Flour dresser

[1]: 303  Flour dressers appear in water-powered mills in the United Kingdom dating to the 17th century, and their use continued into the 20th century in the UK and other countries as the grain-milling industry converted from water power to steam and other forms of power to drive mill machinery.

Inside of the cloth-covered cylinder are beaters which stir and toss the ground grain against the cloth.

[4]: 1053 [5]: 171, 172 Separating the bran and other parts of the grain from the desired flour is a difficult and time-consuming process to carry out manually.

John Milne patented a machine in 1765 which used several grades of wire mesh or cloth to separate flour from bran.

A machine for manufacturing bolting cloth, used to filter the flour from bran and other parts of the grain, was patented in 1783 by Benjamin Blackmore.