How fine to mill

[Stoney]

I just mangled my $12 aldi pasta machine I was probably never going to use again into an el cheap grain mill.



is this fine enough ? some whole wheat placed next to it for a size comparison.
if so, i will make a hopper up for it, its not a long turn solution, just want to try grain before lashing out for the proper gear.

credit where its due .. idea from this guys video .. aldi machine is basically identical except the gears are threaded onto the rods, the rods are an SS pipe of a little over a mm wall thickness so my first grooves are fairly shallow but seems to do the job fairly well until only a few grains are left.


http://youtu.be/mNrUx52VM1g

[Brendan]

Looks alright mate.

I get mine done at the HBS to 0.9mm...looks about the same as that I think :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[sp0rk]

Looks fine to me mate, but it really all depends what mashing system you're using
If you're doing BIAB you can crush more or less all the way to flour
Whereas with a conventional mash tun you want a slightly coarser crush (about .9mm like Brendan says), so the grain is cracked open, but the husk is mostly still intact so it can form a good grain bed when you're lautering/sparging

[OzKev]

As above, crush is influenced by what you are crushing for. BIAB I would go a bit finer, for a mash tun it looks ok but a close up would be great. Just have a good look at the grains, are they all cracked open? If they are not open then you cannot access the starch. Also wheat will never give the same crush as a malted barley, as the wheat does not have a husk. Is that wheat malted, doesn't look to be but it's hard to tell from the pic? Will you be crushing malted barley as well, that is the more important one a the husks act as the main grain bed.

Here's a pic of my malted barley crush for comparison.
For BIAB this is on the courser end, for 3V it is on the finer end (how I like it)

[crow]

I grist malt o slightly finer than that its the coarse setting of an industrial coffee grinder wound out a little, so between yours and coarse ground coffee. I mill adjuncts finer down to a meal flour. can we have a picture of your alteration to the pasta machine as I have one that I was hoping to use for green malt :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Stoney]

nothing to see not covered by the link to that dudes youtube link in first post.
yet, will be building a hopper shortly as it appears to be at least slightly useable so far.
the only think I did different was probably not groove as deeply as he did, mine are barely scratches 0.2mm deep at a guess, perhaps less .. ts just enough to pull the wheat in. I figured it was easier to go deeper if I needed than the reverse :)
I didnt want grooves deep enough to allow whole grains to escape.

heres a pic anyway, i put about 7 grooves in ine roller and only 4 in the other, its rough as guts but i doubt the grain cares.



plan is to drive it with a small drill press laid on its side. also an aldi one :)

will keep yas updated. very easy to pull apart the pasta machine, flat jewellers screwdriver to pry off the inner of the adjustment knob, phillips screwdriver and long nose pliers got the nuts and screws off, to undo the gears needed a bit if force, clamped rollers in vice individually and undid the gears with vice grips being careful not to distort the teeth.

assembly is a fiddly jigsaw puzzle, mark the feed guides so you know which is which without wondering. then its a matter of trying to get about 7 things through holes at the same time. not too bad though.

[Stoney]

started making a mount and hopper. happen to have a small wood vice on the bench where the drill press is so will use that to hold everything steady.

only measurements so far, the centre piece of wood is 144mm wide. sides just glued and nailed on. drilled holes for mounting the machine through its original feet, left the bottom rubber feet and rail on as well.



needed to make some. cuts to suit my vice. will need to go deeper yet.



this one shows the idea. will mount the machine a bit further back and a little lower.

[hillzabilly]

The aussie way ,ya may not have exactly what ya need ,but give it a good crack with what ya have ,and it still surprises me what people can put together from bits and pieces. :text-coolphotos: :handgestures-thumbupleft: hillzabilly

[Stoney]

hopper mostly done, left the metal side plate on the gear side to keep the gears clean and save rebating the wood, removed side cover from drive side as I cut the handle a little short really and need a bit longer to clear the wood.

made a few changes, removed the base as it was wider than required. may refit it yet depending on where the grain goes.

its just made from 5 ply scrap from an old tv cabinet.
used a nicish piece of dressed pine for the front and rear for strength and to make it look a bit pretty from one angle.

just need to add some guides inside and an exit chute.



internal so far ..

[Stoney]

fail so far, once motorised and a few handfuls of grain added the roller gap increased a little, dismantled to investigate, had to cut some slots in the hopper to clear the drive spigot and width adjuster.
There is some sort of hard plastic bush on the driven end of the drive roller and this has opened up by over half a mm, increasing roller clearance.
might be able to add a bearing to this or turn up a bush but I probably wont bother .. experiment over for the time being.

[Yummyrum]

Damn ..thats a shame stoney , that looked like it was shaping up really well .

Thanks for the effort :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[hillzabilly]

Shame about that, I use the 50 dollar one ,not perfect but good enough for experimental grain smashin .cheers hillzabilly

[Hava]

Motorised milling is great

[whiskeyshiner]

diy grain mill thought the drive on this looked pretty cool better than a drill but definately overkill dunno if id be sticking my hand near it though :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

[sp0rk]

it's running a WHOLE lot faster than it really should be, he's just gonna tear the husks apart going that fast

[1 2many]

That is just pure dangerous, sounded good though :))

[OzKev]

Motorised milling is great

What type/brand of mill is that, it looks great for home use :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Sam.]

That is just pure dangerous, sounded good though :))

Sounded like it had a turbo :scared-eek:

Can't believe he put his fucking hand in there :?

[Hava]

Mods feel free to move to another thread as it is getting away from topic.

What type/brand of mill is that, it looks great for home use :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Little ark grain mill.

It wasn't cheap setting up with the motor but worth the time saving and hand free operation. I only use it for fine grinding AG bourbon mash. 1 run in this mill and its done. Came with stone and steel plates and found the steel plates work best.

http://www.retsel.com.au/html/lil-ark.html

The online ordering didn't work so i called and it was a home number answered by an older guy with dementia, spoke to the seller and he was good to deal with.

When i get some time, I'll build a 3 level table to sit a bag on grain on top feeding through the mill on the middle the catch the grind on the bottom level and set up a roller mill on the other side of the motor.

[Stoney]

I like the home made ones, this one is concrete rollers cast in cans.

http://youtu.be/070gK97L-0I

and since I have access to about a billion tons of river rocks, I particularly like this type of creation.

http://youtu.be/ZIH5hAEfK3I