Don’t mean to barge in on thread with off topic questions, but I’m edging on desperation here!
I’ve got a question about some soft white wheat I milled.
I tried milling it twice as one mill was down and my other mill won’t grind flour fine.
I now have the mill working and I need to grind the flour a bit finer.
Problem is, the flour is fine enough (you can feel the grit in it) that it bridges in the grinder throat and won’t feed.
If this isn’t the place to be asking this question, please direct me to the proper place.
This is a great question, deserving of its own thread so hopefully more people see it and offer tips
What mill are you using? I have a Mockmill and find double milling tricky if the first pass was already pretty fine. I do know of people who double mill durum regularly but that’s a much harder wheat than your soft white. For your soft flour, I’d probably do a rice cleanout of the stones, and also chill the flour before trying the second pass again.
I used an “Everygrow” hammer mill the first time.
Because that mill didn’t have a finer setting, I thought maybe a second pass would work.
Nope! Still had gritty (bran) flour.
Finally got my burr mill running. It’s a “Country Living” mill that I’ve motorized.
It does a great job, but the flour is still fine enough that it “bridges” in the mill throat and you have to constantly punch it into the feed augur.
The “Country Living” mill is already slow. This process just makes it seem slower because I’m having to constantly tend the mill.
I was wondering if I added whole wheat berries if it would help stop the bridging?
The hard part is that I’m working through 100 pounds of flour. I have a “cottage industry” where I sell flour and corn meal at two different farmers markets.
I’m currently “re”-processing about 70 pounds of flour. Looks like a frustrating couple of days poking that flour through my Country Living grain mill.
Just grabbing at straws here … is it possible to sift the already milled flour to remove the “gritty” content and re-mill just the grit, then combine the already mill part with the re-milled part?
That’s cool you motorized your Country Living mill. Sifting that much flour by hand is an impressive workout. Wow.
You probably have already seen these…and it is an investment for sure, but a Mockmill would get you super fine flour on the first pass.
We’re (the wife and me) are currently looking at a “Komo” grain mill, but your “Mockmill” is about $300 cheaper.
We’ll give it a look-see. Thanks for the info.
My Country Living mill does a great job, but the mounting had slipped and ate up a drive belt before I realized it.
We’ll sift the bran out of the rest of the flour and regrind it.
Our “Everygrow” is actually a “hammer mill”. It breaks whole kernel corn down into cornmeal in two passes.
LOL! Easier said than done!
I’m not much of a mechanical engineer!
I actually motorized a meat grinder and adapted that to motorize a grain mill!
I’ll have to check “YouTube”.
Nice! YouTube to the rescue. If you were to use a Mockmill to make cornmeal, you would do one pass with the stones far apart, and a second pass closer together – the setting depending on if you want coarse polenta texture or a fine corn flour.
Same basic idea with the “Everygrow” hammer mill.
Corn kernels are so large and hard, you have to break them dow, THEN grind.
I would have to buy sieves to determine how coarse/fine our cornmeal is. Maybe in the future. Right now, our customers seem to be happy with what we’re producing.
We’ve also told the sellers to relay any suggestions from customers.
You joke, but I was going to suggest something very like this for the problem of the flour “bridging” and not flowing easily through the hopper into the mill.
@Otto_Matic, if you have back massager or something like that (one of those beefy sharper image or brookstone ones would probably be ideal) you could use it to vibrate the hopper which would help the flour feed. Any kind of vibratory thing (electric toothbrush?) might be worth a try.
Many moons back, I bought a cheap palm sander to finish a project.
It’s been laying in my shop since about 2005.
It just became a sifter vibrator.
Also ordered a 40 mesh sifter to sift out “00” bread flour.
