Homemade Grain Mill

[dans.brew]

Thought id post up a couple pics of my latest project... my homemade Grain Mill.
Im pretty keen to get into some AG brewing and hopefully i got my malt sorted, so next step was a mill. By now you are probably aware that i like to do most stuff myself if possible... so here is what i come up with. It was really just a prototype to have a play with... hopefully i one day get time to build a more heavy duty version with proper steel rollers.

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The next pic has a little bit of malted barley i put through to try her out. I set the gap to about 1.6mm wide... just interested to know if it looks about right. Im thinkin if i go much wider any small grain wont really get milled properly, not that there is much of that anyway.

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[Pour Decision]

What an ingenious idea! Using an old fairlead to make a mill means most of the work is already done for you.

Looking at the crush, if it were for beer the roller gap is probably a bit too small as there is a lot of flour. Given that you are going to ferment then distill it will be fine.

[dans.brew]

What an ingenious idea! Using an old fairlead to make a mill means most of the work is already done for you.

I was hoping i could make it work... wasnt that sure when i started. It only cost $28 so worth a try. Heres what i started with for those who don't know what a fairlead is.

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So to make it work i had to make the one roller adjustable with a couple slotted holes, an adjustment arm on each end and make a couple sprockets to join the 2 rollers together so they both turn together.
Here is a bit better pic to show what i did.

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[bluc]

I do 1.3mm gap no struck sparges yet but not much experience. I got the info from others that do a fair bit works for them also :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[db1979]

Geez mate that's a great design on the cheap, well done!

[dans.brew]

No worries bluc... i actually had it set prob about that for a start but i thought it might be too fine and i thought i read somewhere about setting it around 1.6mm I suppose it will be trial and error for a start.

Thanks db... that was exactly the plan. I don't really have heaps of extra funds for a decent mill, especially after building my bubbler. I can always build something bigger and better down the track, but this will get me started with AG.

[EziTasting]

Hah, love the hope! Hoppers can never be too big or too wide at the top!!

not sure if you've cut/ruffed up the rollers but it'll help with 'grabbing' the grain so it doesn't keep jumping out of the hopper.... just a thought. Looks like there are a few longitudinal lines carved in but I'm looking at it from my phone so not too much detail is visible...

Nice work

[dans.brew]

Hah, love the hope! Hoppers can never be too big or too wide at the top!!

not sure if you've cut/ruffed up the rollers but it'll help with 'grabbing' the grain so it doesn't keep jumping out of the hopper.... just a thought. Looks like there are a few longitudinal lines carved in but I'm looking at it from my phone so not too much detail is visible...

Nice work

Yeah your right Ezi... my rollers were too smooth to pull the grain through for a start so i did put some grooves in them and through she went. Happy days!

[woodduck]

This is a great idea Dan, cheap and easy and out of the square thinking. Well done :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[dans.brew]

This is a great idea Dan, cheap and easy and out of the square thinking. Well done :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Yeah... thanks Woodduck! :text-thankyoublue:
I was just looking online to see what i could get in the way of rollers and one of these popped up. Well, my brain went into overdrive and so i thought i could make something of it.

[dans.brew]

So my first mill did the job for a start but was too slow for my lack of time so i went in with a mate and got a mill master.
Rigged her up on a little frame i had lying around. Motor on the back and we're in business.

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Gave her a run this evening with some corn and it did a great job. Ran it through fairly steady closing the gap a couple times and this is what i got.

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Got the corn bubbling away with some Angels Yeast... see how we go there.

[Sam.]

That's awesome :clap: