Birthday Beer Stuff

[MightyCow9]

Alright. So my tightwad self is allowing my wife to let me spend some money on beer stuff for my birthday. I have been wanting to set up a grain mill. James is helping me with the stuff and I just ordered a Crank and Stein Mill. Next I will need a motor.

Also I am looking for 20 pound CO2 tank (and wouldn't mind another regulator). I just missed the craigslist buy that had this, so I am still in the market.

If anyone has something or leads on one can you let me know?

[arkador]

why not use a corded or cordless drill as a motor?

http://www.micromatic.com/draft-keg-beer/regulators-pid-842-2.html is one of the best deals i have seen for a single body regulator. To buy the Y splitter with 2 on/off valves alons is arround $25-$30 at most online retailers.

[gwbbc]

Drills spin too fast, the mill operates best if you slow it down with a couple of sheeves and belts.

[vmbrown]

Steve bought a used washing machine motor from one of the used appliance graveyards on Belknap where Denton Highway intersects. V

[TurboBrew]

http://www.electronicdiscountsales.com/shop/shop_cgi/browse.php

They don't have them listed on the site, but last time I was there they had a whole pallet of new/refurbished electric motors. I don't remember how much they were but I'm pretty sure they were under $10. Pretty cool store, you can waste a lot of time in there.

[Clint]

You can use a varialbe speed drill. Joe and I added a $20 Harbor Freight drill to a Valley Mill... we secured it to the board the mill was bolted to with ubolts. Drill had a dial trigger on it so you could limit the rpm via the trigger... and it had a lock to keep it engaged without having to hold it. For the money it's hard to beat.

But, if you want to go nicer setup... electric motors with enough torque to spin the mill will need to be stepped down via pulleys belts or gears.

If you can find a gear motor... that would be the most ideal and setup with a lovejoy connector.

[MightyCow9]

gear motor sounded cool too. I have just now started looking into that stuff, so I will try and do more research over the next few weeks.

Thanks for the help guys.

[mwedge]

if you go the regular motor route with some sheaves you want to get down to about 170 rpm's on the mill. Here is a decent little write up I found on motorizing a crank n stein mill.

Motorized Crank-N-Stein (http://sdcollins.home.mindspring.com/GrainMill.html)

[nickpgoodman]

Motorizing the mill with a drill is the cheapest and easiest way to get started.

I've been meaning to drop by harbor freight and pick this up.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=43060

It's actually a router speed control, but you could just set your drill to full power and dial down the rpms with this.

[Clint]

This is pretty much what Joe and I used on our first motorized mill. We ubolted it to the mill's base board... you can see in the photo, it has a dial to limit rpm on the trigger as well as a trigger lock. $20... or be super cheap, signup for HF email and get a 20% off coupon.

This is by far the most redneck engineered you'd probably want to go. :cool:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=3670