How Flour
is Made.
The corn gets to the stone by being
taken on the sack hoist to the
top of the mill and then poured
through a chute into a hopper which
dribbles it into the eye of the
stone. The damsel is attached to
the runner stone and spins around
with it at about 120 r.p.m. The
effect of this is to vibrate the
shoe causing the corn to run down
the slope.
As the corn travels out from the centre of the stone to the edge, it is ground
up into meal.
The meal collects in the wooden vat which surrounds the stones and falls through
a small hole in the floor down a meal spout to the ground floor.
The miller then collects the meal in a sack and sends it up to the top of
the mill again on the sack hoist so that it can be poured down another chute
into the boulting machines which sieve the bran out of the meal, leaving the
flour to fall into the flour bin.
From a full sack of corn, about 80% would be turned into flour and 20% into
bran. The bran would be used to feed animals such as horses and chickens but
today, people appreciate the importance of bran in their diet and use it in
cereals or keep it in the bread.
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