Long Shot - barley AND flour mill?

[JetSmooth]

My wife has gotten into baking bread with whole grain flour that she ginds in our Blentec blender. (It Blends!) This sucker has 4.2 HP and is amazing.

I want to build a barley mill for brewing. I have a few friends who are coming together to form a sort of co0-op, sharing the costs of equipment and ingredients, etc. A few of them are pretty handy and we'll eventually tackle something like welding a brewstand for community use.

When I mentioned a mill and buying our grin in bulk, one of them said his wife wsa 100% behind the idea if we could get flour out of it. Now I KNOW the mechanics of crushing grain between rollers and ginding grain into flour (plates, stones, burrs, etc) is different. But we're a bunch of smart guys on thie forum. Someone has to have come up with a hybrid mill concept.

Would a mill with BIG (3"-4" or up) rollers with an incredibly small gap do flour? Then you back the gap off a tiny bit and crush grain?

 

[JetSmooth]

So, I asked this like a year and a half ago. I ended up with a corona I used once, then fell out of brewing.

I'm trying to get back in and my wife is even more into wanting to mill her own flour. So I guess I'll resurrect this question and see if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

I found a really nice looking plate grinder called the GrainMaker. Looks like a pretty precision model. Sure, it's not a "barley mill" but if it's as good as a corona, which is good enough for me, but nicer, I might be able to swing her that way. Other ideas?

 

[AndrewD]

Subscribed. With the resurgence of self-sufficiency, I would expect there to be some info on this out there.

 

[wilserbrewer]

My guess is that it will be cheaper and more effiective to buy two mills, one for brewing, and one for baking. A roller mill doesn't make flour no matter how tight. Hate to see you wear out wifeys expensive flour mill crushing big quantities of grain. Most home flour mills are sized to grind a few cups, not sacks of barley. JMO???

Edit...good gosh those Grainmasters are pricey! The tiny one is $325 plus S&H upwards to well over a grand.

 

[JetSmooth]

Yeah. I mean, if I can talk her into a Grainmaster, why not?

Like I said, if it's as good (or better because it's manufacturerd better) than a corona-style, it'll serve my purposes.