My grain mill is more dumber than your grain mill

[Cheesy_Goodness]

Several years ago my wife bought me a kitchenaid grain mill. We were living in an apartment at the time so it was great because it didn't take up much space and we already had a stand mixer. I usually hit my numbers with it so I kept it all these years, even after we bought a house. The mill itself works find but the problem with it is that the ktichenaid was not made to mill 10+ pounds of grain at once. The mixer was slow and would get hot too, so factoring for breaks and actual milling the whole thing took quite some time, especially for double brew days.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I bought a used lathe to try some woodturning. It dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to use the chuck that came along with the lathe to power the grain mill. It took a bit of fiddling but this was the end result

She's 1/2 horsepower of fury and can knock out about a pound of grain in less than a minute on the lowest setting (430 RPM).

 

[Sammy86]

This is glorious, well done!

 

[NTBeer]

Wow. That is beautiful. And yet, yes, more dumber!

 

[Phischy]

That's glorious, I do wood turning and it never dawned on me to chuck my mill up to it. I had a small index lathe like you have, and now I can use my dad's big powermatic, but I don't brew in his shop. Sawdust and brewing are not good bedfellows.

Still, that is so flipping awesome! I was trying to figure out how you have the tailstock holding the mill, and realize it's just a compression fit along with the lever/blocks holding the mill in place. Love the grain chute!

 

[Jaybird]

That is absolutely beautiful!

Cheers
Jay

 

[Knightshade]

That is awesome, love the chute!

 

[dwhite60]

Genius. Pure genius.

 

[JaggersBrewingCo]

Oh my god I love it!

 

[lawngnomehitman]

And here I was hoping it was more like "Stupid Mill Tricks" - on my mill the non-driven roller sometimes stops and I cut a hole in the safety cover so I can give it a little spin to get it going again... I appreciate what you've done, and, wow... lol!

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

That's glorious, I do wood turning and it never dawned on me to chuck my mill up to it. I had a small index lathe like you have, and now I can use my dad's big powermatic, but I don't brew in his shop. Sawdust and brewing are not good bedfellows.

Still, that is so flipping awesome! I was trying to figure out how you have the tailstock holding the mill, and realize it's just a compression fit along with the lever/blocks holding the mill in place. Love the grain chute!

Thanks!

Some of the support comes from the stupid looking piece of plywood/pine I have wedged in the track of the lathe. Obviously there was a good bit of wobbling with just that for support but the tailstock with a piece of scrap wood as a cushion worked like a charm. I couldn't just use the tailstock though, if too much pressure was applied it started to bind up the mill.

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of turning projects do you do? I've only just started to get my feet wet, hoping to do some tap handles but other than that I can't think of any turning projects that are beer related.

That is awesome, love the chute!

That came from an old rickety bookshelf that I have been keeping around just in case a need like this came up. I'm not saying "never throw anything away ever" but if I had thrown it away I wouldn't have this haha

 

[Komodo]

I used to spin my mill with a drill. I’d always wonder if the batteries would run out before I was done, especially since I like bigger, high gravity batches.

I had some decommissioned contraption in my shop using a motor and belt, so decided to adapt it for the mill. I didn’t have a wheel for the proper ratio so I cut out a plywood disc and put a belt groove on it and bolted it to a smaller wheel I had. Then used link belts to get the right length belt. This thing can eat 25lbs of grain in a couple minutes now. It makes me so happy.

 

[Cool_Hand_Luke]

This post makes me happy. That is freaking awesome. Well done!

 

[Homebrew Harry]

I used to spin my mill with a drill. I’d always wonder if the batteries would run out before I was done, especially since I like bigger, high gravity batches.

I had some decommissioned contraption in my shop using a motor and belt, so decided to adapt it for the mill. I didn’t have a wheel for the proper ratio so I cut out a plywood disc and put a bet groove on it and bolted it to a smaller wheel I had. Then used link belts to get the right length belt. This thing can eat 25lbs of grain in a couple minutes now. It makes me so happy.

That is fantastic ! How did you make the groove for the belt ? A router ?

 

[Komodo]

That is fantastic ! How did you make the groove for the belt ? A router ?

I 100% don't remember LOL. I've got a big wood shop and build all kinds of crap (mostly guitars). If the disc was mounted on an axis on a jig, it could be cut with a table saw. Could use a router if it was under table mounted, but that's the one thing I don't have (which is stupid).

It worked so well that I never bothered to go buy a damn wheel. Maybe I'll do that today.

 

[Homebrew Harry]

It worked so well that I never bothered to go buy a damn wheel. Maybe I'll do that today.

Haha, let us know when you get back !

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

I used to spin my mill with a drill. I’d always wonder if the batteries would run out before I was done, especially since I like bigger, high gravity batches.

I had some decommissioned contraption in my shop using a motor and belt, so decided to adapt it for the mill. I didn’t have a wheel for the proper ratio so I cut out a plywood disc and put a belt groove on it and bolted it to a smaller wheel I had. Then used link belts to get the right length belt. This thing can eat 25lbs of grain in a couple minutes now. It makes me so happy.

That thing is tremendous! Didn't even know putting a belt on a piece of plywood was possible

 

[IslandLizard]

It worked so well that I never bothered to go buy a damn wheel. Maybe I'll do that today.

Why change a winning team?
You could smooth out the wobble quite a bit too.

That thing is tremendous! Didn't even know putting a belt on a piece of plywood was possible

Innovation <=> Desperation

I love ingenuity. Just buying things is much too simple, and you rarely get that satisfying reward you'd get from using your own creation.

For example, ever need to shorten a bolt, but not bugger up the threads? Or no suitable vice on hand? Put the threaded end of the bolt that gets scrapped into a drill chuck. Run the drill with a saw blade against the bolt, move it up and down. An extra set of hands or using a clamp comes in handy.

 

[JAReeves]

In a much younger time, we used chutes like that for the Pinewood Derby.