Using a pasta maker to mill grain.

Gonefishing · Dec 11, 2008

OK...it works! I took it apart and roughed the rollers by hitting them MANY times with the edge of a big file. Took maybe 30-45 minutes to rough them both up (they are both driven BTW) and once I got it back together I went to the basement, got some grain, dropped it in and turned the crank.... milled grain was the result! The gap is adjustable too, so I was able to get what I think it going to work pretty well. I think I'm going to be very happy with my $15 mill!
I think tomorrow night being Friday I may just have to BREW!!! I will have to do a partial boil though, no cooler yet. No outside burner either, and it's supposed to be cold and rainy here then.

Coffeeaddictnova · Dec 12, 2008

Gonefishing said:
OK...it works! I took it apart and roughed the rollers by hitting them MANY times with the edge of a big file. Took maybe 30-45 minutes to rough them both up (they are both driven BTW) and once I got it back together I went to the basement, got some grain, dropped it in and turned the crank.... milled grain was the result! The gap is adjustable too, so I was able to get what I think it going to work pretty well. I think I'm going to be very happy with my $15 mill!
I think tomorrow night being Friday I may just have to BREW!!! I will have to do a partial boil though, no cooler yet. No outside burner either, and it's supposed to be cold and rainy here then.

Thanks for reporting back to the thread. Glad it did work. Any chance you can post pictures of it (with the modified rollers)?

Vebra · Dec 12, 2008

I just dropped my rollers off at a machine shop that is going to attempt to knurl them for me.

Revvy · Dec 12, 2008

So when are we gonna start seeing pictures peeps?

CBBaron · Dec 12, 2008

Gonefishing said:
OK...it works!

(they are both driven BTW)

I think this may be a big key as to why such small rollers can pull the grain in.
My only concern would be durability of the mechanism. Grain is alot harder than raw pasta. So i am interested to see how well it goes once you put a few pounds of grain through it. Especially that crystal, it is hard stuff.

Craig

Revvy · Dec 12, 2008

CBBaron said:
My only concern would be durability of the mechanism. Grain is alot harder than raw pasta. So i am interested to see how well it goes once you put a few pounds of grain through it. Especially that crystal, it is hard stuff.

Craig

They can take a lot...they push polymer clay through them for years without problems and that stuff, even conditioned, is pretty "chewey." That's why we've adopted them.

Grain is harder, but will break long before the mechanism would...a half inch slab of fimo is nothing to sneeze at.

Mongo · Dec 12, 2008

Revvy said:
They can take a lot...they push polymer clay through them for years without problems and that stuff, even conditioned, is pretty "chewey." That's why we've adopted them.

Grain is harder, but will break long before the mechanism would...a half inch slab of fimo is nothing to sneeze at.

My Wife uses Fimo as well as she is an artist and I bought her a pasta thingy as well and after like 5 yrs of use it's still in great shape and does what it's supposed to do.

Cheers
Mongo

Revvy · Dec 12, 2008

Mongo said:
My Wife uses Fimo as well as she is an artist and I bought her a pasta thingy as well and after like 5 yrs of use it's still in great shape and does what it's supposed to do.

Cheers
Mongo

Oh crap, you know what I just remebered, does she have any of those metal "texture plates" that you could get for them? (Now thy're plastic) you sandwiched the clay between the metal plates and ran them through the rollers...I wonder if they could be actually be cut and bonded to the rollers rather than needing to have them machined.

Gonefishing · Dec 12, 2008

I do intend to post pictures, or more correctly, a link to them, as soon as I can get them off my DIL's camera. I used it for about 1/2 pound of 2 row tonight in a quick test and it worked fine. Tomorrow is a better test though, will be running 6 pounds of 2 row and some crystal and wheat through it. I think I'm going to take it off its base and bolt it to a board so I can mount it on a bucket though, it's unwieldy clamped to a sideboard.

Revvy · Dec 13, 2008

Gonefishing said:
I do intend to post pictures, or more correctly, a link to them, as soon as I can get them off my DIL's camera. I used it for about 1/2 pound of 2 row tonight in a quick test and it worked fine. Tomorrow is a better test though, will be running 6 pounds of 2 row and some crystal and wheat through it. I think I'm going to take it off its base and bolt it to a board so I can mount it on a bucket though, it's unwieldy clamped to a sideboard.

I was wondering how people were dealing with the clamp on stand issue, it doesn't make for easy falling into a bucket having the metal base on it.

TerapinChef · Dec 13, 2008

I was hoping to cut the center of the base away and kind of fold the vertical legs out at the bottom for bolting to something...it wasn't a well thought out plan

Revvy · Dec 13, 2008

TerapinChef said:
I was hoping to cut the center of the base away and kind of fold the vertical legs out at the bottom for bolting to something...it wasn't a well thought out plan

I'm looking at the bottom of mine..what happens if you unscrew where the feet plates are, wont the whole bottom base come off?

It would leave the two vertical supports...then you could use some small "L" brackets to bolt to a piece of wood...maybe a shelf with a big hole in the center.

Gonefishing · Dec 13, 2008

That's what I did...took the end covers off so I could get to the nuts on the base bolts, then just mounted it to a board with a hole cut in it. Here's the board (sitting on the cover to a Homer bucket).
And here's the completed mill
Use 8-32x1" screws for this and you won't have to enlarge the holes in the uprights like I did with my 10-32 screws.
The board is a plastic composite thing that I got on a jobsite thinking I'd use it in my camper project...way handier in the brewery!

Revvy · Dec 13, 2008

Gonefishing said:
That's what I did...took the end covers off so I could get to the nuts on the base bolts, then just mounted it to a board with a whole cut in it. Here's the board (sitting on the cover to a Homer bucket).
And here's the completed mill
Use 8-32x1" screws for this and you won't have to enlarge the holes in the uprights like I did with my 10-32 screws.
The board is a plastic composite thing that I got on a jobsite thinking I'd use it in my camper project...way handier in the brewery!

WOOT WOOT!!! :mug:

It looks great. SO are you gonna motorize it at some point?

Have you run any grain through yet? How's the crush?

How did you mount the board with the opper on the top?

Gonefishing · Dec 14, 2008

All those questions and more are answered in my new blog entry...and a whole lot more pictures.

Revvy · Dec 14, 2008

Gonefishing said:
All those questions and more are answered in my new blog entry...and a whole lot more pictures.

Great Blog..

FYI you can motorize them. Fimo Heads have been modding them for years, in fact IIRC you can find some motors for them digging around on some polymer clay sites.

It's doubtful they can take a high speed drill motor buy a mid speed gear motor at about the same spped as a fast turn can be rigged up.

Also for all of you contemplating this here is a nice piece on a fimo site about dissaembling and maintaining one.

HowTo Use a Pasta Machine - Basic Use

You can see her motor here,

The commercial motors for them cost around 100 dollars though, so that puts it at barely crusher range...

They also use a foot pedal like the one on a sewing maching to controll them. I have one I used on my animatronic electric chair at halloween.

Revvy · Dec 14, 2008

Here's a link with a video of motorizing it with an electric juicer machine.

http://beadcomber.blogspot.com/2008/11/best-pasta-machine-motor-for-polymer.html

Aren't you guys lucky I've walked this world as well, years ago I was a polymer clay artist and in the Natl Guild...

Gonefishing · Dec 14, 2008

Oh geez.... you're gonna get me going again! I already have a foot pedal... hmmmmmmmm.
You know what? I'll bet you could run it with a wiper motor too... would just be battery operated. Those gears can take it ...I'm amazed.

Revvy · Dec 14, 2008

I've seen them with just a long screwdrive put in the handles shaft with a pulley on it a motor with another pulley on a platform or shelf below.

I think as long as you took it slow and steady you should be okay on the geers.

talleymonster · Dec 14, 2008

Damn, I just found this thread. Very Cool. SWMBO has a little bit of shopping to do for me, so I'm going to drop hints like crazy. If she doesn't pick one up for me, I'm going to Michael's with that coupon!

Gonefishing · Dec 14, 2008

I'm going to have to try it.... handcranking is just too slow, enough grain for a 5 gallon batch would take forever. I'm excited with this though...doing AG means I can brew more because grain is a lot cheaper than extract.

Revvy · Dec 14, 2008

Well, I think this is one of the things where HBT has just contributed to the body of knowledge of homebrewing once again, in a big way...

Googling it shows that it has been brought up on a couple beerboards, but the discussion is usually shot down, or dies at the idea phase. (Probably because no one's come in and mentioned it's use in polymer clay for the last 2 decades.) So it looks like this thread and 'fisihing's blog are the difinitive discussion on it.

In fact the blog is now the top of the google hit's on the subject. (In fact buddy, why don't you post a link back to this thread on your blog, so that any homebrewing googlers who stumble upon you blog, can come in here to see the development of this idea AND can discover the wonderful world that is HBT.

Oh, and it appears that we weren't too far off to begin with. Marcato, which is a maker of fine quality pastamachines, also makes a grain mill.

Evidently the only difference is that the rollers are knurled rather than smooth, otherwise it appears that the chassis is identical.

Marcato Manual Grain Crusher model ME171

Revvy · Dec 14, 2008

I wonder if the gears could be swapped for stronger ones. I was just reading the marcato link and they mention that the gears on the grain mill were "heat treated" for extra srength. I wonder if any machininsts on here know about it, or can suggest replaceing these gears with something stronger.

talleymonster · Dec 14, 2008

So for about 1/4 of the price, you can just buy the Pasta model and DIY it a little bit and BAM! Now you have a Grain Mill.

talleymonster · Dec 14, 2008

Once again, the collective genius of HBT produces yet another furtherance for home brewing.

Revvy · Dec 14, 2008

talleymonster said:
So for about 1/4 of the price, you can just buy the Pasta model and DIY it a little bit and BAM! Now you have a Grain Mill.

Looks like it. We need to see some tests on efficiency with these things. Get a few brews going and see how good the crushes are on them. I betcha since it's exactly the same setup as a barley crusher (parallel rollers) it's gonna be just as good.

(Which will piss off the malt mill and barley crusher nazis to no end, some of them get positively apoplectic when you mention that you can get good brews with anything other than there beloved expensive machines. No one wants to even admit that if a 20 dollar corona grain mill can net Charlie Papazian 87% efficiency for 30+ years, then maybe the barley crusher or malt mill isn't the only shizzel on the block. I'm not saying all owners of those mills are like that, but there are a few on here, just like there are AG and Stainless Steel zealots on here as well. )

My only regret is that Someone didn't resurrect this thread before I started jacking up my new freeby corona mill....Otherwise I'd have a go myself....I might still down the line. But until then I'll contend with being the technical/spiritual advisor of this thread...Anytime someone says "you can't" about some aspect of it, I'll dig out another polymer clay article that says you can...Like I said they've been doing this for over 20 years and even before they came out with the 20 dollar version. I think I originally paid at a cooking shop 60 for my first one when I was doing clay.

Gonefishing · Dec 14, 2008

Once again, Revvy, good thinking.... blog article updated with a link to this thread, and links list updated to include HBT.
I think efficency is going to be pretty good with this.... it's pretty adjustable and first time out of the box (ok, out of the workshop...) I think I got almost 80% with it, and I'll freely admit that I'm no grain milling expert.

TerapinChef · Dec 15, 2008

So I haven't posted in a while, I have to admit it's because I was kind of jealous. Gonefishin snuck ahead of me one this one and I was hoping to be the leading researcher. But I have not given up. That'll teach me to post my ideas before I start working on them...I'm going to play around with the finish on the rollers and see if I can't come up with a good way to knurl those rollers, then work on motorizing and stand building. The nice thing about the mill standing so high off the base is it gives you a lot of room to mount a pulley if you needed to...

Revvy · Dec 15, 2008

TerapinChef said:
So I haven't posted in a while, I have to admit it's because I was kind of jealous. Gonefishin snuck ahead of me one this one and I was hoping to be the leading researcher. But I have not given up. That'll teach me to post my ideas before I start working on them...I'm going to play around with the finish on the rollers and see if I can't come up with a good way to knurl those rollers, then work on motorizing and stand building. The nice thing about the mill standing so high off the base is it gives you a lot of room to mount a pulley if you needed to...

I wonder if Harbor freight has a cheap knurling bit, maybe one that couled even fit in a dremel tool, and maybe you can rig up a jig and knurl them yourself.

IrregularPulse · Dec 15, 2008

Been reading this thread and getting excited about being able to afford a mill. But there hasn't been anyone yet actually brew a batch with it and post efficiencey results. Anybody? Only number were Revvy missing by 23 points. I know this was first pass no adjustments, but the only numbers I've seen and not too promising. Anyone. I really wanna see someone posting saying they nailed their OG

Using a pasta maker to mill grain.

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