Homemade Flour Mill

Milling is nearly the oldest of all industries.

If you're planning to live remotely, without access to the industrial food supply, you need to plan your own food supply very carefully. If you plan on farming your own cereals or other grains and want to be able to mill them into flour, you will need to build a mill. A small, hand-powered mill is easy to build, consisting only of a simple mortar and pestle, and the process of building one and using it to actually mill grain helps to build appreciation for the food you eat. This also makes a fun crafts project for children.

Things You'll Need

• 3 steel pipes, ¾ inches in diameter and 2½ feet long
• Pipe cutters
• Sandpaper
• Silicone pads or cushions
• Tape
• Small metal can, 3 to 5 inches in diameter and at least 6 inches deep
• Cloth
• Sieves of successive fineness
• Cheesecloth (optional)

Instructions

1. Take three steel pipes, and clean them. These will become your pestle.

2. Cut off one end on each of the pipes. The cut should be perpendicular so that the pipe stands level on the ground.

3. Smooth the pipe ends with sandpaper.

4. Tape thin silicone pads to the pipes to provide a thin layer of cushioning for when the pipes are bound together.

5. Bind the three pipes together very tightly with copious amounts of tape. Leave 8 inches or so of the working ends of the pipes free of tape, for cleanliness. The pipes must be bound together so that their smoothed ends are perfectly level; i.e., the full diameter of each pipe has full contact with the ground when all three pipes are tied together.

6. Wrap cloth around the pipes to provide yourself with a more ergonomic hand grip; repetitive motions when working with bare metal will cause your hands to blister fairly quickly.

7. Clean out a large metal can, such as an empty juice can or a stewed tomatoes can. This will become your mortar.

8. Clean your grain, and place it in the can about 1 inch deep.

9. Secure the can to a sturdy, flat surface. For instance, you can secure it to a vise on a workshop table. Or you can sit on a brick floor and secure the can between your legs.

10. Mill the grain with your pestle using swift, straight up-and-down motions of about 4 inches in length. In about five to 10 minutes, you should have a mixture of flour, meal and cracked hulls. The longer you mill, the finer your flour will become and the more digestible it will be.

11. Sieve the mixture to separate out the component parts. Use successively finer sieves to separate out the finest flour. You can use cheesecloth to separate out the very finest flour. If your flour is not fine enough, it will have a laxative effect. Experiment to find the optimal balance between the fineness of the flour and the time you spend milling.

Tips & Warnings

• Barley and oats must be water-treated prior to being milled.

References

• The Farm: Emergency Grain Mill