Quern / Millstone

The Quern or Millstone is a machine (can be automated or manual with a lever) that grinds-up material into fine powder or dust. This is useful for such things as turning bone into bonemeal, wheat into flour, or iron ore into red dust.

Craft the Quern

First craft the quern using six stone blocks. The quern is not completed yet, it still needs a lever if you are going to operate it manually.

The Lever

If you intend to operate the quern manually then craft a lever (from a stick and cobblestone) and place it on-top of the quern. Since the quern is a machine you will have to hold the Shift key (same key used for crouching) while you right-click with the lever to place it on the quern, otherwise if you right-click without holding shift then it will open the quern's GUI instead.

Using the Quern

To use the quern you simply pull the lever as if you were flipping the lever / switch. You can only pull it once per second, this is slow and it is not a bug, it is a feature. Querns are very heavy and hard to operate due to the inertia involved, so it might be a good idea to build more than one quern and try to operate them concurrently. Also be aware that operating a quern consumes a lot of calories and makes you very hungry. Watch your hunger bar, as you operate the quern you will use up food shanks quite rapidly.

If you right-click the quern to bring-up the GUI you can check on the progress of your recipe:

HINT: Use CraftGuide to find-out all the available quern recipes.