A Day at the Mill
Natural Whole Grain
Stone Ground Cornmeal
Although grinding corn can be a lot of fun, it can also be a lot of work. I know that when I decide to fire up my mill, I need to set aside plenty of time to do everything right. It's not something you just do on the spur of the moment, as there is a lot of work involved. On this one occasion, I had a whole day to spare. So, early that morning I bought a 50 pound bag of whole kernel corn. I always like to give my corn one final cleaning before grinding it. I do this one scoop at a time, blowing the dust off the corn using compressed air. I hope to automate this process some day but for now it's all by hand.
This picture shows the mill in it's setting. This is a 12" Williams mill powered by a 7 HP Fairbanks-Morse ZC118. The mill is permanently set up behind my shop. This picture shows a little bit of my other "junk". In this setting, the mill is right at home.
This picture shows the cornmeal coming out of the spout into the sifter. Though this picture shows a pretty good stream of cornmeal, I guess because of the high humidity in these parts, the spout cloggs up easily. I have a small paddle that can be seen in the picture below laying just to the right of the shoe. I use this paddle to flush the cornmeal out of the spout. This makes for a pretty dirty job as cornmeal and corn dust get all over my hands and subsequently all over me. I really don't care though. That's part of the fun.
There are a number of factors that must be taken into account when grinding corn. One, you must have the stones turning at the proper speed as recommended. Too slow a speed will result in slow and minimal output. Too fast a speed can result in the stones and meal getting hot, and that's not good. I will quite often sample some of the meal as it comes out the spout and feel it for temperature. I try to keep it cool. Two, you must have the stones adjusted properly to determine how fine or how coarse you want your meal. The closer the stones are together, the finer the meal. You never want the stones to come in contact with each other. If they do, the stones may be damaged. You will immediately notice a burnt smell if the stones get too close. Keeping "your nose to the grindstone" will let you know immediately if the stones are too close. The smell is unmistakable. Thirdly, you must have the rate of feed to the mill adjusted properly. The picture to the left shows the whole corn coming out of the hopper down the shoe into the stones. With a little experimenting you can get this rate right. Too slow and you don't get much meal out. Too fast and the mill and engine will bog down.
This picture shows the results of my labor. After throwing away the first few pounds of meal and considering that several pounds of meal is left inside the mill enclosure, I ended up with 28 bags of about a pound and a half each.
Well, the fun doesn't end here. As I mentioned earlier, several pounds of finely ground cornmeal remains inside the enclosure after you shut the mill down. Unless you plan on grinding again real soon, the meal must be disposed of. To do that, the mill must be split. I use a shop vac to vacuum the meal out. I then use compressed air to get rid of all of the dust and residual meal on the stones and the enclosure. Just cleaning out the mill can easily take an hour or so. It's worth it though because the mill will be all ready for grinding next time.
And here it is, all cleaned up and ready for the next time I get an urge to grind some more corn.