Chest of Drawers -> Grain Mill Stand!

[conpewter]

So I recently bought out a guy near me who was getting out of the habit, erm hobby.

I mostly wanted his kegging equipment but I got other goodies along with it. One of the items was a Grain Gobbler mill. It's a little guy (seems like only 2" long rollers) but he gave me the drill along with it (nice hammer drill actually, I'm swapping it out and using and old one I have). Now the part that was going to hold it on top of the 5 gallon bucket was broken, and duct taped, so I figured why not build something to support this whole thing.

I looked around my house and found this ugly chest of drawers minding it's own business in my office

Then I took apart the Grain Gobbler mill and brought my donor drill in from the shop

Next I removed the drawers, discovering old winter clothing inside

They'll need to find a new home

 

[conpewter]

The next order of business was to start taking apart the drawers.

I figure that the top drawer would need to come out and I'd just be putting the face panel back on to hide the workings of the mill. I took off the sides, back and bottom

I'll get back to the drawer/hopper later since I needed to build the grain mill into the top of the chest of drawers so I'd know where to make my holes. So the next order of business was attaching the grain mill and drill to the underside of the top of the chest of drawers (does that sentence make sense? hmm)

I cut out on the lines with the following tools to give me more flow into the grain mil

I'm missing a few pictures of the in between steps here but I've attached the grain mill

As you can see I cut a hole in the top where the grain will go through. I used two screw holes to hold the plastic spacer (modified above) to the grain mill, and the other two to attach the grain mill to the chest of drawers.

 

[conpewter]

To attach the drill I took 3 of the screws that hold the drill together out of their holes. This is an older drill so it was just screwed together with some Phillips head screws. I then set it on top and marked where the holes would be (all measured out with grain mill attached) and pre-drilled holes. Then with some spacers and a little work I put deck screws thorough the top and into the screwholes in the drill.

View from the top

Now that I have the mill in place I can measure out and start on the hopper. I set everything out and measured and cut the whole out of the bottom of my 2nd drawer. Then I took the bottom of the 1st drawer and cut it in half. I am using these halves as the angled sides of the hopper.

here it is all caulked up (Didn't have clear silicone caulk, used this white instead)

 

[conpewter]

Since I had some space between the bottom of the drawer and the top of the dresser from the way the drawer sits on top I had to build out the bottom of the drawer, but still allow it to slide in and out for good storage. I used pieces from the sides of the top drawer.

I glued them (gorilla glue FTW!) around the hole on the bottom

While I was at it I reinforced the bottoms of the rest of the drawers (pretty flimsy)

Picture of it mostly together

 

[beergears]

reservation granted!

 

[conpewter]

I modified the top drawer so that it would hold itself in (I originally was going to use magnets but this was easier and I didn't need to spend any money)

Finished up

Here it is in disguise as a chest of drawers mwhahaha

The inner workings

 

[conpewter]

This is a (fuzzy) picture of the hopper with a little grain left. I ended up using a board to help the grain along a little bit at the end

Milled grain sitting happily in the drawer

I think the beauty of this whole system is as follows

1. I built it on the cheap, already had all this stuff in the house

2. It all goes back together and stores nicely

3. I have an extra drawer on the bottom for either grain storage, or to hold more grain when I have a large grain bill

4. It closes up while milling to contain the dust

5. If prohibition happens again I'll be one step closer to an underground brewery

 

[Bernie Brewer]

I don't see any pictures. Not even any red x's.

 

[conpewter]

Working on that, setting up a photobucket account Turns out that hotlinking from my really really old free geocities site no longer works

 

[beergears]

What about the other drawers?

So, it will be a mill in disguise...?

 

[drunkatuw]

Maybe a silly question, but how do you hold the trigger on the drill? Looks like it would be difficult to reach.

 

[conpewter]

It's a grain mill incognito! Seemed like a fun idea

The drill has a button on it to keep it running, once I got it going the right direction and stuck on I just unplugged it to stop it. I probably will put a switch on it somehow (Maybe a surge protector somewhere that I can hit the switch on) so I don't have to unplug it when I'm done milling.

 

[conpewter]

The top drawer is now useless.

The 2nd drawer will catch grain so I plan on keeping it empty. the 3rd drawer is now the hopper so I won't keep anything in there either. The bottom drawer I may use to store specialty grain, not sure yet how I'm going to store my grains. I'll probably also keep a little hand-held broom in there to help me sweep the last of the grains from the hopper into the mill.

 

[Revvy]

Too cool!!!!

 

[beergears]

The bottom drawer I may use to store specialty grain

You forgot to allocate some space for the mice.

 

[conpewter]

Good point, I may end up putting anything I keep in that drawer in some ammo cans I have left over, would keep them fresher anyway. I'll probably go the same route as I've read around here with a metal trashcan for the base grain. Generally I'll probably buy specialty grain as I need it since I never know what I'll need.

 

[olllllo]

Congrats.
I look forward to the wing back chair Mash Tun.

Make sure you don't ferment in the same room as the chest of drawers.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Nice job!!!!!!!!!!!