chile grinding contraption

you tickle me to death with you inventive ways SL...I am giggling so hard I am about to fall out on the floor...

nice "use what you have" idea....
 
Thanks everyone, :)

What can I say, I'm inherently lazy~~~;)

:lol:

There's another 8 pounds of habs already dried and ready to grind and I think another 6 pounds of Red Savinas on the way. I've been really worried about the chile stash, but now it looks good for the next year.
 
It was just brought to my attention that I never posted the make of the Mill! :crazy:

The grain mill is a Country Living Grain Mill from Pleasant Hill Grain.
http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/country_living_mill.aspx

They have an electric motor set up you can buy, and also have good directions for the DIY-ers. Scroll down the page for all the accessories.

They also have full electric grain mills and other hand crank mills here-
http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/index.aspx#Nutrimill

Someone was also wondering about ease of cleaning.
The mill is very easy to take apart and clean. The one big thing to take note of is to IMMEDIATELY dry the pieces very well after washing or they will rust.

This particular grain mill has a full line of replacement parts, but from the little I've used it, it seems to be a very well make mill and it would take a long time for anything to wear out. I suppose if one were grinding hard grains, rice, beans...things like that...it might wear out the burr plates faster. But it's just good to know that if and when they do wear out, you can buy replacement burr plates.


Hope this helps, sorry for being such a space cadet~~~ :)
 
:rofl: I got no problem living with the guilt!
 
Salsalady...you are too cool with the power tools! I think I will go hide my little coffee grinder.

How do you normally dry all those peppers? Oven, dehydrator, or another homemade doodad? :)
 
mmcd~ don't even think about hiding that coffee grinder! It was out of necessity that the contraption was created. Remember, I had to do enough to use for processing for the next year. (hopefully there's enough!)

The chiles were dried in a dehydrator-
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The temp was kept down about 105F. Got impatient for one batch and put it up to 110-115F. It seemed to change the color and make them darker, so the next batch went back down to 105F.

My mom had given us the dehydrator and the grain mill (along with a water filter/purifier and a bucket of hermetically sealed seeds) a year before Y2K when we moved away from civilization to the untamed wilderness of eastern Washington. Miles from society and 40 miles away from WallyWorld. :lol:

We'd used the the grain mill once to grind up some dried lavender and only used the dehydrator a couple times.


Datil Patch- glad it helped.
 
now if only i can ship me one of those dehydrators out to my country without getting taxed to the nines, then i would buy two. lol.
 
I have a very similar looking one called fowlers vacola. They might be avaliable closer to the Philippines.

Mine doesn't have as many trays and It's never seen that many chillies in it though :eek:
 
DD- probably 10# of fresh chiles. I had 7# of red savinas at one time and did not use all of the trays.
 
Ya know, your post has got me to thinking. I've been using a coffee grinder, and even though I'm dealing with a lot smaller quantity than you, it takes a while, since it only holds a small amount at one time. I have a KitchenAid stand mixer with the meat grinder attachment. I may have to experiment with grinding the peppers using the disc with the smallest holes in it. It will probably end up with flakes instead of a powder, but it won't hurt to give it a try.

Thanks for sharing your ingenuity with us!
 
highalt said:
Ya know, your post has got me to thinking. I've been using a coffee grinder, and even though I'm dealing with a lot smaller quantity than you, it takes a while, since it only holds a small amount at one time. I have a KitchenAid stand mixer with the meat grinder attachment. I may have to experiment with grinding the peppers using the disc with the smallest holes in it. It will probably end up with flakes instead of a powder, but it won't hurt to give it a try.

Thanks for sharing your ingenuity with us!
Click to expand...

Thanks, Highalt,
I've use a meat grinder to grind up dried lavender for potpourri. It was "flake" consistency. So, while using the meat grinder might not get it to the powder stage, it'll definitely help speed things up for you. And then if you want some as powder, it'll go faster with the coffee grinder. I'm guessing you'll also be able to do more per grind as you can fit more flakes in the coffee grinder per batch than whole dried chiles can fit into the grinder. (Does that make sense?)

SL
 
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