Proper grain mills can be expensive, especially here in New Zealand so when I found out that some home brewers were having success with converting cheap pasta makers into grain mills it seemed like something worth trying and I picked up one on TradeMe for $22. The rollers on a pasta maker are smooth and won’t pull in the grains so the first task is to roughen up the rollers. Reading through online forum discussions on this topic I learned that some people have disassembled the pasta maker, removed the rollers and got them knurled. But I also read about a much quicker and easier approach that also seems to work well and this is what I did. No need to disassemble, simply run a drill back and forth across the rollers and the drill bit will roughen up the surface of the rollers enough to allow them to bite on the grains and pull them through.
The next thing is to construct a hopper to feed the grains into the rollers. I’ve seen some examples online of fancy woodworking or metalworking skills being used to construct hoppers for the pasta grain mill, but again I opted for the path of least resistance – cardboard and duct tape!
And that’s pretty much it. The only other addition was a flat piece of cardboard to direct the crushed grains into a collection container. Here she is in action:
It can be powered with the hand crank that came with it, or by an electric drill.
I milled a few kilos of grain for my latest brew this weekend and I was pretty pleased with the results. I think I got a pretty good crush. The operation started off well but did start to go a bit slow after awhile. I came to the conclusion that my rollers were not quite rough enough so I wasn’t getting a strong bite on the grains and they were coming through quite slowly. I gave up on using the drill after awhile and went back to the hand crank as I found I was just spinning my wheels with the drill bit when I wasn’t getting enough traction and the slower speed of the hand crank was more effective. I got through all the grain that I needed for the recipe but planned on doing some further roughening on the rollers at another time. Here’s an example of the crush:
This evening I had another go at roughening up the rollers some more, again by running a 6.5mm drill bit back and forth across the rollers. A bigger drill bit would probably have been more effective but that was the biggest I had so it had to do. After further roughening I ran a small amount of grain through to test it and it pulled it through no problem. I also played around with the gap settings to find what works best. What I found is that it goes through quite easily on setting 3 but you get quite a few kernels coming out that appear to be whole. On closer examination of the ‘whole’ kernels, I found that most of them were actually cracked to some degree. Then I found if you take this crushed grain and run it through again, it will go through easily on setting 2. And pretty much none of the kernels survive looking intact after going through on that narrower setting. Testing it further, I found that I could even run the grain through a third time on setting 1 and completely pulverise it into mostly flour and husks. That would be crushed beyond what is necessary but good to know that I can get a finer crush than I will need.
8 comments
Aran Brown says:
24 April 2012 at 10:34 pm (UTC 12)
Thanks for the post – something i think I will look into. Could you post a shot of the rollers – so we can see what the look like after being “roughened”
Cheers!
Aidan says:
25 April 2012 at 12:06 pm (UTC 12)
Hi Aran, if you have a look at my previous post, there’s a picture of the roughened rollers. It’s not a very clear pic so if I can get a better pic I’ll post it.
Cheers,
Aidan
Aran Brown says:
29 April 2012 at 10:08 pm (UTC 12)
Right you are – the pic was clear enough thanks… I have done about 5 partial mashes now and my efficiencies are mainly in the 50-60% range (as calculated by putting the grain bill into Hopville, and then adjusting the volume corrected then changing the efficiency percentage in Hopville until it matches my gravity reading). I have much improve my batch sparging technique and am now running a modified 2 Gal cooler (with braid), so I’m thinking my best bet for better efficiency is a better crush than what I am getting from the LHBS…
Been keen to chat at some stage and hear how you mash so I can see what i can do to improve my efficiencies (would like to get up to 75%)
Cheers
Aran
Aidan says:
30 April 2012 at 10:29 am (UTC 12)
Hi Aran,
I mash in a pot on the stovetop with grain in a muslin bag. I’ve written up my process here. I’ve calculated my efficiency somewhere between 60 & 70% but not 100% sure if my calcs are right. With your cooler setup, if you went with a finer crush you might run into problems with stuck sparge.
Cheers,
Aidan
Aran Brown says:
30 April 2012 at 10:09 pm (UTC 12)
Cheers Aidan. My two wheat partial mashes were pretty slow. However I use a grain bag inside the cooler so once I have completed and run off my batch sparge I usually give the grain bag a good squeeze. I know some claim this could lead to tannin extraction but I reckon so long as I stay below 70c its pretty unlikely. Doing some more reading I’m going to try a thinner mash as have been using 1.25L to kg of grain to see if that works better. I generally get 55-60, buy my best was 67% according to hopville. Will try that first before looking at my crush.
Gardening Services Auckland says:
5 June 2012 at 2:48 pm (UTC 12)
That is a great addon to the pasta maker. Love your blog, beer and gardens, my two favorite things lol.
David Gretzinger says:
10 December 2012 at 8:11 am (UTC 12)
What brand name is the pasta machine you are using? Any problems with the gears meshing properly?
Aidan says:
10 December 2012 at 9:24 am (UTC 12)
It’s just some brand X made in China thing. This looks like the box it came in: http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-living/kitchen/other/auction-541923768.htm
No problems so far with gears meshing properly. I just use the hand crank. I’ve tried running it with an electric drill but speed is way too fast and I reckon you could quickly wear out the gears that way.
The trick to making it work is to rough up the rollers as much as you can. Then run your grain through at a fairly open setting so that it goes through easily, then run it through again at a closer setting. You can even do it a third time for an extra fine (pulverised) crush. Works well for mashing in a bag since it doesn’t matter if you over-crush, but I’m not sure if you have enough contol over the crush for mash/lauter tun usage.