One Grinder or Two?

~patches~ said:

Mark Thorson said:

I bought the grandaddy of all whirling blade grinders
on eBay. It's 400W, and has hose barbs for attaching
coolant lines to both the grinding chamber and the
lid on the grinding chamber, which are both cast metal.
I think I paid $30, with shipping.

Brand? And if you were the one bidding against me I'm going to smack
you silly! Just kidding 🙂 I hope you enjoy your new purchase.

It's a Chemical Rubber Company Micro-Mill. I would
guess the intended use was to grind mineral fillers
to be added to rubbers and plastics. Of course,
I'll clean it extremely well before trying to run
any food through it.

Only one person bid against me, with a max just
above the starting bid, so I sniped it from them
for something like fifty cents or a dollar above
the starting bid. It was like $10 for the machine
and $20 for shipping.

It has unusually nice styling for a piece of lab
equipment. It's got a jadite finish, like an old
Hamilton Beach malt mixer, and a nice squarish
truncated pyramidal body.

Another piece of lab equipment I've been thinking would be
interesting would be a microfluidizer from Microfluidics.
I've seen a couple on eBay, which went for very
reasonable prices, but in unknown functional condition.
The drawbacks are a) the countertop versions run off
of compressed air, not electricity, b) replacement
parts are out-of-sight expensive, and c) they cannot
be cleaned, except by passing cleaning fluids through
it. If you don't know what the previous owner used
it for, you really can't use it for food.

What would be cool is that the microfluidizer is the
best machine I've ever seen for producing an emulsified,
smooth product. One of their major uses is in the
production of high-priced cosmetics -- this machine is
one of the highly guarded secrets in that industry.

I'm very curious what it would do to chocolate.
I think it could achieve a texture that might be
beyond anything any other technology has yet achieved.

aem said:

Small coffee grinders also work well for grinding spices and herbs.
But do you get all the residual coffee taste out of them by
washing/wiping them before doing spices? For those who use one grinder
for both tasks, how do you clean them between the different uses? Or
is it better just to have two? -aem

Well, the coffee flavor is not a problem since I don't use mine
for coffee, which I hate. I just wipe it out the best I can
with a damp paper towel. I don't worry about it too much. You're
not going to get enough of whatever was in it before to contaminate
whatever you're grinding. At least it has never been a problem
for me.

Kate

OmManiPadmeOmelet said:

Personally, I have two. ;-)
The small electric ones are not that expensive.

I went to a burr grinder for coffee, and cleaned my little one with
WHITE RICE, uncooked. Repeat by the handful until the powder comes out
nice and white. Works beautifully.
blacksalt

The Bubbo said:

Thank you! That was my next question. I'd been considering making my own chili
powder and was going to buy a second grinder, but wanted to know how to clean
it out so I could then make garam masala without picking up chili powder
flavors.

Clean out the grinder **as soon as** you are done making the chili
powder (with the rice). Wipe out well with a damp cloth.
blacksalt

"kalanamak" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

OmManiPadmeOmelet said:

Personally, I have two. ;-)
The small electric ones are not that expensive.

I went to a burr grinder for coffee, and cleaned my little one with WHITE
RICE, uncooked. Repeat by the handful until the powder comes out nice and
white. Works beautifully.
blacksalt

I did the same thing, but I guess I didn't grind enough rice. Right now the
grinder is in a cabinet, waiting for me to decide if I'm going to try again
or send it off to a thrift shop where someone else can deal with it. Maybe
I'll grind some more rice and see how it goes.

Donna

On Thu 08 Dec 2005 08:42:28p, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it D.Currie?

Quoted message said:

"kalanamak" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

OmManiPadmeOmelet said:

Personally, I have two. ;-)
The small electric ones are not that expensive.

I went to a burr grinder for coffee, and cleaned my little one with
WHITE RICE, uncooked. Repeat by the handful until the powder comes out
nice and white. Works beautifully.
blacksalt

I did the same thing, but I guess I didn't grind enough rice. Right now
the grinder is in a cabinet, waiting for me to decide if I'm going to
try again or send it off to a thrift shop where someone else can deal
with it. Maybe I'll grind some more rice and see how it goes.

If your grinder has a plastic lid, the plastic can absorb odors. You can
soak it or dishwasher it, then let it air dry. Grind more rice in the
chamber, then wipe it out with a cloth dampened in lemon juice.

I make compound curry powders and chili blends, both of which are highly
aromatic. The rice does work if you're persistent with it.

--
Wayne Boatwright *¿*
_____________________________________________

A chicken in every pot is a *LOT* of chicken!

"D.Currie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"kalanamak" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

OmManiPadmeOmelet said:

Personally, I have two. ;-)
The small electric ones are not that expensive.

I went to a burr grinder for coffee, and cleaned my little one with WHITE
RICE, uncooked. Repeat by the handful until the powder comes out nice and
white. Works beautifully.
blacksalt

I did the same thing, but I guess I didn't grind enough rice. Right now
the grinder is in a cabinet, waiting for me to decide if I'm going to try
again or send it off to a thrift shop where someone else can deal with it.
Maybe I'll grind some more rice and see how it goes.

Donna

You can also grind dry chunks of bread for cleaning.

--
Peter Aitken

aem said:

Small coffee grinders also work well for grinding spices and herbs.
But do you get all the residual coffee taste out of them by
washing/wiping them before doing spices? For those who use one grinder
for both tasks, how do you clean them between the different uses? Or
is it better just to have two? -aem

A good method is to grind some uncooked rice.

"Wayne Boatwright" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Thu 08 Dec 2005 08:42:28p, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it D.Currie?

Quoted message said:

"kalanamak" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

OmManiPadmeOmelet wrote:

> Personally, I have two. ;-)
> The small electric ones are not that expensive.

I went to a burr grinder for coffee, and cleaned my little one with
WHITE RICE, uncooked. Repeat by the handful until the powder comes out
nice and white. Works beautifully.
blacksalt

I did the same thing, but I guess I didn't grind enough rice. Right now
the grinder is in a cabinet, waiting for me to decide if I'm going to
try again or send it off to a thrift shop where someone else can deal
with it. Maybe I'll grind some more rice and see how it goes.

If your grinder has a plastic lid, the plastic can absorb odors. You can
soak it or dishwasher it, then let it air dry. Grind more rice in the
chamber, then wipe it out with a cloth dampened in lemon juice.

I make compound curry powders and chili blends, both of which are highly
aromatic. The rice does work if you're persistent with it.

I'll give it another try before I dump it. At one point, I had the thing
disassembled, and there was coffee down in the works below the blade and
bowl, but cleaning that out didn't make much difference. We'll see....

Donna

"Wayne Boatwright" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Thu 08 Dec 2005 08:42:28p, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it D.Currie?

Quoted message said:

"kalanamak" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

OmManiPadmeOmelet wrote:

> Personally, I have two. ;-)
> The small electric ones are not that expensive.

I went to a burr grinder for coffee, and cleaned my little one with
WHITE RICE, uncooked. Repeat by the handful until the powder comes out
nice and white. Works beautifully.
blacksalt

I did the same thing, but I guess I didn't grind enough rice. Right now
the grinder is in a cabinet, waiting for me to decide if I'm going to
try again or send it off to a thrift shop where someone else can deal
with it. Maybe I'll grind some more rice and see how it goes.

If your grinder has a plastic lid, the plastic can absorb odors. You can
soak it or dishwasher it, then let it air dry. Grind more rice in the
chamber, then wipe it out with a cloth dampened in lemon juice.

I make compound curry powders and chili blends, both of which are highly
aromatic. The rice does work if you're persistent with it.

I'll give it another try before I dump it. At one point, I had the thing
disassembled, and there was coffee down in the works below the blade and
bowl, but cleaning that out didn't make much difference. We'll see....

Donna

"Wayne Boatwright" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Thu 08 Dec 2005 08:42:28p, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it D.Currie?

Quoted message said:

"kalanamak" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

OmManiPadmeOmelet wrote:

> Personally, I have two. ;-)
> The small electric ones are not that expensive.

I went to a burr grinder for coffee, and cleaned my little one with
WHITE RICE, uncooked. Repeat by the handful until the powder comes out
nice and white. Works beautifully.
blacksalt

I did the same thing, but I guess I didn't grind enough rice. Right now
the grinder is in a cabinet, waiting for me to decide if I'm going to
try again or send it off to a thrift shop where someone else can deal
with it. Maybe I'll grind some more rice and see how it goes.

If your grinder has a plastic lid, the plastic can absorb odors. You can
soak it or dishwasher it, then let it air dry. Grind more rice in the
chamber, then wipe it out with a cloth dampened in lemon juice.

I make compound curry powders and chili blends, both of which are highly
aromatic. The rice does work if you're persistent with it.

I'll give it another try before I dump it. At one point, I had the thing
disassembled, and there was coffee down in the works below the blade and
bowl, but cleaning that out didn't make much difference. We'll see....

Donna

"Wayne Boatwright" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Thu 08 Dec 2005 08:42:28p, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it D.Currie?

Quoted message said:

"kalanamak" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

OmManiPadmeOmelet wrote:

> Personally, I have two. ;-)
> The small electric ones are not that expensive.

I went to a burr grinder for coffee, and cleaned my little one with
WHITE RICE, uncooked. Repeat by the handful until the powder comes out
nice and white. Works beautifully.
blacksalt

I did the same thing, but I guess I didn't grind enough rice. Right now
the grinder is in a cabinet, waiting for me to decide if I'm going to
try again or send it off to a thrift shop where someone else can deal
with it. Maybe I'll grind some more rice and see how it goes.

If your grinder has a plastic lid, the plastic can absorb odors. You can
soak it or dishwasher it, then let it air dry. Grind more rice in the
chamber, then wipe it out with a cloth dampened in lemon juice.

I make compound curry powders and chili blends, both of which are highly
aromatic. The rice does work if you're persistent with it.

I'll give it another try before I dump it. At one point, I had the thing
disassembled, and there was coffee down in the works below the blade and
bowl, but cleaning that out didn't make much difference. We'll see....

Donna

And if I had the power to run this thing,
I would be bidding on this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7570844881

That's my idea of a serious mixer!
(And Ross is THE BEST manufacturer of such things.)

On Fri 09 Dec 2005 01:55:05p, Mark Thorson wrote in rec.food.cooking:

Quoted message said:

And if I had the power to run this thing,
I would be bidding on this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7570844881

That's my idea of a serious mixer!
(And Ross is THE BEST manufacturer of such things.)

That would make one hell of a malt mixer!

--
Wayne Boatwright *¿*
____________________________________________

Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius any day.
Sam Goldwyn, 1882-1974

Oh, and when I did some tougher spice, it chipped the thin part of the
lid, so I cut that off with a hack saw and just am careful to hold the
lid down. When I wiped it out, I "lifted" the shaft the blades were on a
bit and wiped under the collar.
blacksalt

Mark Thorson said:

~patches~ said:

Mark Thorson said:

I bought the grandaddy of all whirling blade grinders
on eBay. It's 400W, and has hose barbs for attaching
coolant lines to both the grinding chamber and the
lid on the grinding chamber, which are both cast metal.
I think I paid $30, with shipping.

Brand? And if you were the one bidding against me I'm going to smack
you silly! Just kidding 🙂 I hope you enjoy your new purchase.

It's a Chemical Rubber Company Micro-Mill. I would
guess the intended use was to grind mineral fillers
to be added to rubbers and plastics. Of course,
I'll clean it extremely well before trying to run
any food through it.

Only one person bid against me, with a max just
above the starting bid, so I sniped it from them
for something like fifty cents or a dollar above
the starting bid. It was like $10 for the machine
and $20 for shipping.

It has unusually nice styling for a piece of lab
equipment. It's got a jadite finish, like an old
Hamilton Beach malt mixer, and a nice squarish
truncated pyramidal body.

Another piece of lab equipment I've been thinking would be
interesting would be a microfluidizer from Microfluidics.
I've seen a couple on eBay, which went for very
reasonable prices, but in unknown functional condition.
The drawbacks are a) the countertop versions run off
of compressed air, not electricity, b) replacement
parts are out-of-sight expensive, and c) they cannot
be cleaned, except by passing cleaning fluids through
it. If you don't know what the previous owner used
it for, you really can't use it for food.

What would be cool is that the microfluidizer is the
best machine I've ever seen for producing an emulsified,
smooth product. One of their major uses is in the
production of high-priced cosmetics -- this machine is
one of the highly guarded secrets in that industry.

I'm very curious what it would do to chocolate.
I think it could achieve a texture that might be
beyond anything any other technology has yet achieved.

This sounds like one very interesting grinder! I'm sure you will enjoy
it. I'm going to check around on ebay to see if there are any more.

In article <[email hidden]>,

aem said:

Small coffee grinders also work well for grinding spices and herbs.
But do you get all the residual coffee taste out of them by
washing/wiping them before doing spices? For those who use one grinder
for both tasks, how do you clean them between the different uses? Or
is it better just to have two? -aem

The title is a little ambiguous. I assumed it was about having two (or
more) pepper grinders. If you read the Penzey's catalog, they suggest
one for black pepper and one for white, as a starter.

We grind our spices in a mortar and pestle. That can be a little
painful.

My wife made Santa Lucia Cats yesterday. They are sweet buns. The
recipe called for saffron. That was way too expensive. The recipe
suggested that orange peel could be used for the color also. The recipe
called for major cardamom. I explained that we had whole cardamom. She
was lazy, but it was US$8.00 for a little bottle of the ground. I
volunteered to smush some cardamom. It was a major battle.

--
Dan Abel
[email hidden]
Petaluma, California, USA

Quoted message said:

The title is a little ambiguous.

Boy do I agree with that!!!

I thought hmmm... one roast beef with lettuce and tomato, light mayo and
american cheese and an italian hoagie with a side of pappers.

How simple words can ruin a train of thought!!!

Andy