Roller Mill Project

grim

We were out doing some welding in the shop today, putting together the frame for the larger roller mill. Thought I'd share some photos of the progress. We had a ton of old steel laying around that we're recycling for this one, no problem since it's going out for powder coat in the next week or two, which will make it look plenty pretty. Doing this in stainless would be a small fortune. Originally we were going to copy the design from the Ultimate Grain Mill from Morebeerpro, but that hopper design was just way too complicated, and we didn't like the fact that you could easily damage the hopper by dropping a bag of grain on it.

This one has got a 2" by 5" Crankandstein Feed and Seed mill (I need the ability to open the gap wider for corn). I've got a Boston Gear reducer on it, 5:1, which is a little bit fast, but that's OK, we're making whiskey and not beer, I don't care about shredding husk. Powering the beast is a 1 hp explosion proof motor (not shown). Didn't bother with the really big 3 roller, it wouldn't really help, and with the 8" roller we'd probably need a 2hp motor. We'll likely be using this to crack malt and adjuncts, as well as to take crack corn down finer.

The frame is all steel, and the hopper itself will be aluminum. The reason we extended the frame up as high as we did is that the top frame will be the support for the top of the hopper. Imagine 4 trapezoid shapes from the top edge down to the roller mill itself. We wanted it tall enough to be able to slip a garbage can sized bin under for grain collection. We have some additional supports on it to allow for the bag to be rested on the corner while you dump.

The hopper itself will be large enough to hold more than a full 50lb sack, in reality, it could probably hold two.

Can wait to see how fast I can get a 50lb bag of corn through, should be right fast.

punkin

Looks great. Wish i had the fab skills to make a hopper for my mill. I'd be happy with a 20l one.

CothermanDistilling

nice work!

cunnyfunt

Great job. I wish I had fab skills too.

Philter

That's going to be a beast @Grim!

I do cringe when seeing someone weld in a short sleeve shirt..... Unless you are getting a jump start on your tan before summer starts :))

Law_Of_Ohms

I tig and stick weld in thongs...

grim

Progress continues. My good ol' pops was nice enough to spend some time working on the grain mill casing, he was a machinist many years ago. You know, I really wish the companies that sell these things would spend just a few more dollars to include side covers as well as a top that is intended for mounting of a hopper. The single most complicated part of any grain mill project is making a hopper that doesn't look like hell, wrapped up in duct tape and bubble gum.

So, a little bit of a snafu on the grain opening, but no big deal. The aluminum for the hopper is out being bent, but the intent is for the hopper bottom to have a 90' bend at the bottom of the chute where it will be attached to the face-plate of the mill. Can't bend it ourselves, the aluminum is just too wide and too thick.

Another crazy, crazy thing I've seen with grain mills, is folks using screws to put the hopper together, with the screws screwed in from INSIDE the hopper. This is just insanity. A screw? From inside the hopper? What happens when the screw works lose and drops right into the mill. Disaster. No screws! Especially not in the mouth of the beast.

punkin

That was one of the things that got me with the Crankenstein was that the frame was not structural. It had to be mounted to something and they used whatever you mounted it to to stiffen it up.

Sorta like a shed before the sheeting goes on.

I had one of the most bubblegum hoppers ever for my crankenstein, a 97 cent bucket and a 97 cent funnel with the ass cut out of it duct taped together and stuck in a round hole in a piece of ply.

grim

Some pics of the hopper, kudos to the old man for the layout and bending, and calling in some favors on the aluminum welding.

For scale, the long dimension is just about 4 feet.

Manofconstantsorrow

@grim nice looking hooper man! I be keeping tab's of both threads, this will be the next project after the still is completed.

rossco

Great sized hopper. Mine is too small. Really should get around to welding a frame for it.

Littlechicago

We started a project like this but our corn supplier decided to only charge 10.00 per ton to mill our corn. It was easy to say ok and put the mill project on hold. What would have taken us a couple hours to mill takes him 10 minutes. The cost savings on labor alone made the decision even easier.

grim

Same here, it's only a penny a pound more for us. We also had to make the case to the local municipality that we weren't milling in bulk. Last year a local commercial bakery had a mishap and coated the surrounding neighborhood in white flour, so needless to say the word mill is a touchy subject.

Bamboozled: Bakery pipe explosion covers NJ home in flour, company won't pay for cleanup @ New Jersey On-Line

The intent is more around adjunct and specialty grains that our supplier can't mill, or we don't want milled, prior to delivery. This is too small for our intended production batch sizes of 600g. It'd be much cheaper to just get a hammer mill at that scale.

grim

Trial run - Ran 40lbs of corn through today, a minute and 42 seconds. 2.6 seconds a pound.

Takes two passes, one to gross crack and a second pass to take it finer.

You would need some massive diameter rollers to take whole corn down to fine crack in one pass.

I suspect malt would run through even faster, but I'm not about to crush a whole bag just for kicks.

600lbs of malt or fine crack in a half an hour should be no problem.

No lack of power with the motor and gear reducer, starts up no problem with a loaded hopper and the full roller exposed to grain (no throat/choke washer).

2" by 6" rollers? Go with at least 3/4 hp.

TheMechWarrior

That's a damn good throughput rate (1,200lbs/hour) grim, you've sold me.

Law_Of_Ohms

maybe we can offer a hopper locally in Australia, suit current mills like crankenstien, I would just need some phott;s and dimensions taken to get started. BUT must know a target price before we start, I aint starting somthing if yall want to only pay $5 for it!

punkin

I'd be interested in one for myself mate and would be happy to stock them for you.

Best idea is to work it up and cost it out, add some for tooling cost and a profit, some for big ears who'll want his 10% and then ask people if they want it at that price. Maybe it'll only cost you $5 and you can sell it for $10. never know until you cost it out.

Corflute with some flexible strap or banding around it may be an idea for a cheap material if you are doing a smaller one around 5kg or so. May want something a little stronger, 3 ply or something for a twenty kilo model.