querns-msg - 11/26/06
Small hand mills for grinding grains.
NOTE: See also the files: flour-msg, grains-msg, bread-msg, mortar-pestle-msg, utensils-msg, oatcakes-msg, boulting-msg, mills-msg.
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Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 13:33:44 -0400
From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] querns
"Pixel, Goddess and Queen" wrote:
> Does anybody have any good references (hopefully ones that the U of MN has
> in its keeping) for pictures or photographs of medieval pot querns?
>
> For that matter, does anybody have any sources for soft wheat in grain
> form, i.e., not ground into flour yet (short of actually raising the> stuff)?
> Margaret
Querns are at
Serce Liman1 11th Century Byzantine Shipwreck Excavation
http://ina.tamu.edu/sl-misc.htm
saddle querns are at
http://maritime.haifa.ac.il/cms/newslett/cms24/cms24_07.htm
They are mentioned on these pages--- no pictures of them
but these are interesting to look at---http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/food_and_diet.htm
http://www.redbournmill.co.uk/history.htm
You can also do an image search on google under the
term "querns" and turn up several photo's.
As for wheat check here--
http://www.dailygrindmill.com/
Johnna Holloway Johnnae
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
To: "'sca-cooks at ansteorra.org'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] querns
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 13:59:34 -0500
> Does anybody have any good references (hopefully ones that the U of MN has
> in its keeping) for pictures or photographs of medieval pot querns?
>
> Margaret
I think what you are asking about is more commonly referenced as a rotary
quern. The pot quern is more an Oriental item, being a stone pot with a grind stone attached to handle through the lid of the pot. European varieties tend to be larger. The rotary quern was introduced into Europe by the Romans, where they primarily replaced saddle quern. Examples of the large rotary quern are found in Pompeii and at some Roman villas in Europe (there is one which hasbeen restored in England).
For a picture of a small European rotary quern, try here:
http://www.durain.demon.co.uk/muscl/
Bear
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 23:23:21 -0400
From: "Carper, Rachel" <rachel.carper at hp.com>
Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Grain mill question
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
James P. asked:
>>>>>>
Have a bit of an odd question but here goes. I have a friend who's
planning to bake all of her own bread the odd thing is she also want's
to grind her own grain. The part that isn't, in my opinion, reasonable
she whants to do it with a hand quern.
She's asked me to help but I don't even know if anyone even makes them
anymore. So anyone have any info that I could use?
<<<<<<
Here are some links.
http://www.webcom.com/infinet/grinder.html
http://www.everythingkitchens.com/country_living_grain_mill.html
http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/grain_mills.html">http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/grain_mills.html
At the bottom of the page
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/mendingshed/grainmill.html
Only one I found under $100.
Elewyiss
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 07:38:50 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Grain mill question
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
> [The] Danish woman looked up and said "Actually, it's all full of stone
> dust... " Now, I have no idea why this would be more so than flour
> ground in a miller's mill, perhaps a softer stone but I don't know
> why... but I thought I'd pass on the one comment I have ever heard from
> someone who actually did this.
>
> AEllin
The larger the mill, the greater the economy of scale. A saddle quern is
usually made from the easiest quarried local stone which will hold up to the
work. For a commercial mill, the harder the stones, the longer they last
and the finer the grain of the stones, the finer the milling
(generalization). The miller's millstones are his tools and he paid dearly
to own the best (in one case at least to importing them from the
Continent).
Bear
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 08:03:06 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Grain mill question
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Having tried my hand at this once, it is a process I would just as soon
forgo. The work is hard and the product pathetic. I would recommend
locating a source for stone ground flour and be done with it.
Bear
> Have a bit of an odd question but here goes. I have a friend who's
> planning to bake all of her own bread the odd thing is she also want's
> to grind her own grain. The part that isn't, in my opinion, reasonable
> she whants to do it with a hand quern.
>
> She's asked me to help but I don't even know if anyone even makes them
> anymore. So anyone have any info that I could use?
>
> Thanks,
> James P.
Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 10:50:06 -0400
From: jah at twcny.rr.com
Subject: [Sca-cooks] uerns
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
What an interesting question! I made one many years ago as a 4-H project. They are easy to make.
Here is a URL for anyone to se what it looks like:
http://search.netscape.com/ns/boomframe.jsp?
query=quern&page=1&offset=0&result_url=redir%3Fsrc%3Dwebsearch%26request
Id%3D4f4e6e36591e24%26clickedItemRank%3D3%26userQuery%3Dquern%26clickedI
temURN%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.chnmus.et%252FEnglish%252Fnewpage111.ht
m%26invocationType%3D-
%26fromPage%3DNSCPIndex2%26amp%3BampTest%3D1&remove_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww
.chnmus.net%2FEnglish%2Fnewpage111.htm
My best 2 suggestions for one is:
take the image to a carpenter and ask tem to mak you one
go to an indian reservation and talk to the elders.
(they had a stone one to use)
I am part indian and had access to many of these things as a child,
which gave me an incredibaly enriched life.
I say go for it! It's a great experience!
Lets not lose "the old ways".
Jules/Mistress Catalina
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 11:02:55 EDT
From: UrthMomma at aol.com
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Sca-cooks Digest,Grain Mill Question
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
If she is ever making more than one batch of bread, get a real grain mill and
motorize the sucker. I make bread and pizza dough couple times a week and
usually from home ground flour grinding Prairie Gold or Montana 86 white wheat.
Get a Country Living Mill and motorize it or get one of electric mills like
a Whisper Mill to grind the flour.
Yes there are cheap ( $50 ) non electric clamp on the table mills and they
are fine or soaked corn for masa, but yield a nasty product for wheat or flint
corns. The cheap hand mills are ok for cracking bulger from cooked then dried
wheat, but that's about all the cheap hand mills are good for when grinding
wheat.
Hand querns, hard to find, produce a lot of stone dust that wears down the
teeth when the flour produced there in is eaten regularly and a frightening
amount of hard physical work, usually delegated to the lowest status female of the group.- read drudge or slave. Nw you know why only about a third of the
grain consumed by the medieval peasant was in the form of bread, according to
some sources (Gies, Francis and Joseph. 1990 Life in a Medieval Village. Harper & Row, I think) I have read. Boiled grain, as porrdge or pottage, was a
whole lot less work and expense if you have the fire going anyways.
the other Olwen
Barony of Sternfeld, Midrealm
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2004 13:20:54 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Grain mill question
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
James P. wrote:
> Have a bit of an odd question but here goes. I have a friend who's
> planning to bake all of her own bread the odd thing is she also
> want's to grind her own grain. The part that isn't, in my opinion,
> reasonable she whants to do it with a hand quern.
>
> She's asked me to help but I don't even know if anyone even makes
> them anymore. So anyone have any info that I could use?
Someone in Aethelmark (Mistress Judith of Kirtland, maybe?) about 15
years ago wanted to experiment with grinding grain and made a
concrete hand grinder. It consisted of a block with a cylindrical
hole, by my memory about 8 inches across and maybe 6 or 8 inches
deep, and a cylinder to fit in that hole with a wooden handle set
into it off center, maybe 1 1/2 inch from the edge. You put the grain
in the hole, put the cylinder on top, and used the handle to go round
and round until you had flour. I seem to remember that she used
relays of squires (her lord's? or a friend's?) to do a lot of the
work. I have a vague memory she had some system of sieves for bolting
the flour, but I don't remember the details--and it was long enough
ago that my visual memory of the grinder may be off. I think it
produced perfectly good flour, but was a lot of work.
Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 23:23:21 -0400
From: "Carper, Rachel" <rachel.carper at hp.com>
Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Grain mill question
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
James P. asked:
>>>>>>
Have a bit of an odd question but here goes. I have a friend who's
planning to bake all of her own bread the odd thing is she also want's
to grind her own grain. The part that isn't, in my opinion, reasonable
she whants to do it with a hand quern.
She's asked me to help but I don't even know if anyone even makes them
anymore. So anyone have any info that I could use?
<<<<<<
Here are some links.
http://www.webcom.com/infinet/grinder.html
http://www.everythingkitchens.com/country_living_grain_mill.html
http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/grain_mills.html
At the bottom of the page
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/mendingshed/grainmill.html
Only one I found under $100.
Elewyiss
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 07:38:50 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Grain mill question
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
> [The] Danish woman looked up and said "Actually, it's all full of stone
> dust... " Now, I have no idea why this would be more so than flour
> ground in a miller's mill, perhaps a softer stone but I don't know
> why... but I thought I'd pass on the one comment I have ever heard from
> someone who actually did this.
>
> AEllin
The larger the mill, the greater the economy of scale. A saddle quern is
usually made from the easiest quarried local stone which will hold up to the
work. For a commercial mill, the harder the stones, the longer they last
and the finer the grain of the stones, the finer the milling
(generalization). The miller's millstones are his tools and he paid dearly
to own the best (in one case at least to importing them from the
Continent).
Bear
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 08:03:06 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Grain mill question
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Having tried my hand at this once, it is a process I would just as soon
forgo. The work is hard and the product pathetic. I would recommend
locating a source for stone ground flour and be done with it.
Bear
> Have a bit of an odd question but here goes. I have a friend who's
> planning to bake all of her own bread the odd thing is she also want's
> to grind her own grain. The part that isn't, in my opinion, reasonable
> she whants to do it with a hand quern.
>
> She's asked me to help but I don't even know if anyone even makes them
> anymore. So anyone have any info that I could use?
>
> Thanks,
> James P.
Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 10:50:06 -0400
From: jah at twcny.rr.com
Subject: [Sca-cooks] uerns
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
What an interesting question! I made one many years ago as a 4-H project. They are easy to make.
Here is a URL for anyone to se what it looks like:
http://search.netscape.com/ns/boomframe.jsp?
query=quern&page=1&offset=0&result_url=redir%3Fsrc%3Dwebsearch%26request
Id%3D4f4e6e36591e24%26clickedItemRank%3D3%26userQuery%3Dquern%26clickedI
temURN%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.chnmus.et%252FEnglish%252Fnewpage111.ht
m%26invocationType%3D-
%26fromPage%3DNSCPIndex2%26amp%3BampTest%3D1&remove_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww
.chnmus.net%2FEnglish%2Fnewpage111.htm
My best 2 suggestions for one is:
take the image to a carpenter and ask tem to mak you one
go to an indian reservation and talk to the elders.
(they had a stone one to use)
I am part indian and had access to many of these things as a child,
which gave me an incredibaly enriched life.
I say go for it! It's a great experience!
Lets not lose "the old ways".
Jules/Mistress Catalina
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 11:02:55 EDT
From: UrthMomma at aol.com
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Sca-cooks Digest,Grain Mill Question
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
If she is ever making more than one batch of bread, get a real grain mill and
motorize the sucker. I make bread and pizza dough couple times a week and
usually from home ground flour grinding Prairie Gold or Montana 86 white wheat.
Get a Country Living Mill and motorize it or get one of electric mills like
a Whisper Mill to grind the flour.
Yes there are cheap ( $50 ) non electric clamp on the table mills and they
are fine or soaked corn for masa, but yield a nasty product for wheat or flint
corns. The cheap hand mills are ok for cracking bulger from cooked then dried
wheat, but that's about all the cheap hand mills are good for when grinding
wheat.
Hand querns, hard to find, produce a lot of stone dust that wears down the
teeth when the flour produced there in is eaten regularly and a frightening
amount of hard physical work, usually delegated to the lowest status female of the group.- read drudge or slave. Nw you know why only about a third of the
grain consumed by the medieval peasant was in the form of bread, according to
some sources (Gies, Francis and Joseph. 1990 Life in a Medieval Village. Harper & Row, I think) I have read. Boiled grain, as porrdge or pottage, was a
whole lot less work and expense if you have the fire going anyways.
the other Olwen
Barony of Sternfeld, Midrealm
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2004 13:20:54 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Grain mill question
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
James P. wrote:
> Have a bit of an odd question but here goes. I have a friend who's
> planning to bake all of her own bread the odd thing is she also
> want's to grind her own grain. The part that isn't, in my opinion,
> reasonable she whants to do it with a hand quern.
>
> She's asked me to help but I don't even know if anyone even makes
> them anymore. So anyone have any info that I could use?
Someone in Aethelmark (Mistress Judith of Kirtland, maybe?) about 15
years ago wanted to experiment with grinding grain and made a
concrete hand grinder. It consisted of a block with a cylindrical
hole, by my memory about 8 inches across and maybe 6 or 8 inches
deep, and a cylinder to fit in that hole with a wooden handle set
into it off center, maybe 1 1/2 inch from the edge. You put the grain
in the hole, put the cylinder on top, and used the handle to go round
and round until you had flour. I seem to remember that she used
relays of squires (her lord's? or a friend's?) to do a lot of the
work. I have a vague memory she had some system of sieves for bolting
the flour, but I don't remember the details--and it was long enough
ago that my visual memory of the grinder may be off. I think it
produced perfectly good flour, but was a lot of work.
Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook
<the end>