Millstone

This is a pounding tool used to grind dry grains into powder or to grind water-soaked grains into paste. It is sometimes used to grind rice in order to make rice paste for starching ramie and silk cloth. Two round and wide stones — the runner stone (or female stone) and the bedstone (or male stone) — are laid down and fixed together. The pivot driven into the center of the bedstone must be met with a hole at the center of the runner stone so that the user can rotate the runner stone. After placing it into a large basin, one of two persons sitting face to face places grain into the upper hole, while the other person grips the handle and turns the runner stone. Ground grains then fall into the basin under the millstone. Holes or grooves are often drilled to the side where the bedstone and the runner stone meet, which improves grinding efficiency, or porous stones such as basalt are also used for their coarse texture. The shapes of millstones vary depending on region. Some mountainside villages in Gangwon Province even use wooden millstones made of wooden logs. Milling equipment such as millstones and grinding mortars allow plant-based matter to be ground without spoiling, and therefore farming households today continue to use them to grind beans, red beans, and buckwheat.