Tag Archives: homer bucket

Grain Storage

Grain Storage

Difficulty: level_1

Time Required:

As long as it takes you to replace a trash bag.  Maybe more if you decide to nerd yourself out.  Keep reading to the bottom if this is you.

Affiliate Links

Cost:

Less than $5 per bucket assembly.

Background:

So if you are serious about brewing and want to save money in the long run, you are most likely buying your most used grains in bulk.  If you don’t want those savings to go to waste, you need to store the grains in a way that doesn’t degrade the quality of the grain.

Required:

5 Gallon bucket + lid of your choosing
food safe bag

“Let’s do this”:

Whenever I choose a storage solution, I try to find something readily available where that exact same container can be purchased again at some later point in time.  I arbitrarily chose Homer buckets from Home Depot.  Maybe I fell for their marketing scheme of having them available everywhere you look in the store for a reasonable price, but hey, they work.  So now, I just buy these buckets so everything matches.

What is convenient is that each bucket holds just about 25 pounds of grain.  So what I usually do is buy the 50 pound bag of ‘Merican grain when I’m going to use it, then the remainder always fits in two buckets.  The same goes for when I get the 55 pound bags of “Ferrin” grain.

So choose your bucket and then decide which lid you will use.

008-Grain Storage-Crappy lids

Do not buy these lids!  They tempt you with the “easy removal” line, but upon the first or second removal of this lid, this will occur.

008-Grain Storage-Sealed Lid

This is what I buy.  They are a few cents more and in my opinion, worth so much more.

008-Grain Storage-Seal on lid

These lids have a rubber seal, which helps keep moisture out.

008-Grain Storage-Lid as Received

The lids do have this one time seal feature, but just go ahead and pull it off.  If you are just the slightest bit careful, you can remove these lids over and over again.

008-Grain Storage-These lids crack too

 

You might get a crack in the lid where the stress “reliever” is, but as long as it doesn’t go beyond the rubber seal, you should still be ok.

If you want the ultimate in awesomeness, go for the Gamma lids.  I personally don’t use these for my grains, because the highest frequency I need to access my grains is every two weeks and I can cope with the standard lids.  I do however use them for our bulk dog food storage and hay for our guinea pig, since we store them in the garage and we access them every day.

The Gamma lids are surprisingly decently well priced at Home Depot ($7-8).

Ok, enough about lids already!

Since it is mostly accepted that the plastic used in most 5 gallon buckets is not rated as food safe, lets just add another layer of protection.

Once you have decided on your bucket / lid combo, just place a food safe plastic bag liner in the bucket.  Reference my post on food safe bucket liners to get an idea on where to get these bags.

008-Grain Storage-Twist bag

 

Not much to explain really.  Put the bag in the bucket and pour your grains in.

008-Grain Storage-Tuck Bag

I then twist the top of the bag and tuck it in the side of the bucket.  Then just put your lid on.

Labeling

Per my post on Easy Fermenter Labels, I just used gaffers tape to note the grain type and amount of grain in the bucket.  See “Nerd Alert” at the end of this post to determine the amount of grain in the bucket.

008-Grain Storage-Label Contents

Moisture control

Ok, so I admit, I had been using muslin bags filled with rice for “moisture control”.  After some reading on the internet (so it must be true), I came to the conclusion that rice is a poor desiccant.  I fell for the commonly held belief that it absorbed moisture because they use it in salt.  Well, it seems that rice is used in salt shakers to prevent clumping.  Sodium chloride is actually a better moisture absorber.  It all makes sense now, because the container I store our ice melter in always has a pool of water on top.  Now I just say (my opinion here) that if you won’t be using the grain within 3-6 months, you probably aren’t making the best of purchasing grain in bulk.

Nerd Alert!level_5

Ok, so if you aren’t using all of your grain at once, you’ll probably want to know how much grain you have left.  What I do is weigh the bucket plus the bag liner before pouring the grain in.  This is my tare weight.  So whenever I need to know how much grain is left, I just weigh the grain bucket with the grain in it and subtract the tare weight.

008-Grain Storage-Tare Bucket

I also note the date each time I weigh, because I know myself and I know that if I just put the weight on there, I will wonder if it was before or after a certain brew an then end up re-weighing the grain.

008-Grain Storage-Stacked Buckets

So here is “Fermentation Central” in my basement.  Two batches of Cream Ale fermenting, next to my stack of grain storage buckets and my two dorm fridges converted to fermentation chambers.  The top one is running intermittently (had since college) and the bottom one is facilitating a German Alt.

Homer Hopper Part 6 – Final Assembly

Homer Hopper Part 6 – Final Assembly

Difficulty: level_1

Time Required:

One morning or afternoon (For the entire project)

Background:

This is part 6 in the series documenting how to create your own Homer Hopper.  If you haven’t seen the introduction yet, please check it out.  In this post, we’ll be finishing up with the assembly of all components and fitting the hopper assembly into the bucket.

Posts for this project:

Introduction
Part 2: Bucket Modifications
Part 3: Wooden Base
Part 4: Mill Box
Part 5: Funnel Panels
Part 6: Final Assembly (This post)
Part 7: CAD Drawings

Affiliate Links

Tools required:

*You’ll want a bench top unit so you can hold the hopper assembly with both hands while you shape it to fit in the bucket.

Material recommended:

You’ll need all of the pieces you’ve built thus far and the bolts and washers mentioned in the introduction post

  • 4x 1/4-20 x 0.75″ length stainless socket head cap screws or hex head
  • 4x washers for 1/4″ bolts ($1-$5 for screws and washers depending on where you shop) *You don’t have to use stainless for the screws or washers, I just got stainless so they didn’t rust while being stored outside in the garage.

007a-Homer Hopper - Components

How to do it:

007b-Homer Hopper - front view

Go ahead and orient the bucket on the base.

007a-Homer Hopper - View 4

Then install the mill with the driveshaft sticking out the side window (obviously).

007c-Homer_Hopper_base_with_c-sink

007c-Homer_Hopper_hopper_base_no_c-sink

Then, secure the mill with the bolts going through the wooden base and bucket.  Since your holes probably aren’t precision located, get each bolt started in each hole, then tighten them up.

Shape the hopper panels

007f-Homer_hopper_shaping

Keep dropping the hopper assembly into the bucket while sanding more material off of the tips of the panels until you get a nice fit.  The angle will be almost perpendicular to the base, but with a slight draft.

007f-Homer_hopper_panel_fit

Once you have a nice fit with the panels, it’s time to start shaping the mill box to fit in the bucket.  The bottom of the bucket has a radius all the way around the bottom, so you’ll need to shape the bottom corners until you can get it all to sit flat.

007e-Homer_hopper_grain_shield_fitted

Your finished corners should look something like the picture above.

007f-Homer_hopper_base_seated

Keep shaping until the entire assembly sits completely flat on the bottom of the bucket.

Final steps

007f-Homer_hopper_glue_grain_shield

The last steps are to glue the seams in between the hopper panels (as in one of the above photos) and to glue the grain shield in place.

Wait for all glue to dry!!!!

The last thing you want is for wet glue to drip into your valuable grain mill or get into your grain.

Up next…

CAD drawings and closure

Missed a post?

Introduction
Part 2: Bucket Modifications
Part 3: Wooden Base
Part 4: Mill Box
Part 5: Funnel Panels
Part 6: Final Assembly (This post)
Part 7: CAD Drawings

Thanks for your interest in this project!

 

Homer Hopper Part 5 – Hopper Panels

Homer Hopper Part 5 – Hopper Panels

Difficulty: level_1

Time Required:

One morning or afternoon (For the entire project)

Background:

This is part 5 in the series documenting how to create your own Homer Hopper.  If you haven’t seen the introduction yet, please check it out.  In this post, we’ll be making the hopper panels.

Posts for this project:

Introduction
Part 2: Bucket Modifications
Part 3: Wooden Base
Part 4: Mill Box
Part 5: Funnel Panels (this post)
Part 6: Final Assembly
Part 7: CAD Drawings

Affiliate Links

Tools required:

*You’ll want a bench top unit so you can hold the hopper assembly with both hands while you shape it to fit in the bucket.

Material recommended:

1/8″ Hardboard

The bare minimum size you would need is a sheet that is 9.5″ x 19″, but you’ll be safe with a sheet that is roughly 12″ x 24″.  I’ll show a picture on how to lay out your cuts to make the best use of the material.

You’ll also want some wood glue.

CAD files & Templates:

The templates you’ll need to print out for this step are:

  • funnel_panel_front (2x)
  • funnel_panel_side (2x)
  • grain_shield (1x)

007e-Homer_Hopper_funnel_panel_front

You’ll notice the orange lines on the prints.  These are the theoretical profile for the bottom side of the panel.  Once assembled, you’ll be sanding these edges to fit your exact bucket.  You’ll find out at final assembly that not all buckets are created equal.  Cut out all of the panels at the maximum outside profile.  REMEMBER, it’s much easier to remove material than to add!

What we’re building here:

007e-Homer_Hopper_hopper_panels_installed

Video of the process:

COMING SOON!

How to do it:

Prepare the panels

First, take your cut out templates and lay them out on your board.  Below I’ve shown how to make the best use of your material, either densely packed or loosely.  As I mentioned before, if you pack them densely, you can get away with a piece of material that is 9.5″ x 19″, but if you want to give yourself room, just go with 12″ x 24″.

007e-Homer_Hopper_funnel_panels_on_12x24

007e-Homer_Hopper_funnel_panels_on_9.5x19

Once you have your panels laid out, go ahead and trace them on the board and cut them out with your jigsaw.

How the panels work

007e-Homer_hopper_side_cutaway

The panels have been sized so that they feed the grain in between the rollers and ideally would sit just below the top of the rollers.  There is also a grain shield that reduces the amount of grain not making it through the rollers.  Why is this not a perfect fit on the mill?  I wanted to allow sufficient clearance to allow for misalignment and make removing the hopper assembly fairly easy.

Cut and fit the panels

007e-Homer_hopper_side_cutaway_panel_highlight

Front and side panels

First focus on these panels highlighted above.  This is one of the most time consuming parts of this build.  You’ll want to have your mill sitting on your work surface and then place the mill box on top of it so you can get an accurate placement of both components while you fit the panels.

007e-Homer_Hopper_funnel_panel_front

This image is repeated again to show that you should go ahead and put a slight angle on the edges where the orange lines are for all of the hopper funnel pieces.  I would start with something like 60 degrees.  You can remove more as you test fit the pieces.  It will probably end up somewhere between 45 and 60 degrees.  This is where your belt sander will come in handy.

Next, try to set all four panels in place so that they fit properly with each other.  You’ll probably need to start making some fine adjustments here by sanding more on the edges.

Once all of the panels fit nicely with each other, you’ll want to provide clearance for the rollers.  Go ahead and put your roller mill inside the mill box.  Hold the panels in place and spin the rollers.  If you hear or feel the roller rubbing on the panel, just take that edge to the belt sander until you have sufficient clearance.  You don’t need a paper thin gap, just enough so that when the hopper assembly is misaligned, it doesn’t rub.  And in use the rollers will clearance any material that doesn’t need to be there anyway.  Plus, you could use a little extra fiber in your diet.

007e-Homer_Hopper_hopper_panels_installed

Once the fit of the panels is to your liking, you will be ready to secure them in place.  I used a bit of wood glue and then tacked them in place with some small tack nails.  You can leave the nails in or remove them.  Or if you are really patient, go without nails, support the panels and let it sit overnight for the glue to dry.

Grain Shield

This one is a little quicker to fit.  Simply keep sanding it until it drops in like the picture below.

007e-Homer_hopper_grain_shield_fitted

 

Don’t glue this one in just yet.  We still need to shape the upper panels to fit in the bucket and also the mill box corners.  Yes, I know this picture already shows them shaped.

Up next…

Final Assembly and fit to bucket

Missed a post?

Introduction
Part 2: Bucket Modifications
Part 3: Wooden Base
Part 4: Mill Box
Part 5: Funnel Panels (this post)
Part 6: Final Assembly
Part 7: CAD Drawings

Thanks for your interest in this project!

All files have a 2″x2″ square on the print so that when you print out on paper, you can measure to make sure your printer was printing to scale and at the correct aspect ratio.

The intention in making these files downloadable and free is for people to make this themselves or modify/improve the design to suit them.

This download is available through the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial license.

If you are interested in this for commercial purposes (i.e. you want to make money on my effort), I’m flattered, but please contact me first.

Be excellent to everyone!

Click on the download icon to agree to these terms and enjoy!

[wpdm_package id=’781′]