Cricket (dry)

220 g of crickets were pre ground with this first trial. We used a new sieve ring with 4 mm square perforations. This sieve ring is dedicated to comminute sample with higher fat or oil content.

The sample was slowly fed into the mill. After one minute of feeding, the complete sample batch was within 60 seconds. The grinding sound vanished instantly after the last fragment was fed.

Ground sample was removed by the attached high-performance cyclone separator and transferred into its collecting glass. We found an output of 144 grams inside the glass and about 20 grams of sample which remained inside the cyclone (attached by adhesion and easy to brush out). A loss of 56 grams might be removed by the attached vacuum cleaner. Most likely an accessories for grinding large quantities instead of our high-performance cyclone separator could be beneficial to regain a maximum of sample. With the accessories for grinding large quantities, also lightweight particles will be regained, but on the other hand, eventually a cleaning step will be required every now and then.

The pre cut sample will be used to comminute with 2 mm perforated sieve ring in result 2.

For the fine grinding of sample, we used a 2 mm square perforated sieve ring. The 150 gram batch was fed into the mill within 110 seconds.

The grinding sound was as smooth as in our first result. A lot of fine ground sample was sticking (adhesive because of the fat and oil content) to the grinding chamber. With running vacuum cleaner, the stuck sample was brushed into the cyclones channel to collect all sample inside the cyclones attached 5 liter glass.

After comminution, an output of 100 grams of sample was packed into a plastic bag. The perforations of the sieve ring were not clogged significantly. Surely even higher amounts of sample can be ground this way, too.