I love using my new Mockmill, but I don’t love the tedium of sifting. Remembering an older post that described using a massager to agitate a sieve, and not owning a massager, I wondered if I could get a similar result using my cordless drill. I took a scrap of 1 1/4 inch dowel and drilled a 1/4 inch hole off center. I inserted a carriage bolt through the hole. The resulting implement looks like this:
I placed my sieve in a stainless steel bowl and shook it with my agitator. It worked, but it was cumbersome to hold the bowl, the sieve, and the drill at the same time. Also, I didn’t like the flour dust in the air.
My sieve (50 mesh, from Breadtopia), it turns out, perfectly nestles inside a five gallon bucket.
A trip to Lowe’s yielded a food grade bucket and lid. I drilled a hole where the bottom edge of the sieve sits. I chucked my eccentric agitator through the hole. By a stroke of luck, the hole happened to land at the right height for the drill to sit upright while it is chucked into the bucket.
I put the lid on and ran the drill on its higher speed setting. Sure enough, the sieve jiggled furiously and shook the flour with more vigor than I could apply by hand.
The process works, it keeps the dust under control, and it's fun.
Very cool! How loud is it?
TomP
Not bad, much less loud than the mill.
I love this kind of problem solving.
Ditto!
This is a great idea!!
I had never been able to get as much flour as I wanted in my 40 sieve and so never used it.
I must try to adapt your idea to a small scale.
Thanks for this post- it keeps the work area dust free too.
PS Can you show a picture of the inside where your agitator is?
Here is the interior before the sieve goes in. You can see that there is a small screw opposite the agitator, to steady the opposite side of the sieve. One of these days I am going to replace the hardware with stainless steel.