Roller Mill for corn

[Georgeous]

Anyone here use a roller mill for corn? we get our grain milled for us but could save 10 cents a pound milling ourselves. We have an opportunity to buy a roller mill pretty good priced. it says it will do corn but not sure if it will fine grind like a hammer mill will. 

Also if it does do a grind on corn just not as fine as a hammer mill will that still be ok? what would be downside of going this route? We do in grain fermentation 600 gallon batches. 

[AK2]

I have never used a roller mill on a large scale, they were all hammer mills.  On a very small scale (think of a 5 gallon bucket of milled corn) I have used a roller mill.  My problem was that I had to mill the corn twice to get the particle size I needed.  On the first grind I opened the rollers all the way up, which resulted in a very course grit.  Second pass I closed the rollers to get the desired particle size.  If I tried to mill the corn with the rollers closed to the size I wanted the corn would not feed in.  This was a single stage roller mill.  Maybe the one your looking at will work, mine was the cheapest mill I could find.  

[Pofarmer]

What roller mill are you looking at? From a processing standpoint the huge advantage of a roller mill are less HP requirements and less dust, and less noise.   If you are lautering, rolled corn will lauter easier as it will be courser. Yes, I think efficiency will be lower than from a hammer mill. I'm setting up a 10" roller mill now to use for some guys who ferment off grain.

 

 

[TwentySevenBrewing]

This is a great article, I thought I would share.

Choosing the Right Mill for Your Craft Distillery - Moonshine University

I thought of using a roller mill for our corn, I started as a homebrew beer brewer and that's all I've ever used is a roller mill. I tried to mill corn once and had a terrible experience. They are definitely cheaper, however consider that you WILL have to replace the rollers, most of them just aren't built to mill grain as hard as corn. 

 

[Pofarmer]

14 hours ago, TwentySevenBrewing said:

This is a great article, I thought I would share.

Choosing the Right Mill for Your Craft Distillery - Moonshine University

I thought of using a roller mill for our corn, I started as a homebrew beer brewer and that's all I've ever used is a roller mill. I tried to mill corn once and had a terrible experience. They are definitely cheaper, however consider that you WILL have to replace the rollers, most of them just aren't built to mill grain as hard as corn. 

 

You're not thinking on the correct scale.

 

[TwentySevenBrewing]

It is a very nice mill and a great video, but my point was not about using a homebrew mill versus a commercial roller or hammer mill, my point was that roller mills will get beat up by corn  (regardless of scale) and that the rollers will need to be replaced more often than if they were used for milling barley and softer grains. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have talked to a few folks that have experienced just that. Please keep me posted on your results, I would love to be able to use a roller mill instead of purchasing a hammer mill.

[Pofarmer]

That roller mill is designed for rolling corn, there are a lot of them in the countryside. Cattle guys like them because you get consistent particle size with little dust, although the newer mills are multi-roller. I bet for an average craft distillery one of those would last for years.

 

[Silk City Distillers]

Corn requires larger diameter rollers than small grains like wheat, barley, or rye.  Small rollers won't get good bite on a round plump kernel, they'll just bounce and roll across the roller gap.  Ideally, multiple rollers, at least two sets, where the topmost roller gap can be set wider to get a better bite, perform the initial crack, where the second set of rollers takes it down to the size you need.  Otherwise, you are compromising on particle size.  6" probably the minimum roller size, the Peerless above at 10" rollers even better.  You'd probably want two roller sets, you'd save time and money as you'll not be beating the machine to death.

At this point, it's not any cheaper than a hammer mill, probably more expensive if you are talking about a purpose built mill like RMS or similar (though putting corn through an RMS would make Baby Jesus cry).

Stay far, far away from any small brewery or "pro-homebrew" roller mill setup.  You'll spend half a day milling a batch, and you'll be buying new roller sets every few months.

[Georgeous]

On 5/15/2023 at 9:45 AM, Georgeous said:

Anyone here use a roller mill for corn? we get our grain milled for us but could save 10 cents a pound milling ourselves. We have an opportunity to buy a roller mill pretty good priced. it says it will do corn but not sure if it will fine grind like a hammer mill will. 

Also if it does do a grind on corn just not as fine as a hammer mill will that still be ok? what would be downside of going this route? We do in grain fermentation 600 gallon batches. 

 

[Georgeous]

thank you all for the great replies. i am guessing since we primarily do bourbons and unmalted ryes a hammer mill makes most sense for in grain mashing. We plan to start doing malt whiskey's so may end up needing two mills. For now still having our grains milled by our malt supplier. 

[TwentySevenBrewing]

2 hours ago, Georgeous said:

thank you all for the great replies. i am guessing since we primarily do bourbons and unmalted ryes a hammer mill makes most sense for in grain mashing. We plan to start doing malt whiskey's so may end up needing two mills. For now still having our grains milled by our malt supplier. 

Please keep me updated, we will being doing 600 gallon batches as well and have been debating hammer vs roller. Like you most of our mashes will included corn and no lautering will be required. We are also eventually opening a brewery and will of course have a roller mill over there. Very interested in your results. Thanks for this post.

[Silk City Distillers]

We have both mills - hammer for corn, rye, and wheat and a roller mill for barley malt and still buy pre-milled barley malt as it’s more cost effective and is an easier workflow for us.

It’s a joy doing all barley malt whiskey mashes as there is no milling required.  Saves at least an hour on mash day, the setup and breakdown time for the roller mill, not to mention the cleanup.  
 

For a while our farmers were hammer milling for us, but the yield suffered because they needed to mill coarse.

[Georgeous]

Good points thank you all again. 

we have opportunity to buy a RAD roller mill fairly cheap with flex auger. But looks like we will still need a hammer mill. 

[Pofarmer]

24 minutes ago, Georgeous said:

Good points thank you all again. 

we have opportunity to buy a RAD roller mill fairly cheap with flex auger. But looks like we will still need a hammer mill. 

I'd honestly probably call RAD and talk to them.  They look like a good company.