WORKING WINDMILL The craft of milling : a day of work at 'De Zandhaas' cornmill 

Thank you for you kind comment. Please do visit! The mill is in Santpoort, near the city of Haarlem, and is open on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays

Artisan bread, at it's very best! I wanted to reach through the screen, take that loaf from him and eat the whole thing. by keeping the oils, and bran in the flour, that is WHOLE WHEAT bread.

@@vincentrobinette1507 With stone pieces from the grinding stones?

@@lincoln7184 Actually, no! The grinding wheels don't actually come in contact with one another, there is a very tight clearance. The stones are so much harder than the grain, that the stones barely wear at all.

@@vincentrobinette1507 oh ok. Thanks. He just started chiselling the shape back into them so I assumed they wear down faster.

@ 11:12, - thanks,.the methods of "engaging" & disengage the driving gears are so unique. * ❤️ video s mch. Thanks for your explanation.

With the right lighting, and score, you could film a pretty good horror scene in there!😮

Thank you very much for your kind comment

Thank you for your comment! Smaller windmills used to exist in large numbers, but relatively few have survived the first half of the twentieth century. A lot of carpenters/contractors had their own little saw mills with a sail span of between 6 and 12 metres. Also windmills for the production of spices, mustard, and chocolate used to be relatively small. Again, very few have survived. As for smaller corn mills, they were never much of a thing in the Netherlands, but the Swedish island of Öland still has a lot of them.

Thank you!

LUNA Luckstone

Thank you for your kind comment

And thank you very much for watching it!

Thank you! Very pleased to hear that!

Thank you!

Thank you for watching!

+Bruce Wilson Oh dear! Thank you!

Consider that the stones mill 750 pounds of flour per hour. Just like a saw gets dull, there is actually little wear before they lose there effectiveness. If they need to be reconditioned every 2,000 hours, that pound or two of granite is divided into 750 tons of flour. The amount of stone isn't even measurable, let alone, noticeable.

Thank you for your comment! Actually, a generator was installed a couple of years after I made the video. The trouble with generators is that they can't deal with the unsteady turning pace of traditional windmills. So, unless someone invents a kind of generator that works well with an unsteady turning pace, they aren't of that much use for traditional windmills. Also, it's important to realise that modernising is not what we aim to do. The reason why we preserve and keep working with windmills is 1) to preserve something interesting from the past (meaning both the mill itself, and the craft of corn-miller), and 2) to produce a good product that allows you to make delicious bread, pastries, pancakes, pasta etc. It might interest you to know that there actually exists a windmill in Schiedam that has been built as a generator, but has been made to look like a traditional windmill. The name of the mill is "De Nolet".

Thank you for your kind comment! In reply to your question, I can say that the basic principles are very much the same. However, when you grind malt for jenever (Dutch gin) for instance, you don't need to grind it that fine. Grinding a coarser flower requires much less power, so the amount a malt mill grinds on a day tends to be much more than that of a corn mill that grinds flour for bakeries.

+Ιωαννης Βλαχος Thanks for your question! When the wind gets too strong, you simply stop the windmill by using the brake, as is demonstrated in the video. Then you reduce the surface of the canvas on the sails by reefing them manually. After that you release the brake. Because there's less canvas on the sails the mill won't turn as fast as before. We let our windmill turn at a speed of between 15 and 20 revolutions per minute tops.

First, thank you for your answer. Really appreciated. But only 15-20 revs/min? Isn't too slow?

+Ιωαννης Βλαχος For a traditional windmill with a sail diameter 24.5 meters that is quite fast actually. You also have to take into account that the transmission from the top shaft to the grinding stones is 1:7.5, so the stones turn much faster than the sails.

Sorry about that. I was thinking in meters. It's about 33 feet.

@@LanguageOdditorium Thanks for replying. I figured you were talking about meters. I do that myself all the time! Thank you for making this video. I really enjoyed it. Are you the gentleman in the video? Cheers from the UK!

@@justlolatthisworld7917 Cheers! I am, but almost ten years older now... And with a slightly less geeky haircut! I apologise for the poor quality of the video. I keep telling myself that I'll make an updated version one day. Stay safe!

Thank you for your question! A generator was installed in 2012, one year after I made the video. Of course, it doesn't generate nearly as much electricity as modern windmills do, but it's still fun. The mill's main purpose is producing flour after all :)

Not all Americans need a new car once a year. I do happen to own a new car, which replaced the one that started to show transmission issues at 225,000 miles. The '05 Toyota is sitting at about 175,000 miles, and the '86 Dodge truck is unknown, as the odometer quit at about 287,000 miles. All three are road-worthy and have working A/C, which is more of a requirement than a luxury when summer temps run 100F or higher. If I am going to try to compete with the neighbors, I'd rather compete for the largest 401k balance in 14 years than try to impress with my vehicles.