6 Best Fanning Mills for Grains for Cleaning Your Own Seed

You’ve just brought in the last of your wheat or rye, and the golden pile in the grain bin represents a year’s worth of planning and hard work. Now comes the critical step that separates a good harvest from great seed for next year’s planting. Taking control of your own seed cleaning is one of the most empowering things a small-scale farmer can do, giving you complete oversight of your most valuable input.

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Why Clean Seed? Boosting Germination Rates

Cleaning your own seed is about far more than making it look tidy. The primary goal is to maximize the germination rate and vigor of next year’s crop. Uncleaned seed is a mix of viable kernels, shrunken or broken grains, chaff, dust, and—most importantly—weed seeds. Planting this mix means you’re intentionally sowing weeds right alongside your crop, giving them a perfect head start.

A fanning mill removes these undesirable elements. The weak, undersized kernels that are unlikely to produce strong seedlings get sifted out. This ensures that only the plumpest, most viable seeds make it into your planter, leading to a more uniform stand and healthier plants from the start. Clean seed also flows smoothly through mechanical seeders, preventing the frustrating clogs and skips that happen with debris-filled grain. It’s a simple step that pays dividends all season long.

How Fanning Mills Separate Chaff from Grain

At its core, a fanning mill is a clever machine that separates materials using two simple principles: weight and size. First, as grain is fed into the top hopper, it falls through a column of moving air generated by a fan. This air blast is calibrated to be strong enough to blow away lightweight chaff, dust, and empty hulls, but not so strong that it carries away the heavy, viable grain. This is the "winnowing" part of the process.

Simultaneously, the grain tumbles across a series of vibrating screens, or sieves. These screens are perforated with precisely sized holes. The top screen, called a scalper, has large holes that allow good grain to fall through while "scalping" off larger debris like straw heads or clumps of dirt. The lower screen has smaller holes, allowing tiny weed seeds and broken kernels to fall out while the desirable grain rides over the top to the collection chute. By adjusting the airflow and swapping screens, you can fine-tune the process for nearly any type of grain.

Clipper Office Tester: The Small Farm Standard

If you’re serious about saving seed from a few hundred pounds to a few tons of grain, the Clipper Office Tester is the machine you’re looking for. It’s not a toy; it’s a scaled-down, precision version of the large commercial cleaners, designed for seed analysis but perfectly suited for small-farm volumes. It uses the classic two-screen, one-fan design and comes with a vast array of available screens to handle everything from tiny alfalfa to large corn.

The beauty of the Office Tester is its precision and repeatability. Once you dial in the right air setting and screen combination for your oats, you can get the exact same quality of cleaning every single time. It’s built from steel and wood, runs on a simple electric motor, and is small enough to fit in the corner of a workshop. This is the right machine for the dedicated seed saver, the specialty grain grower, or any farmer who values precision and wants a professional-grade tool without a commercial-scale footprint.

Restoring a Vintage A.T. Ferrell Fanning Mill

Walk through any old barn in the grain belt, and you might just find one of these beauties tucked under a dusty canvas. Vintage fanning mills from companies like A.T. Ferrell & Co. (the original maker of the Clipper) are masterpieces of woodwork and simple engineering, built to last for generations. Finding one at a farm auction or estate sale can be an incredibly affordable way to get a high-capacity seed cleaner.

Be warned: this path is for the tinkerer. These machines have often sat for decades, and restoration usually involves replacing rotted wood, freeing up seized bearings, and building a new motor mount. The biggest challenge can be sourcing screens, which are often missing or damaged, though new ones can be ordered to fit. If you have more time than money and enjoy bringing old iron back to life, this is an immensely rewarding project. Choose this route if you’re a hands-on homesteader who sees a winter project, not a problem, and wants a robust machine with a story.

Agriculex ASC-3: A Modern, Portable Option

For the farmer who wants modern performance without the restoration project, the Agriculex line of seed cleaners is a fantastic choice. The ASC-3 is a standout for small operations, offering a compact footprint, all-metal construction, and efficient cleaning in a ready-to-run package. It’s designed for portability, making it easy to move around the farm or even share with a neighbor.

Unlike vintage models, everything on the Agriculex is new, from the motor to the screens. This means no hidden rot, no worn-out parts, and reliable operation right out of the box. It delivers excellent separation with adjustable air and easily swappable screens, handling a wide range of grains effectively. This is a practical, no-fuss machine for the modern small farm. If you value your time, prefer new equipment with support, and need a reliable cleaner that just works, the Agriculex is your answer.

Mater SA-L: A Versatile European Seed Cleaner

The Mater SA-L is a high-precision cleaner that reflects a European design philosophy focused on versatility and quality. It’s an excellent choice for the diversified farmer who needs to clean not just standard grains like wheat and barley, but also small or irregularly shaped seeds like clover, flax, or even flower seeds. Its powerful aspiration system (the fan) and wide range of precision screens allow for very fine-tuned separation.

This machine is an investment in capability. While more expensive than some other options, its ability to cleanly separate a huge variety of seed types can make it invaluable for a farm growing multiple specialty crops for seed. The build quality is exceptional, designed for years of consistent use. The Mater SA-L is for the serious, diversified grower who sees seed cleaning as a core part of their business and needs one machine that can handle almost anything thrown at it with precision.

Seedburo 801: Lab-Grade Precision for Seed

It’s important to understand that the Seedburo 801 Office Divider isn’t a bulk cleaner; it’s a laboratory-grade analytical tool. Its job is to take a small, representative sample of your grain and precisely divide it for testing. You would use this tool before cleaning your main batch to determine the "dockage"—the percentage of weed seeds, chaff, and other foreign material in your harvest.

By running a sample through the 801 and then hand-sorting the results, you can calculate the exact percentage of contaminants. This data is crucial for anyone selling seed, as it provides a quantifiable measure of quality. It also helps you select the right screens for your fanning mill to target the specific contaminants you found. This is not for cleaning your planting seed; it’s for the professional seed grower or meticulous plant breeder who needs objective data to grade their seed and optimize their cleaning process.

The DIY Box Fan Winnower: A Budget Solution

If you’re just starting with a small patch of grain and the price of a fanning mill seems daunting, you can build a surprisingly effective winnower for next to nothing. The concept is simple: set up a box fan to blow horizontally. Then, slowly pour your uncleaned grain from one container into another, letting the stream fall through the fan’s airflow. The heavy grain will fall straight down into the bottom container, while the lighter chaff and dust get blown away.

This method has real limitations. It only separates by weight, so it does a poor job of removing weed seeds that are a similar weight and size to your grain. You’ll also need to do it outdoors on a calm day to avoid making a huge mess. However, for cleaning a few pounds of wheat from your garden, it’s a fantastic way to learn the principles of winnowing. This is the perfect starting point for the backyard grower or the curious homesteader who wants to clean their first small harvest without any financial investment.

Choosing Screens: Matching Mesh to Your Grain

The single most important factor in getting a good clean is using the right screens. A fanning mill is useless with the wrong set. Screens are identified by the shape and size of their perforations, typically either round holes or oblong slots, measured in fractions of an inch. The goal is to select a combination that isolates your desired seed.

A typical setup involves two screens:

• Top Screen (Scalper): Uses holes slightly larger than your grain. This allows the good seed to fall through while catching and "scalping" off larger material like straw, unthreshed heads, or large weed seeds.
• Bottom Screen (Sifter): Uses holes slightly smaller than your grain. This allows small weed seeds, dirt, and broken kernels to fall through while the desirable, plump seed rides across the top and exits the machine.

For example, to clean wheat, you might use a 13/64" round-hole screen on top to let the wheat fall through and a 1/13" slotted screen on the bottom to drop out tiny weed seeds. Always buy a variety of screens for your machine; having the right set on hand is the key to a perfectly cleaned seed lot.

Proper Storage of Your Cleaned Planting Seed

Your work isn’t done once the seed is clean. Proper storage is essential to preserve the viability you just worked so hard to isolate. The three enemies of stored seed are heat, moisture, and pests. Your goal should be to store your seed in a place that is cool, dry, and dark. An unheated basement, an insulated shed, or a root cellar are all good options.

The ideal storage containers are rodent-proof and breathable or airtight, depending on the ambient humidity. Galvanized metal trash cans with tight-fitting lids are a classic, effective choice. For smaller quantities, food-grade five-gallon buckets with gamma seal lids work wonderfully to keep out both moisture and pests. No matter what you use, label every container clearly with the crop, variety, and the year of harvest. There’s nothing more frustrating than finding a mystery bag of seed two years later and not knowing if it’s still viable.

Taking charge of your seed supply is a fundamental step toward a more resilient and self-sufficient farm. Whether you choose a restored classic, a modern machine, or a simple box fan, the act of cleaning and saving your own seed connects you directly to the cycle of the seasons. The right tool simply makes that connection more efficient, ensuring that the best of this year’s harvest becomes the foundation for the next.