DIY Grain Mill Feedback (overhead with gravity)

[portagebeer]

Looking to build a grain mill for our 5BBL brewery, and have some interesting opportunities / possible snags ahead. Details to each area of concern I have is below.

1) We're planning to mill our grains from the floor above the mash tun, and using gravity will mill and feed the grist into our dry mash tun below. From there we will fill, hydrate, and mash in from below rather than above. Feedback from Stout says a few of their brewers do this with good results. Anyone have experience in either of these areas?

2) (see picture below as your read) I've sourced parts for a plastic, conical inductor tank (will be used for grain hopper) that will hopefully hold a couple bags of malt at one time. From there, we'll feed the grain into the mill, and will drop into another hopper below that will be connected to process piping where the grist will make its way down to the mash tun.



I'm wondering what your feedback is for this design. Very early stages. All-in, I'm looking at $800 for the build. Still need to source a few small parts and the piping though.

Thanks.

[TGTimm]

The one thing I'd add is an inter-lock that will prevent the gate from the hopper from being opened unless the mill is turned on. We suffered far too many time-consuming mill jams before we installed an interlock. Just a handful of grain will jam the mill on start-up.

[portagebeer]

The one thing I'd add is an inter-lock that will prevent the gate from the hopper from being opened unless the mill is turned on. We suffered far too many time-consuming mill jams before we installed an interlock. Just a handful of grain will jam the mill on start-up.

Good call. My thought was similarly to my LHBS and brewery I work at that we wouldn't need a shut-off, but it will help in terms of loading the thing up before starting the mill and preventing jams.

Thanks for the feedback.

[TGTimm]

If you're using a VFD to drive your mill motor, this is relatively simple. The VFD has an output relay that can be programmed to be ON when the mill is running. Connect this to a solenoid that locks the gate closed unless energized, and Bob's yer uncle. To get even fancier, the VFD will also have a low-voltage input that can be programed and wired to a wall-wart and micro-switch to prevent the VFD from starting unless the gate is closed.

[DallasW]

We do this reversed actually, we have a small hopper+mill installed on top of the one of the gravity tanks with a flex-flo auger up to the mash tun ~8 feet away. Mill is a monster mill 3-roller with hardened steel rollers, motorized with a 10:1 stepdown reducer as seen on homebrewtalk actually. Works great and we've had no issues, rollers are still in great shape after ~600 4bbl batches. You lose some floor space but we didn't have the height to put the mill above the tun so we were a bit stuck.

[Sohabrewer]

Dallas W......I know this is old but been looking at doing exactly what you have done. My question is what is at the bottom of the tank to allow the grain to go into the unloader? Thanks! Tim