First I roughed up the rollers with a concrete drill bit. I really got after it to the point where there were metal shavings flying everywhere. This took about 10 minutes with my electric drill. I had started with my cordless, but there just wasn’t enough staying power so I switched.
Then I removed the roller base and took the roller apart. Swapped out some longer bolts for the feet, so I could mount it securely to the plywood base, and tightened up everything from the factory (some things were a bit loose). After a test mount, I cut a hole for the grain to fall through and re-mounted.
Then it was on to the hopper. The hopper ended up being about 17” high x 14” wide x 7” deep. It can hold about 15lbs of grain. I cut an access slot for the roller adjusting wheel and a hole for the handle. I also mounted some smaller pieces of wood to the base to keep stray grain from escaping. I will probably also add some plastic to the ends to contain the grain dust and debris.
I decided to add four roller catches to attach the hopper to the base. This way, I have easy access to the rollers if I need to rough them up some more down the road (or replace it with another $14 pasta roller).
Lastly, it was time for the test crush. I loaded up the hopper with about 1/2lb of pale malt that I had left over from my first BIAB. A 3/8” spade bit fits nicely into where the crank handle would normally be, and I powered that with my cordless drill. 10 seconds later, I had crushed grain in the container!
Fast forward about 2 years and I've probably put 75lbs or so of grain through the mill (haven't brewed as much as I want to). Still going strong. I am going to rough up the rollers again before the next batch and tighten things up again. Other than that, I haven't done any maintenance on this thing. I did switch from powering with the cordless to a corded drill though. Would like to build a more permanent stand and motorize, but that is down the road a bit.
Love this Hobby!!
