Yet Another Diy Mill

[browndog]

Hello All,
I bought myself two feet of 2 /14" mild steel rod for $20 at the local steel merchant then left it with a mate for 4 weeks to turn up, he also got it nickel plated and even gave me the tassie oak to make the frame. And what did he charge me... zilch, would not even take a 6pack. :beerbang:




Mates like that are priceless, anyways I digress, you might note from the pics that the rollers have straight knurling on them, I am hoping this is going to work OK and maybe prevent the husks from getting shredded too much. I used the basic priciples of Jye's and Tony's mills, but added a spring between the bearings at each end to hold the rollers apart and provide some tension for the adjusting bolt. The plate on the face where the adjusting bolt enters the frame hold the nut in place that the bolt screws against. I was lucky enough to have a hole saw that provided a neat fit for the bearings. All up it took about 3hrs to build. I am going to bolt a 20L bucket lid to the bottom of the frame and drop the mill onto a 20L bucket to mill into. A S/S hopper is forthcoming.


cheers

Browndog

 

[Pumpy]

Browndog it looks like a work of art .

I put straight knurls on mine and it would not crush the grain took me three hours to grind four kilo I nearly cried then I put the cross hatch on and it just sucked it in .

You have done a excellent job Browndog


Pumpy

 

[big d]

Looks good Browndog.Keep the moisture away from the rollers and you will be right else wise a bit of rust/metallic flavour may permeate your brews.

Cheers
Big D

 

[Tony]

not bad mate

its an easy design to build hey.

to easy......

i should have put a patient on it

na..... go for your lives brewers

glad to see i started something

cheers

 

[Pumpy]

i should have put a patient on it

cheers

Tony what do you want to put a sick person on a grain mill for :blink:

Pumpy :unsure:

 

[browndog]

Pumpy, bugger, that is bad news about the straight knurling, I hope I can get it to run OK How was your straight knurling, light , medium or heavy,
Big D, the rollers have been nickel plated so I was kind of hoping moisture would not be an issue and Tony, yep yours was the inspiration mate :beerbang:

cheers

Browndog

 

[matti]

Fantasic work can you adjust the the mill and is it possible to add a sieve?
Bloody Jelous

 

[Ross]

Looks fantastic Browndog - I'm dead jealous. Well beyond my engineering ability - About time I imported one me thinks...

Cheers Ross

 

[big d]

Apologies Browndog.It was only after i hit the add reply button that i went DOH and realised they were nickel coated rollers.Should be no probs at all and i hope you get a grouse result out of your efforts.

May the brew gods smile on you
Big D

 

[Jye]

Looks fantastic :super: you did a much neater job with the adjustment bolt and even took the time the recess it.

 

[Pumpy]

Pumpy, bugger, that is bad news about the straight knurling, I hope I can get it to run OK How was your straight knurling, light , medium or heavy,
Big D, the rollers have been nickel plated so I was kind of hoping moisture would not be an issue and Tony, yep yours was the inspiration mate

cheers

Browndog


Browndog my straight Knurling was medium , give it a try it may work .

My cross hatching was light and sucked it however I would go for medium but that was on SS which was difficult to cut .

Pumpy

 

[Stagger]

I have s/s rollers and use a straight knurl, i find that i gives a better crush over.

Stagger

 

[Pumpy]

There you go it is a suck it and see job I am sure you will have some grain in it soon by the look of it
Pumpy

 

[berazafi]

i have a cross hatch pattern on mine (45mm roller) its farily light, and ive found by turning the other roller the malt draws fine, however if only one roller is turning it will struggle to suck it threw, im thinking of putting a rubberband around one to add sort of a passive drive to the other and see how that goes

 

[Borret]

I too have a light cross hatch on mine but the rollers are 60mm SS(much like yours at 2 1/2"?) and it has no trouble drawing through the grain.
I reckon she'll be apples

Brent

 

[warrenlw63]

I reckon she'll be apples

Brent

Pretty handy should you choose to make cider with it. B)

Warren -

 

[browndog]

I have s/s rollers and use a straight knurl, i find that i gives a better crush over.

Great to hear that Stagger, I guess as Pumpy said it is a suck it and see thing. I'll get my hands on some uncracked grain soon and report back with the results. Thanks for all the feedback Blokes.


cheers

Browndog

 

[Tony]

after a few brews with cracking your own grain wou will get to know what a grist looks and feels like that works well.

I fill my hopper, run a couple of hundred grams through and check it.

If the husks are smashed up and lots of fines i open it up a tad and try again.

If the grains arnt broken up enough i tighten it up a tad.

I dont measure the gap any more. I have no idea what its set on but it works well with most grains.

If you have it set to give a great crack for JW pils malt and them make a beer with say an 18 EBC munich malt as the base you mat find it meeds to be opened up a bit because the grain has been toasted a bit more and will be harder and tend to go to powder in a fine crack. result is stuck mash.

i have run 40 or more batches through mine (at average 11kg/batch thats a lot of grain. almost half a ton) and its still going great.

cheers

 

[redbeard]

i have a cross hatch pattern on mine (45mm roller) its farily light, and ive found by turning the other roller the malt draws fine, however if only one roller is turning it will struggle to suck it threw, im thinking of putting a rubberband around one to add sort of a passive drive to the other and see how that goes

buy some o-rings from a bearing joint. im guessing that 44 or 45 x 1 mm would work. there usually a dollar or so ea, so get a few. they last ~6 mths for me.

 

[Pumpy]

Browndog how did the grain mill crush the grain ??

pumpy :unsure: