Parts of a mill
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The Engine The Powersource The Workplace: harinero, aceitero, batán |
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Mills in Altoaragón
Parts of a mill |
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| The Workplace of a flour mill: harinero |
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The cereals, brought to the mill by mule
(I imagine), were put into the tolva, centered
above the upper mill-stone. The grains then
drizzled from this hopper down to the stones
(piedras de moler). The lower stone is fixed,
the upper moved with the rodete.
Both stones are encapsulated by the guardapolvo to avoid flour escaping in all directions. The guardapolvo, being circular in most cases, is sometimes octogonal (f.e. Yésero, Ainielle). The influence of the type of stone and the pattern of the ridges on the quality of the flour must not be underestimated: frequent maintenance was needed. The cabra was used to move the stone for dressing. This sharping of the ridges, picar las piedras, was often done by specialized itinerant craftsmen using tools as shown on the picture. The upper stone (weight about 1000 kilos) made more than 100 revolutions a minute.
Fine tuning the balance of the whole construction was important.
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guardapolvo | cabra | ||
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| piedra de moler | tolva | |||
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| piedra de moler | tools | |||
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The Engine The Powersource The Workplace: harinero, aceitero, batán |
| The Workplace of an olive mill: aceitero |
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| ruello | |||
| First step in the making of olive-oil is to arrange the olives in the circular balsa and let them undergo the forces of the ruello. This vertical mill-stone is only in few cases moved by water (e.g. Santa Eulalia la mayor): that was a mule's job. During this process, some one had to prevent the olives from escaping. Eventually, the olives form an amorphous mash. |  |
| prensa with caracol | caracol | esteras | |
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| pilas | |||
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action was to stack the circular mats (esteras) with
the mash alternating - an enormous vegetarian sandwich -
under the press (prensa). The lever was fixed on the end
near the pile. The other end was free to swing up and down.
An oversized screw (caracol), moved by man-power, forced the lever down, leaving the poor olives no alternative but give up the precious liquid. The application of hot water made them so much the more co-operative. The water-oil mixture was captured in a stone reservoir, called pila. Overflow from pila to pila purified the oil in few steps. The crust left between the mats served as a combustible or as fodder. Some mills were equipped with a more modern space-saving (steel) press lacking the lever (e.g. Troncedo, Almazorre, Mipanas). Find more pictures of caracol and estera in Coscojuela. |
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The Engine The Powersource The Workplace: harinero, aceitero, batán |
| The Workplace of a fulling-mill: batán |
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The hammering of a fulling-mill in action could be
heard from a distance of several hunderds of meters.
The process could go on without the continuous
presence of the miller. He could suffice with a
check-up visit every few hours.
They had a vertical wheel, because that made the construction easier and the functioning more straightforward. The last batán (Lacort) functioned until the early 1970s. |
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