My Ugly Junk- Corona Mill Station...

[Revvy]

It snapped because I think the pressure of the grain on one side of the plate vs the other side was greater (due to the plate being fixed in place w/ jb weld and bolt). The funny thing is, I didnt even have it hooked up to a drill guess Ill have to dial the "guns" back a little next time :rockin:

Here's a pic of Deuce...so you'll understand why.

 

[Synovia]

Here's a pic of Deuce...so you'll understand why.

Gotta be. The smallest part of the auger is still 1/2 inch of cast iron.

 

[RichBenn]

All the "adjustment" I did to the mill itself (a "Victoria" knockoff from Discount Tommy) was to remove the cotter pin and redrill the hole the cotter pin goes in, then insert the duty 8-32 x 1.5" bolt & nut....I chose to use SS. After that, all I did was tighten down the adjustment bolt (with some coaching & cheerleading from "wilserbrewer") until I got a good crush. I'm there, getting good efficiencies (70-80%) and I couldn't be happier with "da junk."

The main shaft on mine bends about 10+ degrees! The head of the shaft where it fits into the plate was ground at an even bigger angle!

I'm thinking I may just put a cotter pin back in and let it wobble. I haven't had any grain to test with, so I guess that's the real test! Maybe self centering via grain pressure is the right solution for mine....

 

[bradsul]

Sounds like the knock-offs certainly vary in quality. My Porkert (from the Czech Republic I believe) has been a dream to use. It required no adjustments beyond the set screw to get a quality crush.

 

[hopsoda]

grinding dark crystal's seem to put more strain on the corona - mixing the grain bill before crushing makes crushing much easier for me and the mill.

 

[wilserbrewer]

I'm thinking I may just put a cotter pin back in and let it wobble. ....

Yes, might be good idea, maybe now I understand what is happening, people are "fixing" the grinding plate w/ a bolt, grinding plate isn't true and bends/breaks the shaft. wow!

You could probably open up the hole in the shaft, "make it larger w/ a drill bit" reassemble w/ a cotter pin and let the grinding plate float. the gap while grinding is so small that it won't affect the crush.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Sounds like the knock-offs certainly vary in quality.

No variance in quality at all regarding the knock-offs, they all have zero!

 

[rico567]

No variance in quality at all regarding the knock-offs, they all have zero!

+1 I agree totally. What is important is not to worry too much about the quality of the machine, only the quality of the crush that can be produced. Luckily, I got one that does fine, without a lot of preliminary "modifications."

 

[Runyanka]

Here's a pic of Deuce...so you'll understand why.

You betcha!!

I will be recieving my second one this friday. I am going to try and leave this one "stock" for a while, seehow things go from there.

 

[BBBF]

I got two Victoria knockoffs from Discount Tommy. I could "fix" the plate on one of them by jamming the pin in further and bending the end of it. The second one isn't going to be as easy. The pin hole is a lot further back, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

 

[MVKTR2]

I got two Victoria knockoffs from Discount Tommy. I could "fix" the plate on one of them by jamming the pin in further and bending the end of it. The second one isn't going to be as easy. The pin hole is a lot further back, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

My one and only has/had the same problem. My solution once I made the error of pulling out the cotter pin was to machine another hole perpendicular to the original & further up the shaft (ever so slightly further up the shaft). I also had to wallow out the grooves that the pin/bolt fits through on the washer like piece. Just my experience... though it does work fine now!

Schlante,
Phillip

 

[reptileszz]

Hi all, pardon the intrusion... I dont actually brew my own beer. I was looking for info on grain mills and came across this forum.

I have need to grind up dry dog food. Would this mill work for this purpose? Or would dry dog food be too much for it? How much does the hopper hold?

Thank you very much for any input and again, sorry to be a pest.

Carole

 

[Grimtas]

My Ugly Junk

 

[Revvy]

Hi all, pardon the intrusion... I dont actually brew my own beer. I was looking for info on grain mills and came across this forum.

I have need to grind up dry dog food. Would this mill work for this purpose? Or would dry dog food be too much for it? How much does the hopper hold?

Thank you very much for any input and again, sorry to be a pest.

Carole

I don't know if you'll come back Carole, but as to if it will work for your purpose, I'm not sure. How small do you need to grind the dog food up to? These mills are mostly used to grind grain and corn into flour, what we do in brewing is slightly modify the gap in the grinding heads to instead of turning the grain 100% to flour, we aim more to crush the grain, basically just opening the hills a bit so we can convert starch to sugar. Actually we strive for 1/3 flour 1/3 open and 1/3 shredded (sort of)

I keep thinking that if you ran dry dog food it would probably end up more like "flour" than anything else. I actually would think that if you were looking to just break the pieces into smaller bits, a good strong food processor would work better, especially using short bursts.

But if you are looking for bits that look like the pictures of the "crushes" we show like in the one below your post, then maybe it would work. Lord knows these are strong enough to handle the job, these puppies are haeavy cast iron.

it's just a matter of would it break them into the size you need.

As to the size of the hopper, if you look at some of the pics you can see that the size of the hopper can be made almost unlimited. People often invert a 3 or 5 gallon water jug and cut off the bottom and set that inside the original hopper and fill several pounds of grain in it to grind, and like I did, I used a bit of drain pipe. So size is really a matter of what you can rig up.

If you want to give us more detail about what your trying to do to the dogfood, let us know. You're not being a pest at all.

You know...If you can lay your hands on one of these relatively cheap, and if you tried it and it didn't work out, I bet we on here could find someone on this site near enough to you who would be willing to buy it off you. We get folks asking on here all the time if anyone has one for sale. So think about that too.

 

[Revvy]

Grimtas your wood work is too pretty to be called "ugly junk" it looks great!

 

[passedpawn]

Thought you guys would like to know that Charlie Papazian has used a corona mill all these years. That guy is still very old-school. Heard him say so in a podcast

 

[Revvy]

Thought you guys would like to know that Charlie Papazian has used a corona mill all these years. That guy is still very old-school. Heard him say so in a podcast

Yeah, I say that in the very first post.....That's one of my counter arguments for all those "you HAVE to have a barley crusher" noobs.
Charlie get's 87% extract efficiency with his according to the basic brewing podcast.

Thanks for re-iterating that fact!

 

[passedpawn]

Yeah, I say that in the very first post.....That's one of my counter arguments for all those "you HAVE to have a barley crusher" noobs.
Charlie get's 87% extract efficiency with his according to the basic brewing podcast.

Thanks for re-iterating that fact!

Durn. Thought I added something new.

 

[Revvy]

Durn. Thought I added something new.

But I think it can't be said enough actually. It's our best "ammunition."

 

[passedpawn]

But I think it can't be said enough actually. It's our best "ammunition."

I use a Schmidling Maltmill.

 

[Revvy]

Schmidling

Gesundheit!!!

 

[Grimtas]

Grimtas your wood work is too pretty to be called "ugly junk" it looks great!

Bah the only thing that will pretty this thing up is a Duck Sauce bucket. The lid is actually routed on the bottom so it don't slip off the top rim of the bucket. I just forgot to take a pic of the bottom.

 

[reptileszz]

OK, well, now you guys can think I am really crazy. I need to grind up the dog food to feed it to a cockroach colony. I feed tropical roaches to some of my reptiles (cheap food source as they just make more) but grinding dog food in the tiny coffee grinder is getting old. I think I might pick up one of these grinders. Looks like it would do the job, flour size is ok or bigger would be ok too. Probably get some arm exercise as well

Thanks!
Carole

 

[rico567]

I'd ask how many roaches you're feeding, that you need this much feed.....but I think maybe I don't want to know. This mill is probably NOT going to grind stuff to a fine baking flour consistency. But my impression from all my reading is that it's basically designed as a corn mill, to mill corn to the consistency of tortilla flour, which isn't nearly as fine. I personally think it'd do fine on dog food, providing that the dog food you're using doesn't incorporate oily ingredients to the extent that it'll clog up the grinder. These things can be had so inexpensively it might be worth a try- I got mine from "Discount Tommy" on eBay for $24 delivered.

 

[Revvy]

OK, well, now you guys can think I am really crazy. I need to grind up the dog food to feed it to a cockroach colony. I feed tropical roaches to some of my reptiles (cheap food source as they just make more) but grinding dog food in the tiny coffee grinder is getting old. I think I might pick up one of these grinders. Looks like it would do the job, flour size is ok or bigger would be ok too. Probably get some arm exercise as well

Thanks!
Carole

We brew beer, using things like propane turkey fryers and modified rubbermade coolers...So we don't find anything too strange. It songs like this may be the tool for you then, I have a feeling it will pulverize the dogfood fine enough for those *shudder* little buggers.

Pay attention to how we use drills to motorize them and also some of the hoppers we rig up and you should be all set.

Good luck!

 

[RichBenn]

OK, well, now you guys can think I am really crazy. I need to grind up the dog food to feed it to a cockroach colony. I feed tropical roaches to some of my reptiles (cheap food source as they just make more) but grinding dog food in the tiny coffee grinder is getting old. I think I might pick up one of these grinders. Looks like it would do the job, flour size is ok or bigger would be ok too. Probably get some arm exercise as well

Thanks!
Carole

It will be bigger than flour size. These mills are primarily designed to crack corn into small enough particles to go into breads, for example, not wheat into flour. But I'd think that'd be just fine for roaches....

Rich

 

[Stuntman]

Grinders and reptiles, and roaches; Oh MY!

 

[Revvy]

Grinders and reptiles, and roaches; Oh MY!

BWAHAHAHA!!!!!:rockin:

 

[RichBenn]

Getting back to the original thread, I finally put mine back together with a different cotter pin and assembled it into an old kitty litter square 5 gallon container, complete with cut-out lid. I had tried to replace the cotter pin with a screw, but decided the tolerances are so bad on the castings, it would be better if it were looser so the plate could go with the flow of grain through it.

Short of the story -- after alot of adjustments, it produced a nice grind with my HF electric right angle drill at several pounds per minute with NO dust flying around (due to the top with the cutout for the hopper). Well, I did get some dust while adjusting the grind with the top off.

As others have said, a battery powered screw/drill driver just doesn't cut it(and I have a Makita!).

So to re-iterate what others have said:
1. Add some washers to help hold the plates apart.
2. Assemble it into a 5 gallon container with some kind of top to prevent flying dust.
3. Run it with a drill.
4. Adjust until the grind looks good. Mine looks right, looks like it'll mash with higher efficiency than the LHBS grind....

 

[Grimtas]

My 18V dewalt hammer drill doesn't skip a beat last time I used it on a low battery it ground through 23+ lbs with no problems
Edited my original post#283 with a pic of the routed bottom to fit securly on a 5Gal bucket. Only thing I'd do different and will probably do this weekend is make a small box to fit over the top of the grinding plates to reduce the grind out.