Very Inexpensive Grain Mill

[Erbium:YAG]

I was doing some last minute Christmas shopping today, and in a Micheal's arts and crafts store I came across this pasta machine for rolling clay. There are seven different roller settings, so I imagine you could probably find a good setting for crushing grain right out of the box. The only minus is that the rollers are smooth; but I imagine you could probably disassemble it and have the rollers knurled. It was $25 in Micheals and for the money, it just might be tempting enough to try it out.

http://www.dickblick.com/zz329/49/

 

[the_bird]

Orfy JUST posted something on this today, how the smooth rollers made it a complete non-started; the rollers just couldn't grab the grain.

 

[brewman !]

how the smooth rollers made it a complete non-started; the rollers just couldn't grab the grain.

If everything else is OK with it, it would be pretty easy to roughen the rollers. 10 minutes in a lathe with a knurling tool would roughen them. So would some sandpaper and maybe a file.

 

[Orfy]

The rollers are also tiny in diameter and short. it'd take for ever to mill 10lbs.

I thought about taking it apart and modding it but I think if I was going to go to the effort I'd just get a corona mill or build from scratch.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

10 minutes in a lathe with a knurling tool would roughen them.

If you had access to a lathe and knew how to knurl, why would you bother buying one of these? Not knocking you, brewman...but as an amateur machinist, it was much easier just to build my own than modify something that wasn't designed to crush grain in the first place.

 

[Onescalerguy]

Hey erbiumyag,if you're looking for inexpensive(cheap!...kinda like me)mill,then check out a Porkert mill.I found one for 35$ online.A dilligent searcher could probly find it for less.It functions nicely but i'm afraid to say that it is slow.Solid hour of cranking(minimal effort req.)for 10-12lbs.I used a hand grinder for my deer and elk for years(until i hooked up with SWMBO who has the kitchen-aid unit),so it's no big deal.Although i'd kill for one of Yuri's .
Cheers

 

[brewman !]

If you had access to a lathe and knew how to knurl, why would you bother buying one of these? Not knocking you, brewman...but as an amateur machinist, it was much easier just to build my own than modify something that wasn't designed to crush grain in the first place.

Man, I've modded a lot of stuff that was never designed to do something into doing something fairly well. I agree that this might not be one of those cases, which is why I started my response with "If everything else is OK with it,". But if its a perfect mill except for the rollers needing some attention, that could be done quite quickly.

Why would I use it instead of starting from scratch ? Because it might be faster and cheaper. I can't build one of something as fast and cheap as someone in China can when they are building 10,000. Unfortunately !

 

[Bobby_M]

How would hardwood hold up to grain milling? I'm thinking of taking an old hardwood rolling pin and cutting it in half to build a crusher. My initial impression is that it would last for crushing steeping grains here and there but probably not for AG batches. Thoughts?

 

[Orfy]

How would hardwood hold up to grain milling? I'm thinking of taking an old hardwood rolling pin and cutting it in half to build a crusher. My initial impression is that it would last for crushing steeping grains here and there but probably not for AG batches. Thoughts?

Bobby,

Very well.

http://hbd.org/mtippin/woodmill.html