Repair and Care

Recently I had a wake up call with my 3 roller Grain Mill.

I’ve had the mill 3-4 years without any problems. ie. I tip in grain and out comes milled malt. As I only brew 10L brews and the motive power is my arm it hasn’t been overworked.

However, for various reasons, I haven’t used it for 4 months and when I took it out from my grain store (kept inside for dryness etc.) I noticed much rust had set upon the rollers. I can only conclude that the accumulated malt dust had absorbed moisture and reacted with the cold steel of the rollers. Plainly a brush down with a hard tooth brush is not enough, aargh.

So I turned to Professor Google for advice which was to acidify the spots with citric or phosphorus acid, scrub off and smear the roller with canola. However, I used some old rust killer (bought 1977 several moves ago to repaint wrought iron balcony and still good -ish) that I found in my garage which did the trick, cleaned up and smeared with canola. A spray would have been better but I used a brush and rag. Needs must.

After everything dries or evaporates I put through a cup of sacrificial grain to soak any left overs. Give it to those irritating pigeons.

I now realise that I’ve been pretty slack caring for the mill which is the most expensive of my brew toys. After some further consultation with Google I have now put in place a more rigorous clean up process.

1. when you finish milling give the mill a good shake to dislodge loose millings and dust .

2. get out your vacuum cleaner* with the smallest noozle and clean full suck first the rollers from the hopper side, turn on side and repeat from underneath particularly the corners where grit and dust settle.

3. and then,with compressed air(from a can or compressor) give the rollers a blast of air one side, vacuum, then the other side,vacuum again otherwise the dust will displease SWMBO. You have been warned.

4. scrub the rollers with a hard toothbrush or the like. You need to tackle each roller in turn from above and below, The top two rotate readily but you’ll need to give the adjustable roller below a push and even loosen using the knobs.ie. undo the lock keys and slacken the roller. If all else fails, unscrew and take off the Hopper for easier access to the rollers.

5. Reassemble, vacuum again and put away for next time.

*nb. make sure that the vacuum cleaner insides are dry. Otherwise the malt dust will stick to everything (just like Dry Malt Extract) and you’ll have another clean up job to do.