More Images of Historical Millers, some roller millers to start with.
V26018- Milling Flour by the Most Modern Machinery, Minneapolis, Minnesota. V26018- 284 Milling Flour with Modern Machinery Stereo View Card The first complete roller mill ever used in the United States was a small one set up in a big Minneapolis mill as an experiment in 1878. Soon afterwards one of the mills of this group was destroyed by an explosion. It was rebuilt at once by was equipped with the old-fashioned burrs for grinding; the proprietors still had no faith in rolls. By the old method heavy burrs or stones revolved, one upon the other, pulverizing the kernels of wheat into fine dust. The flour then had to be separated out from the bran or kernel covering; also from the different grades of brown dust, the shorts, middlings, etc. In the new roller process the grains are crushed (WEB-MASTER'S NOTE: How soon they forget. The information on the back of the card is incorrect. The grain is not crushed or mashed. This is how the misconception that you get stone chips in stone ground flour and meal. Actually it is cut or sheared by the two furrows, one on the stationary bed stone and the other on the turning runner stone.) and flaked instead of being pulverized. The flour is shelled away from the hull more easily on the is account and the separation is better. One fault found with the roller process was the fact that this separation was so complete. Little or none of the kernel excepting the white interior goes into the flour while it is claimed that some of this darker product is more healthful. That is why whole wheat flour is popular. In the new process the grinding rollers were at first usually made of porcelain. Now they are made of steel. The surface is ridged or corrugated, like the surface of a washboard but very much finer. This greatly increases their grinding action upon the wheat. Within a few years all of the Minneapolis mills and most of the large mills throughout the United States were using the roller process entirely. In the picture is shown a long row of these roller mills. In the second one the miller is examining the fineness of the flour. This is regulated by changing the distance between the mills with the hand wheel shown. How are these mills driven in the picture? The Keystone View Company Manufactures & Publishers Made in U.S. A. The Keystone View Company Meadville, Pennsylvania, New York, New York, Chicago, Illinois, London, England.
The Book of Trades, originally published in 1568 in Nuremburg, Germany, iincludes this woodcut of the miller performing his duties. He is show here pouring the customer's grain into the hopper. "The Miller pours the grain brought to him between the millstones and grinds it, and does not withould the bran............" Jost Ammant and Hans Sachs, "The Book of Trades," reprinted by Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1973.
More Images of Historical Millers, some burr stone millers.
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