Diy Concrete Grain Mill

[pdilley]

Talk about big big rollers

There is a Guy in America with a lot of time, scrap metal, and tins of paint on his hands that made a low budget big stone roller grain mill for crushing malt.

This is what this McGuyver came up with:

Start with a couple tins of paint as a mold and fill with concrete, using some metal pins for mounting the rollers later on in the frame. He said the most difficult part was making sure the holes were perfectly centred to get a good roll.




Mount into a frame with motor. Note: 63 rpm seemed too fast for these big rollers.



Steal SWMBOs high tech grain hopper, or in this case a Light Reflector housing.



And crush that malt.



Hats off for ingenuity, not sure If I'd buiild a stone grain mill myself unless I really was into the big rollers


Cheers,
Brewer Pete


EDIT: Fixed any problems?

Seems like stones would wear down over time, fix any issues with perfect centre alignment? There are two yellow plastic jigs on the bench in the second photo that are used to quickly set the roller gap. Probably could make a few sets up depending on the crush level you would want.

 

[Sammus]

homebrewtalk.com No hotlinking!

Had a look at the actual thead though (need to refresh else it still said no hotlinking lol).

That is crazy stuff...

 

[pdilley]

Excuse me for the ignorance but what does that mean? You can't link to another brew site? If so, my bad.

 

[Screwtop]

He's gotta be kidding BP, how would you ever properly centre the pins/axles through the length of the concrete roller and end up with concentric rollers. The gap would be forever changing unless both rollers were perfectly centred on their axles and each one perfectly round, bit difficult using a paint tin as a mold. Can just see this thing in action.......... :lol:

Screwy

 

[Sammus]

Excuse me for the ignorance but what does that mean? You can't link to another brew site? If so, my bad.

Naw that's what all the images said, HBT must have some thingy on their website so you can't hotlink their pictures...

 

[Sammus]

He's gotta be kidding BP, how would you ever properly centre the pins/axles through the length of the concrete roller and end up with concentric rollers. The gap would be forever changing unless both rollers were perfectly centred on their axles and each one perfectly round, bit difficult using a paint tin as a mold. Can just see this thing in action.......... :lol:

Screwy

Yeah would be interesting to see, his crush looks quite good though...

 

[pdilley]

Yeah would be interesting to see, his crush looks quite good though...

I think its the stones and being such very large rollers you don't rip apart with husks with knurled edges as on the small steel roller based mills.

If you got the time and skills (somewhat counts me out, I knew I should have taken metal shop in school!) then you might want to give it a go as yes, the crush looks very noice.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[Sammus]

After reading the article, it appears he uses those yellow plastic things to stop grain getting between the rollers and the frame, and to adjust the gap he has one of the rollers mounted to a plate which is mounted to the frame with elongated holes to adjust the gap...or maybe i looked at it wrong.

 

[pdilley]

Didn't catch the grain blocking purpose on my first few reads but yeah, definitely gap setting.

 

[pdilley]

He's gotta be kidding BP, how would you ever properly centre the pins/axles through the length of the concrete roller and end up with concentric rollers. The gap would be forever changing unless both rollers were perfectly centred on their axles and each one perfectly round, bit difficult using a paint tin as a mold. Can just see this thing in action.......... :lol:

Screwy

""The tricky part was making sure the holes in top and bottom of the can were perfectly centered. I actually put the cans in a lathe to spin them and then mark them with a marker. I punched out the holes with 1/2" hollow drill bit normally used for drilling paper. The axles are 1/2" dia. steel cut to length and a roll pin pressed into them (after being drilled) to make sure they don't spin inside the concrete. The rollers ended up being about 4-1/4" in diameter.""

Maybe a new home business, spinning paint tins on lathes and selling them with a kit with instructions to get the concrete from Bunnings and set the provided pins yourself to save on shipping costs and sell them to other home brewers? (make for a spares business too )

Total weight of the DIY Stone Roller grain crusher is about 30 Kilograms.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[Moray]

if the rollers were a bit off you could true them up, like you do with a bench grinder.
Just spin them and use a wheel dressing tool.

 

[TidalPete]

if the rollers were a bit off you could true them up, like you do with a bench grinder.
Just spin them and use a wheel dressing tool.

Buggerit Moray you beat me to it. :angry: :icon_cheers:

TP

 

[flattop]

Fair bit more to this than just a couple of cement rollers, there's the frame with folded sides, also a capacitor start AC motor, the rollers may have been cheap but it's hardly stuff an average joe could knock up, you need a lathe, metal folder, electrical wiring...(ok you could turn it by hand).

Not that it's a bad project at all, but i dare say you could source the correct knurled mill rollers and put them in the same rig and have a more professional crush (athough his crush looks good) for the cost of one or 2 grain bills

 

[GMK]

""The tricky part was making sure the holes in top and bottom of the can were perfectly centered. I actually put the cans in a lathe to spin them and then mark them with a marker. I punched out the holes with 1/2" hollow drill bit normally used for drilling paper. The axles are 1/2" dia. steel cut to length and a roll pin pressed into them (after being drilled) to make sure they don't spin inside the concrete. The rollers ended up being about 4-1/4" in diameter.""

Maybe a new home business, spinning paint tins on lathes and selling them with a kit with instructions to get the concrete from Bunnings and set the provided pins yourself to save on shipping costs and sell them to other home brewers? (make for a spares business too )

Total weight of the DIY Stone Roller grain crusher is about 30 Kilograms.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

Sounds like a bulk buy there BP...