Buying a family sized rice mill.

[IsaanAussie]

I am finally going to buy a rice mill for the farm. Should have done it years ago when we kept pigs. Anyway hopefully someone will clue me in if I have choosen another recipe for disaster.  I like the small cyclone on the bran chute. But what do I know? Anyhow will go down to Buri Ram and check it out for 18,500 baht.

[ThailandRyan]

Looks pretty, but what are the reviews from anyone who has one.  For my ex and her family it was always cheaper to haul it to the Mill next door to their land and have it milled.  Always would earmark half for all of the family, including sisters and brothers and then sell the remainder.  It was the harvester they bought 5 years ago that was the big cost, but cut down on the time it took to do the work.

[Nojohndoe]

I recommend you take ( if you have any) some of the oldest rice to test in any of these machines.

For the purpose of seeing how  much it "breaks" the rice. Fresh rice is not so much of a problem.

I bought one years ago but the percentage of broken rice was unacceptable. Knowing now what I did not know then I would buy  a machine that "sandpapers" the grain although I do not know how reliable they are. They were more expensive I do remember.

The advantage of having one to use the by products was half of the original interest.

[farmerjo]

Looks the goods IA.

Only questions to ask would be if different screens sizes(for dehulling different seeds) are available and spare parts for the polishing section.

I think with that type of mill you would still have to pick out a certain amount of impurities after milling if the paddy is not clean.

The big company millers use a rotary screen after milling to achieve that.

Having said that owning your own machine would give great flexibility to mill straight after harvest drying and store eliminating a lot of broken rice.

Watching with interest.

 

 

[shaemus]

my MIL bought a rice mil recently.

 

i recon it was the cheapest in the shop as they dont sell it any more, its somewhat well made but as with alot of local made items here it lacks finesse.

 

here is what is have learnt from having to fix the machine.

 

• Its is very likely the machine will not be earthed, you should do this.
• look for the ability to adjust the motor position so the belt/pully system can be aligned and made true
• look for a machine with belt tensioners that isn't provided by just the motor position
• what spares are available now, and can you get them with the machine upon collection
• does it have a contactor type switch arrangment
• does it have a type D circuit breaker installed of have they used C which is not for motors
• can you take a bag of your own rice and mill it in the shop so they can show you how it works properly

just a few tips

 

shameus

[farmerjo]

On 1/3/2022 at 9:23 AM, farmerjo said:

I think with that type of mill you would still have to pick out a certain amount of impurities after milling if the paddy is not clean.

The big company millers use a rotary screen after milling to achieve that.

I sent a bag off to the local village miller to confirm my thoughts about the need of a rotary screen.

Hand cut rice would be ok with the home machines as mainly only chaff to separate.

Harvester cut rice taking weed seeds as well doesn't fair so well.

 

 

 

[BritManToo]

4 minutes ago, farmerjo said:

I sent a bag off to the local village miller to confirm my thoughts about the need of a rotary screen.

Hand cut rice would be ok with the home machines as mainly only chaff to separate.

Harvester cut rice taking weed seeds as well doesn't fair so well.

 

 

 

10 seconds work to pick out the 'rat poop' before you cook the rice.

Edited January 13, 2022 by BritManToo

[IsaanAussie]

Well I have just purchased a 5 in 1 rice mill on the inter-webs. What a leap of faith! 

Actually I have spent a <deleted> load of time looking at this issue. This machine allows you to preclean the paddy of junk via the multi screens before it goes through mill. The cyclone fan removes empty husk and straw. Smaller stones and other seeds removed by the screens.

Objective, mill nothing but paddy rice!

For those interested 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by IsaanAussie

[bbko]

Is there a small home use mil? 555.  My wife's family own 100 rai of rice fields and about once a year we get 50 kgs of rice and we always have to pick out small stones and deal with rice weevils, towards the end the rice is so dirty with weevil droppings I call it dog rice cause that's who gets to eat it, my dogs.

[farmerjo]

1 hour ago, IsaanAussie said:

Well I have just purchased a 5 in 1 rice mill on the inter-webs. What a leap of faith! 

Actually I have spent a <deleted> load of time looking at this issue. This machine allows you to preclean the paddy of junk via the multi screens before it goes through mill. The cyclone fan removes empty husk and straw. Smaller stones and other seeds removed by the screens.

Objective, mill nothing but paddy rice!

For those interested 

 

 

At least at the end of the day your in control of the losses that you weren't from the local millers.

Would be good if you can give us an update after a few goes with it.

 

 

 

[farmerjo]

Was at the millers today so took a few pics of there sampling machines.

The 1st machine they put it through seemed to have two rubber wheels removing the husk to brown rice stage.

The 2nd and 3rd whiten's the rice and 4th removes small grains and weed seeds for final evaluation.

 

 

[IsaanAussie]

Well it has arrived and been setup. Run a half a bag of dry dirty rice through it. The first cleaning stage took the straw, empty husks etc out. It managed about 90% of the small seeds. A fair bit of broken rice which is to be expected in dry grains. More trials to figure it out but overall so far not bad, getting at least as good as the local millers are doing plus I get the broken rice and bran. Polish level looks OK.

 

[IsaanAussie]

Today was the first real run. I milled 3 bags of approx 40 kg of paddy and the harvester rubbish. The longest part was I had to run some through the screens 3 times to get all the grass, sticks and empty husks out. The actual milling step went really well.

From the 120Kg (approx):

52 Kg of rice - 32 kg clean unbroken rice, 13 kg of 50% broken , and 7kg of broken rice. The family wanted to dump the 50% in with the good stuff but it had a few seeds (smaller haystack to search).

57 Kg of rice bran, germ and husk. That has buyers already at 5 baht a kg. I might get a separate husker later but current thought is to use it as feed. 

For the maths guys, the harvester contributed about 10 kg of extra cleaning. That is a fact of life here and I am pleased to be able to get clean unbroken rice at all. I hate picking out seeds.

[farmerjo]

On 1/22/2022 at 6:42 PM, IsaanAussie said:

Today was the first real run. I milled 3 bags of approx 40 kg of paddy and the harvester rubbish. The longest part was I had to run some through the screens 3 times to get all the grass, sticks and empty husks out. The actual milling step went really well.

From the 120Kg (approx):

52 Kg of rice - 32 kg clean unbroken rice, 13 kg of 50% broken , and 7kg of broken rice. The family wanted to dump the 50% in with the good stuff but it had a few seeds (smaller haystack to search).

57 Kg of rice bran, germ and husk. That has buyers already at 5 baht a kg. I might get a separate husker later but current thought is to use it as feed. 

For the maths guys, the harvester contributed about 10 kg of extra cleaning. That is a fact of life here and I am pleased to be able to get clean unbroken rice at all. I hate picking out seeds.

Thanks for the update IA,

Gives you a better idea of how many bags to keep to fill the family stomachs for the year and a little extra beer money.

I only kept two bags of hom mali back this year,sent to two different village millers and there was a 5 kilo variation between the two on 40 kilo pre cleaned(paddy grain sized between 1.8mm-2mm and no trash) bags.

Sort of wished i'd kept more as smells and tastes great.

I'm in need of a quality moisture meter before a rice polishing machine so looking forward to your comments over time with the longer storage periods and performance.

[farmerjo]

On 1/22/2022 at 6:42 PM, IsaanAussie said:

The longest part was I had to run some through the screens 3 times to get all the grass, sticks and empty husks out.

One little tweek i've done to my screen cleaning machines is to cut strips of foam and place on the sides where the screens are mounted to angle bar.

It  makes all the product go over the screen stopping racing down the sides.

Also made a rubber scraper with a long handle to clean the bottom screen from blockages every few hopper fills.

Hope that helps.