as it is, but to clean up the grain pathway alone so I don't mix iron oxide into my future crushed grain. I'll take pics of how rusted the inside is.

I would really love to treat it like an iron skillet if I could. Brush off any caked rust and soak the grain path alone with 1:1 ratio of vinegar and water to get rid of the rest of the rust on the inside. Then just bake it in the oven with multiple coats of lard like you would season a skillet. That would supposedly be a nice food grade coating for the internals.

Problem is, will that black coating, that may or may not be paint, survive oven temps just high enough to oxidize/carbonize the coatings of lard?


That's what I'm thinking about right now. The future will probably change this of course, but the idea seems sound if the paint will survive baking.
 
I've been meaning to mention this to satisfy y'alls curiosity:

The outside burr plate of this beauty does indeed wobble or "float". The inside burr plate is bolted to the cast body and the outside burr plate is not fixed rigidly to the shaft. (Again, more pics coming.)

Thought that might help out some of you about to JB Weld your Tommy Vic's.

Does anyone require video of the amount of wobble?
 
Subscribed cause I want some ugly junk too!!

I ran a recipe 3 times, each time missing my TG. Changed mash water amount, etc, no change. After reading this thread I'm thinking HBS grind was off?
 
yeah, been there. I now grind finer than I thought was correct and I'm hitting 75% + up to 80% consistently. I use a paint strainer in my mash tun too even if I'm a bit fine helps with filtration.
 
Turns out I don't have an antique, which is good in a lot of ways. (One of them being I can buy new burr plates for most likely an obscene amount.)

http://www.qcgsys.com/prod.htm


My mill doesn't have the patent #'s and dates on the stem like the antiques.

For some reason, these Quakers really found a niche in labs and universities from what I've researched. That there might be a testament to the quality of the thing I hope.

It also means that I might be getting my daily dose of wolframite and molybdenum while those who own Tommy Vic's are getting a daily dose of Chinese lead and cadmium.

Sustenance farmer/militia/end of the worlder type shops have them for sale still:

http://www.readymaderesources.com/cart/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=845
http://www.urbanhomemaker.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=135&idproduct=1810
http://www.lightwarriorproducts.com/barrelflier.shtml

(That last link is where one can buy their colloidal silver and turn the largest organ humans have a nice, dead-ish shade of grey/blue...)

Fun, no?

here's a link to the 1911 catalog version, for those interested in any of this.

http://www.gristmillers.com/quaker-city/page-04.htm
 
smooreland said:
It also means that I might be getting my daily dose of wolframite and molybdenum while those who own Tommy Vic's are getting a daily dose of Chinese lead and cadmium.

l[/url]

eh!? speaking Latin!...run some corn grind away... and enjoy! I'm sure my mexican cronona has some bad voodoo radioactive cheap-ass alloy. but I've dialed it in.... made some damn good efficient beer. Grind away grasshopper ,grind away!
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I'm guessing your older mill is higher quality casting with much tighter tolerances than our chinese/mexican versions.
 
Wolframite might as well be Latin to me as well. Doing the research to find out about Quaker City Mills kept returning research paper pdf's where they referred to "Ground sample to x fineness in Quaker City Mill". Wolframite was one of the minerals being ground up in one of them.

Hell, that 1st link above has this as material grinding list:

Grinding Mill
Model F-4

Typical Applications

* Soft or hard grains for cereal & bread
* Corn
* Coffee
* Pharmaceuticals
* Chemicals
* Ores
* Coal
* Nut leats
* Peanuts
* Soil tests
* Iron turnings
* Lab sample preparation


Coal and Ore? Iron Turnings? Holy Zeus! Seeing as how this was garbage picked out of a dumpster for one of the big 3 chemical companies...,

Kinda makes me skittish about what is coating the inside of this thing. (If the owner was grinding pharmaceuticals, then I better make a quick batch of AG before I clean this bad boy!!!)

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As far as the play in burr mill plates, here's a vid showing how much there is on this particular mill. Granted, this may just have been used all to hell and is loose because of that. I also haven't run any grain through it yet, but will do so by this weekend, (corn at first, sorry for you and me.)

[ame]http://www.vimeo.com/15571708[/ame]

Probably be a few weeks of prep before I grind my first AG batch. I want to get the toxic crud off, then electrolyze what rust I can back to iron, then coat 'er like a skillet.

I will stop teasing and get crushing as quick as I can, promise.
 
For $200 + up, think I'll stick with my "Victoria" Corona knockoff from Discount Tommy for $17. Once I got it dialed in, it just keeps cranking out the grist that hits all my numbers when I mash. Did a 20# grain bill today for a Founder's Breakfast Stout clone.
 
You're right Rico. You'd really have to like burr mills to pay for one of these new. No way I'd pay that much. It does all come down to dialing in what you've got on hand and getting the efficiencies you want.

Unless you like grinding rocks a lot.

By the way Rico, were you serious about soaking cast iron in Oxy Clean? I think the result of that experiment would be hilarious!

Thanks for the input tho...

(mmm Jalepeno ale reminds me of the jap wine I've made.)
 
I don't think I'd personally do anything with it except run some corn from the feed store through it, like "wilserbrewer" suggested, just to knock anything loose out of the mechanism. Anything that goes through there gets mashed at Pasteurization temperatures anyhow, then the liquid is boiled for an hour. No worries.
 
"As far as the play in burr mill plates, here's a vid showing how much there is on this particular mill."

Your vid just shows how loosely adjusted that mill is, likely about where it should be to "crack" corn, I would guess. The outer plate "floats" on mills of this type. Observe it again tightened down and grinding grain to see if it holds true to the mounted plate.
 
Sure thing, but I do want to do a few things before that. Plan to run a couple buckets of feed corn from the farm through it like you suggested.

I'll throw up a vid of the grind when I get my order in.

Thanks for the info.
 
My mom has an old meat grinder that adjusts to fine, med, course. I'm thinking this isn't going to do the job, or is it?
 
Twofox said:
My mom has an old meat grinder that adjusts to fine, med, course. I'm thinking this isn't going to do the job, or is it?
Click to expand...

I don't think it will work. Meat grinders cut (with a blade) and press meet through a plate. The size of plate adjust how large the grind is.

The mills we are using have two plate plates that crack the grains open. The only real similarity b/w the two are the auger drive shaft.

Check out the video posted above for the grain mill and then look at a meat grinder that is diassembled and you'll easily understand the difference.
 
Thanks for the thread with ideas...I just scored a Victoria corn mill on ebay(after 3 weeks of bidding and not getting my price) for a great price and plan on going with unmilled grain on my next order. Just getting into partial mash and plan on going all grain after the next batch.

Regards
 
Got a Corona for Christmas :rockin:

Now I just need to uglify my junk...probably should wait till the mimosa, bloody caesar, delirium tremens, hog heaven barleywine, and Irish coffee wear off though :D

Now THAT would be some ugly junk!!!

Merry Christmas, Go Cowboys, Hook 'Em Horns, Go SPURS GO, and Happy New Years!!!
 
I guess I haven't posted these in this thread yet, it's basically a direct ripoff of wilserbrewer's design, but the hopper is a bit different. I JB welded the plate with a small bolt replacing the cotter pin. This trued up the plate and eliminated almost all the wobble. I get a fantastic crush and have less than $30 invested.

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Actually, I added the screws to mine a few months ago. I was running it clamp-only, but I noticed the mill was moving around some no matter how tight I clamped it. Of course, we're only 200 miles N of the New Madrid fault here, too....;)
 
This was the most fun two hours or so reading I've done in the past couple of months! I've got a Victoria which is soon to have some ugly junk mounting

Pics to follow (soon I hope). Thanks all who's contributed to this thread.
 
I got my Victoria mill for Christmas and have it mounted (pics to come, I promise!) but am struggling with getting the plates lined up. I replaced the pin w/ a bolt but it is still a little crooked so the plates rub on one side, keep turning, no rubbing, etc. I have not tested the crush yet (long drive to LHBS) and am not going to get too carried away trying to get this thing perfect until I see if there is even an issue where it counts.

That said, I have read through most of this thread and have not seen anything about greasing these things. Dave Miller's old book says you should but just wondering if anyone who uses one does, where you apply lube :ban:, what lube you use :D, etc.

Also, do you do anything else to break them in? When tinkering with this I noticed some metal flakes as I was testing out the drill conversion...what's the consensus? Just a little extra iron in the diet :cross: ?
 
TANSTAAFB said:
I got my Victoria mill for Christmas and have it mounted (pics to come, I promise!) but am struggling with getting the plates lined up. I replaced the pin w/ a bolt but it is still a little crooked so the plates rub on one side, keep turning, no rubbing, etc. I have not tested the crush yet (long drive to LHBS) and am not going to get too carried away trying to get this thing perfect until I see if there is even an issue where it counts.
Click to expand...

This is just my impression, but I think the plates are made like that to be self-aligning. Once my Corona has malt in it the plates are not wobbling.

I like the feedback from the crank, it tells me something about how tight the plates are and the condition of the malt. But now that I hope to make more 10 gallon batches I will look into motorizing it. It is just too much work to crank it for big batches.
 
I just picked one up this week from discount tommy...but I don't have my ugly rig setup yet.

I've spent quite a bit of time getting through this thread today...probably too much.

I can't figure out though why everyone is putting spacers in between the bracket and the body of the mill. Mine seems to have more than enough adjustment with the bracket flush to the body...what gives?
 
dilbone said:
I just picked one up this week from discount tommy...but I don't have my ugly rig setup yet.

I've spent quite a bit of time getting through this thread today...probably too much.

I can't figure out though why everyone is putting spacers in between the bracket and the body of the mill. Mine seems to have more than enough adjustment with the bracket flush to the body...what gives?
Click to expand...

You're going to have to run some grain through to evaluate your crush. Without the spacers creating a gap you will get a heck of a lot of flour.
 

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