Outdoor Mill and Grain Room

[Sean_KillsBoro]

Hello all,

We're in the process of opening a 10BBL brewhouse in NYC. Our brewspace is very limited, and we decided to go with pre-milled grain initially to save on space. However, we were recently given some outdoor space, and we would like to incorporate a grain room and mill room to help free up some space inside the brewery.

The grain storage would be simple. Temp controlled shed to house at least 1 months worth of grain.

However, we're trying to determine the best way to operate the mill room. It would be separated from the grain room, used only for milling and augering. The dilemma is augering the grain into the brewery. The auger would be exposed to the outdoors, since the mill room and the brew house are not connected, and would enter the roof of the brewery into our mashtun.

We know this arrangement isn't ideal, but we figured we weren't the only ones in this situation.

Does anyone have any experience augering from a remote location outdoors? And if so, would you have any recommendations or considerations to give us as we plan to make these additions to our brewery?

[BroadWay411]

Larger breweries with grain silos often have their silos placed outside, with the auger systems often exposed to the elements. As long as your mill and electrical isn't exposed (kept in the shed) and with proper ventilation to reduce dust accumulation then I can't really see an issue of it not being done.

[FRO]

At the 10bbl scale I would skip the auger and just build a stand for the mill that allows you to mill back into the bags then dump them in by hand. Unless you are regularly brewing into 30bbl or 40bbl FV's of course.

[mmussen]

Having the mill in the shed should work just fine. I would recommend putting a grist case for milled grain in the brewery somewhere though. Otherwise you're going to have to do some major corrections for grain temp throughout the year. You can do that but it might cause a few batches to miss their mash temps every time the seasons change. Having a grist case inside means you can mill the day before brewing and you know all your grain for the batch is the same temp as the inside of the brewery.

[Sean_KillsBoro]

Having the mill in the shed should work just fine. I would recommend putting a grist case for milled grain in the brewery somewhere though. Otherwise you're going to have to do some major corrections for grain temp throughout the year. You can do that but it might cause a few batches to miss their mash temps every time the seasons change. Having a grist case inside means you can mill the day before brewing and you know all your grain for the batch is the same temp as the inside of the brewery.

Unfortunately, we do not have space inside the brewery for anything besides the current brew house equipment. We were looking to temp control the shed.

[TGTimm]

Contact your local OSHA and Fire Marshall's office before you build your mill/grain room. Dust explosions and respiratory exposure are serious hazards with milling grain, and it'll save you time, headaches, and effort if you make sure you're in compliance from the beginning.

We use a Chore-Time Flex Auger to deliver grain from our outdoor silo. It's well sealed--as the head unit is inside--and the round pipe is easy to seal at the building penetrations. We use a bucket-lift style elevator to deliver ground malt from the mill to the grist case. The lift sticks out of the roof of the millroom. It's impossible to flash where it penetrates the roof, and the lift itself cannot be fully weatherized. We have to use a huge man-lift to service and clean it every spring.

[Sudenga]

No problem - Find yourself a good millwright

The problem you describe is a common thing in the grain handling world. If you are handling granular material of any kind, my suggestion is to find yourself a good agricultural millwright... there are plenty not far from NYC. Do a web search for "grain bin dealer" and you'll find businesses that are capable of the millwright work you are looking for. When elevating straight up, a bucket elevator is the way to go: http://sudenga.com/our-products/bucket-elevators/. Conveying horizontally or at an incline, you can use a flex auger or rigid core auger. Round tube style or u-trough style are very common in the agricultural world and would have different pros and cons in your application. You can pop the covers off a u-trough auger to clean it.. that's one advantage I see versus an auger running in a round tube.

http://sudenga.com/our-products/round-tube-augers/round-tube-augers

or u-trough here: http://sudenga.com/our-products/u-tr...-trough-augers
Good luck!