Anyone use a Hammer Mill?

[tgrappold68]

We currently use a 6 roller mill but it takes to long to mill now. So we are looking into hammer mills. I was going to see if anyone on here used them. I’m interested in brands and really any useful information you may have. Feed rates, size of discharged grain, discharge and feeding system, ect. 
 

thanks for reading.  

[Tom Lenerz]

We use a Colorado Milling Equipment HMS, 20 HP with 3/32 screen. Works well for us, we mill about 1000 pounds in 30 to 40 minutes.

http://www.coloradomillequipment.com/equipment/hammermills/HMS Spec Sheet.pdf

[Stumpy's]

Picked up a used Bearcat with a 40hp motor for $250 off craigslist. Mill 20k lb per week through it...runs 2-3k lb per hour, depending on screen, grain, and moisture content.

[tgrappold68]

What type of discharge do you use? Any way I could get a picture or video of your setup? If so my email is tgrappold@gmail.com Any info would be awesome. Thanks!

[Stumpy's]

It's got a 5" blower discharge, necked down to 4". We blow tangentially into a bulk bin, sealed the top, and cut a hole that has a pipe that runs to a static dust collector. Hardly any dust at all while milling. I'll try to get a video next time we are running and will shoot it to you. Cheers!

[Silk City Distillers]

Meadows 10hp hammer with a blower discharge.  1000lb an hour.

40hp - good god.

[Bier Distillery]

https://atferrell.com/equipment/mix-mill/sentry-145-hammermill
 

The specs are about right on. For me about 8k# per hour for corn with a 10hp motor & 1/8” screen. 

[AK2]

Ours is a 20 HP hammer mill, 7/32 screen for corn, 3/16 screen for barley and wheat.  I have three very small grain bins that feed into my mill.  I had to put VFD's on the augers to get them slow enough to not amp out the mill. 

My mill is up on a platform, allowing gravity to feed into my catch hoppers.  We grind on our farm and truck the milled grain to the distillery, kind of a cumbersome process BUT I do not have to worry about dust.  The mill is in an old commodity building (open on three sides) so not too much of dust explosion risk.  The platform works great, but to change screens you need to climb, not exactly an ideal situation.  

 

Adam

[TwentySevenBrewing]

I know this post is older, but if anyone can post any pictures they may have. We are shopping for a hammer mill, and I would like to be able to auger through a wall into our mash cooker, and would love to see your set-ups? Have looked at both the CME 10HP and the Sentry 145. Each batch will be around 1200-1500 lbs of combination of corn, wheat, rye and barley. 

[Kindred Spirits]

17 minutes ago, TwentySevenBrewing said:

I know this post is older, but if anyone can post any pictures they may have. We are shopping for a hammer mill, and I would like to be able to auger through a wall into our mash cooker, and would love to see your set-ups? Have looked at both the CME 10HP and the Sentry 145. Each batch will be around 1200-1500 lbs of combination of corn, wheat, rye and barley. 

Do you have a dedicated room for it to contain the dust/noise? If not I would look into that for sure. Another thing to think about would be how would your AHJ feel about you milling on site? If you don't have a bunch of breweries in town, they tend to worry about the explosion hazard if not properly set up.

[TwentySevenBrewing]

22 minutes ago, Kindred Spirits said:

Do you have a dedicated room for it to contain the dust/noise? If not I would look into that for sure. Another thing to think about would be how would your AHJ feel about you milling on site? If you don't have a bunch of breweries in town, they tend to worry about the explosion hazard if not properly set up.

Yes, we have a separate mill room, that we will be augering from, thank you.

Anyone else have any pictures of current set-ups to share?

 

[Golden Beaver Distillery]

25 minutes ago, TwentySevenBrewing said:

Yes, we have a separate mill room, that we will be augering from, thank you.

Anyone else have any pictures of current set-ups to share?

 

We use a hammer mill with mill vacuum inline at the point we dump grains into the hopper and at discharge at the dump box. We also service the door seals on the mill on a quarterly basis. The mill is in the main distillery and is operated at the beginning of the day before any distillation takes places. No issue with it effecting our operation over the past three and half years and was approved by our Fire Marshall.

[TwentySevenBrewing]

9 minutes ago, Golden Beaver Distillery said:

We use a hammer mill with mill vacuum inline at the point we dump grains into the hopper and at discharge at the dump box. We also service the door seals on the mill on a quarterly basis. The mill is in the main distillery and is operated at the beginning of the day before any distillation takes places. No issue with it effecting our operation over the past three and half years and was approved by our Fire Marshall.

Excellent, thank you. If you don't mind sharing the specs of the mill, Brand, HP, etc. Cheers,

 

Chris

 

[tgrappold68]

1 hour ago, TwentySevenBrewing said:

I know this post is older, but if anyone can post any pictures they may have. We are shopping for a hammer mill, and I would like to be able to auger through a wall into our mash cooker, and would love to see your set-ups? Have looked at both the CME 10HP and the Sentry 145. Each batch will be around 1200-1500 lbs of combination of corn, wheat, rye and barley. 

I started this post in 2020 and we ended up buying a Hammer Mill from CME and couldn't be happier. We bought an 8 inch ridge auger and attached it to the bottom. We use pallet racking around the mill and the Auger fits through the framing. We set bulk bins filled with whole grain on top of pallet racking and have a bulk bin on a scale that we auger into. We can mill up a whole mash in under 50 min. We use 4500 lbs of grain per mash. So for our rye whiskey specifically, we can mill all 4300 lbs in 40 min, the longest part is dumping the super sacks of grain and moving totes around. If I can't find a picture, I will post one tomorrow once I get back to work.

I'm sure you could cut a big hole and pipe it through. or use a flex auger. That's what we originally did but the auger was the bottle neck in the milling and the rigid auger moves grain mush faster. I also know some use blowers which will maximize efficiency of the hammer mill.  

[TwentySevenBrewing]

2 minutes ago, tgrappold68 said:

I started this post in 2020 and we ended up buying a Hammer Mill from CME and couldn't be happier. We bought an 8 inch ridge auger and attached it to the bottom. We use pallet racking around the mill and the Auger fits through the framing. We set bulk bins filled with whole grain on top of pallet racking and have a bulk bin on a scale that we auger into. We can mill up a whole mash in under 50 min. We use 4500 lbs of grain per mash. So for our rye whiskey specifically, we can mill all 4300 lbs in 40 min, the longest part is dumping the super sacks of grain and moving totes around. If I can't find a picture, I will post one tomorrow once I get back to work.

I'm sure you could cut a big hole and pipe it through. or use a flex auger. That's what we originally did but the auger was the bottle neck in the milling and the rigid auger moves grain mush faster. I also know some use blowers which will maximize efficiency of the hammer mill.  

Thank you sir,

 

Chris

[Golden Beaver Distillery]

1 minute ago, tgrappold68 said:

I'm sure you could cut a big hole and pipe it through. or use a flex auger. That's what we originally did but the auger was the bottle neck in the milling and the rigid auger moves grain mush faster. I also know some use blowers which will maximize efficiency of the hammer mill.  

We found forklifting the milled grain to the mash tun is cleaner and faster.

[tgrappold68]

1 minute ago, Golden Beaver Distillery said:

We found forklifting the milled grain to the mash tun is cleaner and faster.

That's what we do, Fill 3 bulk bins per mash and have same set up by mash minus the mill. 

[Golden Beaver Distillery]

9 minutes ago, TwentySevenBrewing said:

Excellent, thank you. If you don't mind sharing the specs of the mill, Brand, HP, etc. Cheers,

 

Chris

 

Master Mill / Automatic Farm Systems, Lebanon, PA  17042 (717) 274 5333

[tgrappold68]

20 minutes ago, TwentySevenBrewing said:

Thank you sir,

 

Chris

Here is a picture of our set up. Like I said we forklift the bins over to the mash which has the same setup but the mill is a big 4x4 hopper.

https://www.coloradomillequipment.com/new-cme-mill-hms-vb30-30hp/

 

 

[adamOVD]

I'm using a burr mill now, but am outgrowing it. People who have posted seem to mostly be using the CME which runs around 9k and the Master Mill which is more like 5k with 10hp. They seem pretty similar. Anyone have experience with both, or have a reason to go with the CME?

Also seems like 3/32- 7/32 is the concensus on screen size. Will a 1/8 screen put out something like a coarse flour like consistency?

[Foreshot]

For smaller folks: we use this one: https://www.premier1supplies.com/detail.php?prod_id=49688

No issues with anything we've put in it - corn - etc. It goes well with corn, with everything else it's fast. It'll do 50lbs of corn in 10 minutes or less. It does make some dust. It's a minor pain to set up as the safety pressure sensor locks are temperamental. Just be careful with the feed. Start it closed then slowly open the feed. It will not start with grain in the chamber. 

We use the 2.5mm screen. We get really good conversion with it.