March 30, 2009 - 11:18am
Roller Mills anyone?
Hey there!
I was wondering if anyone knew of a place to buy roller mills? I realize they are usually set up in succession to bring the particle size down.
And... maybe what I'm looking for could be done without that. What I'm wanting to do is mill whole buckwheat flour, and not have large hulls left over. I assume flour processed at Birtkett Mills is all done on roller mills, but don't know if there is maybe a way to process the whole buckwheat berry, hull and all, into a flour.
Ideas?
Thanks!
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I'd love to be able to mill around 200 pounds an hour if possible, too. Just tired of getting 80% flour out of my berry purchases... can't find enough people who want to mulch with buckwheat hulls, and I've got hundreds of pounds of hulls sittin' around!
I'm not much of a buckwheat fan so, no first hand information.
What mill are you currently using?
Birkett mills seems to claim that their buckwheat is 100% stone ground - which does mean that it has taken one pass through stones, so it should be possible to mill good flour with steel or stone burrs.
You might try contacting Pleasant Hill Grains (just type it into your favorite search engine) if you have not already. They sell commercial grain mills. If nothing else they might be able to give you a referral for roller mills.
I have seen roller mills advertised on sites that deal in home brewing. They are not usually commercial mills, but you may wish to start from that point and make a few calls.
Hope this helps.
Thanks. The mill being used now is at least a 24 inch stone mill, maybe 30. I don't mill it myself, but go have it milled by a miller about 40 minutes away.
I did hear that the stones hadn't been dressed in a while...
Thanks for the replies!
I also don't know how fine a flour could come out of something like a crankendstein type mill. Are those made to make flour? I'm needing to make my dog biscuits with this flour, so it's gotta be "floury".
I don't mill this myself and probably never will, but I did a little on line research on buckwheat milling. Almost universally they say that buckwheat flour should be no more than 85% extraction - even if roller mills are used. The literature seems to suggest that any higher extraction is just undesireable and that the hulls are just a consequence of the milling operation.
The milling techniques say "same as wheat" which would mean that steel or stone burrs could be used successfully.
Most of the larger roller mills that I can find are for agricultural feed, although a quick type of "roller mills" into your favorite search engine will give you a number of results.
Let me suggest again that you contact Pleasant Hill Grain. They may be able to refer you to someone - and they do deal in commercial milling products.
Hope this helps and good luck!
I did contact Pleasant Hill Grain and am going to send them some samples of what I'm looking for, along with some berries for them to pass through the mill. And... the flour I'm milling isn't for human consumption, anyhow. It's for dog biscuits. :) And yea, I've spent countless hours on google learning about milling and roller mills and all this, gets tiring after a while. Thanks so much for your help, I really do appreciate it!
So i got some flour tested on a hammer mill with a 1/64" screen, 100% extraction of buckwheat and it's BEAUTIFUL! This is exactly what I was going for, so wanted to share the joy. :)