Decided to put a little blurb on some additions I've added to my brewery in the last few months. First off, I am now able to mill my own grains. This allows me to use the freshest grains possible in each of my brews since the milling takes place in a matter of minutes before I start my mash. I went the cheap route and picked up a Corona style mill off of ebay for around $25. It took a little tweaking to get the plates spaced apart to the correct gap so that I mill/crack and not grind my grains into flour. I also added one of those pieces of duct that attach to a floor vent for your central heating and air systems. This allows me to mill up to about 5lbs at a time. Then I removed the hand crank and attached a drill directly into the mill. I'm actually milling at a higher speed than I should since I have no way of slowing down the drill, but it seems to be working fine. In the future I'd like to get a 1/2 or 1/3 HP motor geared down so that I will get 175 to 200 rpms. This would allow me to dump in 5lbs and walk away or do something else. As it it now I have to hold the drill, obviously.


I have also added a scale with a custom, one of a kind weighing contraption. Actually it's just a bucket cut almost in half, but it works! The scale will weigh up to 10lbs, but the bucket only holds about 5lbs before the grains start to spill out the front. And that's fine since the hopper on my mill only holds 5lbs.

As far as the scale goes I'm pretty happy with it. I may lower the table the mill is attached to and hang the scale directly above it so I can weigh the grains and then dump them direclty into the hopper.


*Sorry about the crappy pics. I'll replace with good ones once I have them.*