Milling bird feed with grain mill

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H-ost19

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I was planning on using my mill to grind some bird seed but wanted to ask the forum about any potential problems. I'll be coarse milling peanuts and sunflower seeds. The main concern I have is with the oiliness of the nuts potentially gunking up my mill or leaving residual oils that the grain picks up and brings to the beer. I figured I could try to clean it after with an air compressor but that may or may not be sufficient.

Does anyone have thoughts on this or maybe some of you already do it and there is no issue? Do any of you have a good way to clean up after, maybe run a bunch of flour through to soak up the oil and then blow it out? Maybe just sacrifice .5lbs of grain before my next brew by running it through and not using it in the batch.

Thanks in advance.
 
If there is oil residue, I'd say clean it with some non stinky dish detergent and dry thoroughly before putting away. Otherwise should not be a problem.
 
The only thing I'd be concerned about was rancid oils left by the seed grinding - unless the rollers were caked with the seed guts I doubt the flavor contribution would be noticed in a 5 gallon or larger batch of beer. Maybe running a half-pound or so of discardable base malt might clean it out, but I don't have any experience to share in that regard...

Cheers!
 
Even if you don't clean it out, there isn't going to be very much stuff in it to make a big noticeable change to whatever it is you brew next.

Unless your career is a taste tester with a very discriminating taster, then I doubt you'll notice anything.

I'd just blow or vacuum it out. If the stuff left a lot of noticeable oils, then I'd get them off with whatever is easiest to do for your type mill. But I wouldn't try for perfection.
 
You might want to get a mill that can mill corn. If it can mill corn it can mill probably anything.
 
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