However, in many non-Westernised, non-mechanised cultures they are still manufactured and used regularly and have only been replaced in many parts of the world in the last century or so. They were generally replaced by millstones once mechanised forms of milling appeared, particularly the water mill and the windmill, although animals were also used to operate the millstones. Quern-stones have been used by numerous civilizations throughout the world to grind materials, the most important of which was usually grain to make flour for bread-making. Revolving beehive quern-stones and a saddlestone on display at Cliffe Castle Museum, in Keighley, West Yorkshire.
One class of upper quern-stones has from two to three sockets for the rod used to turn them and this is thought to reflect the need to reduce wear and tear by having alternative points of contact when in active use. Most handstones have a handle hole on the upper surface, but one class of quern-stones have a slot handle which indicates that a piece of wood was placed horizontally and protruded out from the edge so that the operator could turn the stone by standing and using a rod vertically. The upper stone sometimes had a cup-shaped area around the hopper hole with a raised edge. Sometimes a millrind was present as a piece of wood (or other material), which allowed the cereal etc to be added but still acted as a centering device. Quern-stones are frequently identifiable by their grooved working surfaces which enabled the movement of flour. The upper stones were usually concave while the lower ones were convex. This is similar in functionality as hoppers and furnaces in vanilla Minecraft.An old Gaelic proverb is "The quern performs best when the grindstone has been pitted." Design of quern-stones A hopper placed underneath the quern will also remove ground-up items out of the output slot. Items that can be ground, such as Grain, will be automatically placed into the grinding slot if the hopper leads into a side of the Quern. Additionally, Iron Hoppers have a special interaction with the Quern. The Iron Hopper has the same item restrictions when transporting items to another inventory or transport items that are too heavy or large, though it can pick up and hold these items themselves. It will also pick up items dropped into it. It can transport items from itself into another inventory, and pull items from inventories placed above it. The Wrought Iron Hopper cannot be used to press foods, but is instead used more like a vanilla hopper. Breaking the hopper during pressing will drop the hopper, smooth stone block, and the remaining items inside the hopper. After the pressing has been completed, the smooth stone block is stored inside of the hopper. It is possible to sneak (Default: ⇧ Shift) and Right Click on the hopper while it is pressing to remove the smooth stone block and halt the pressing. The hopper interface cannot be accessed while pressing is ongoing. Note: Decay of the items inside the hopper is not halted during pressing, and only one stack of items is pressed at a time.
These can then be fermented into Alcohol. Pressing any kind of fruit, Agave, or Sugarcane, will produce Juices of the pressed item. Olives make olive oil, which is used in Oil Lamps. The hopper can be filled with a total of 5 stacks of items, meaning that the maximum pressing time is 25 in-game hours.
Therefore, a full 160 ounce stack of the item will take 5 in-game hours to press, and will produce 2500 mB of respective liquid. Items are pressed at a rate of 32 ounces of item per hour, generating 500 mB of the respective liquid. The amount of time that it takes to complete pressing is dependent on the total weight of the items inside of the hopper. You must put the items you wish to press into the hopper before you place the stone block The smooth stone block will appear to sink into the hopper as the pressing processes. A item is then placed inside of the hopper and a smooth stone block is placed by sneaking (Default: ⇧ Shift) and using the block to Right Click on top of the hopper to begin pressing. In order to use a hopper to press items, it must be placed directly above an unsealed Barrel or a Large Vessel. They do not have any of the functionality of their vanilla counterparts. These currently include olives, grapes, sugarcane, agave, as well as various fruit and all berries. Stone Hoppers are used for pressing various foods.