querns-msg - 5/7/11

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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    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 01:33:17 EDT
From: <HRAFNASDOT at aol.com>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: grinding stones ..... RE: mortor and pestle

In a message dated 10/9/00 8:10:10 PM, jyeates at realtime.net writes:
<<<snip> I was wondering what would have been used in period for
> grinding locally on a small scale.... I would like to make a
> household  grain grinding stone (Viking/or any thing English in
> period)  but I am  having a hard time doing the search. >>

the Viking used a "quern" for a grinding mill : a round bowl shaped bottom 
piece in which was set another stone with a hole in the middle and off to the 
side one to fit a wooden handle in.  Grist was put into the top stone through 
the center hole while the stone was turned in a circular motion.  Usually 
made of soapstone.  Many pictorial examples in kids books, of all places: 
"Inside History: A Viking Town",  "What Happened Here? Viking Street", "If 
You Were There: Viking Times"  The quern was a household item and the baking 
was much more individualized than the time of "community" baking in the 
English style.

I agree about the mexican grocery store mortar sets, inexpensive and very useful.  There are also some that are flat sloped stones with a coarse rolling 
pin affair that you grind in the same manner as using a washboard or grater.  
Somewhat easier to grind small amounts, but watch out for your knuckles and 
nails!

Asa Hrafnasdottir
Loch Ruadh 


Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 07:57:36 +0100
From: "Melanie Wilson" <MelanieWilson at bigfoot.com>
To: <sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: Querns

<<< the Viking used a "quern" for a grinding mill : a round bowl shaped bottom
piece in which was set another stone with a hole in the middle and off to the
side one to fit a wooden handle in.  Grist was put into the top stone through
the center hole while the stone was turned in a circular motion.  Usually
made of soapstone. >>>

Are you sure ? I've not seen such in England & soapstone is very soft to
grind grain with. Most in England are traditionally Millstone grit or other
harder stones, Soapstone turns rather rapidly to talc with pressure & might
be a bit unpleasent !

>Many pictoral examples in kids books, of all places:
"Inside History: A Viking Town",  "What Happened Here? Viking Street", "If
You Were There: Viking Times"  The quern was a household item and the baking
was much more individualized than the time of "community" baking in the
English style.

Well mainly because it was illegal in England for much of the medieval
period to grind your own corn !

Mel


Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 00:56:10 EDT
From: <HRAFNASDOT at aol.com>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Querns

I will admit a harder stone may have been used on the bottom of the quern, 
but my quick off the cuff research confirmed soapstone, and the photos show 
matching stones.  I also remember reading of the tremendous wear on the teeth 
of people(s) using soapstone as a major component of cooking utensils.  
Archeological finds also confirmed grit/talc in the stomach contents.  The 
ground flour did pick up particles of stone during the milling process.    If 
anyone has different info - by all means, please reply- For the moment I have 
been unable to locate my "documentable" references on these, just the " I 
read a long article---" and the childrens references support my information 
at the moment.  I am definitely interested in anyone else sources.

Asa Hrafnasdottir
Loch Ruadh


Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 07:41:53 +0100
From: "Melanie Wilson" <MelanieWilson at bigfoot.com>
To: <sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: Re: Querns

>I will admit a harder stone may have been used on the bottom of the quern,
>but my quick off the cuff research confirmed soapstone

Roman quern fragments are all lava, cat 4 Household utensils & furniture

Pot querns are refed too.

I have loads of ref for querns but few mention what they are made of (bar
stone) but I KNOW I've not seen a soapstone one! I'm talking about the UK
here. Vikings may be different, I know soapstone is easier to obtain & was
used in Scandinavia.

Mel


Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 08:49:41 +0100
From: "Melanie Wilson" <MelanieWilson at bigfoot.com>
To: "LIST Sca Arts" <sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: Querns

I can't give refs but my archaeologists friends say here (Midlands, England)
almost all are Millstone Grit, elsewhere in Engtland Pudding stone is used.
I asked about Soapstone, & they said they had vaguely heard of some & they
weren't ideal (property wise) & were (in England at least) extremely rare

Mel


Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 14:55:45 -0700
From: Therasia <no1home at encompass.net>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Querns

> but my quick off the cuff research confirmed soapstone, and the photos show
> matching stones.  I also remember reading of the tremendous wear on the teeth
> of people(s) using soapstone as a major component of cooking utensils.
> Archeological finds also confirmed grit/talc in the stomach contents.

The problem with the term "soapstone" is that it does not have a consistent
use across the several different academic disciplines which use the term.
In general, any soft, unctuous rock which can be sawed or carved with ease
may be called soapstone.  Some of these rocks can be amenable to carving
and still be hard enough to do an adequate job of grinding grain if the
weight were large enough to crush.  There would be be a great deal of stone
in the meal in that case.  The Viking cooking artifacts I've seen appear to
be mostly of a relatively compact serpentinite, which though harder than
most "soapstone" varieties, will still carve with ease if you use steel
(most talc-rich soapstones can be carved with materials softer than steel,
like fingernails and pennies)  [I make the statement about the carvability
of compact sepentinite on the behavior of serpentinites of the Smartville
complex in the Sierra Nevadas, which I have happily picked up out of the
ground at West Kingdom events and carved upon, since compact serpentinites
don't create fine rock dust when worked properly]

The problem with using soapstone cooking and food processing tools is that
there is a link between ingested talc and stomach cancer, and also a link
between inhaled silicate dusts and various lung diseases - so making your
own soapstoneware is not such a good idea IMHO.  I hate to be so pressed
for time that I don't have time to dig up references or web links for people,
which I have done in the past, though I'm sure Magnus and Co. could probably
dig some up if people are really interested.  The problem overall with most
of my refs is that they are really technical.

Most decent building-grade sandstones would make lovely querns. I think
the lovely off-white sandstone that's quarried in southern Indiana would
be a great choice, if you're lucky enough to live within shipping distance.
Fine-grained limestone would work nicely too.

ttfn, Therasia (a geochemist in real life)


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

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>
Edited by Mark S. Harris	querns-msg	Page 11 of 11