Great price on entry level grain mill

BOB357

BOB357

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Interesting. I wish I knew someone near the border I could get stuff shipped through to Canada. Such a hassle up here.

Edit, so what are peoples thoughts on 2 vs 3 roller mills? Is the $100 premium worth it? I'm still rocking a Corona mill.
 
Likely not at our scale. If I ever start milling my own grain, I'll do a 2-roller mill. Our LHBS uses them, motorized of course, and they work just fine.
 
I don't really understand what the 3rd roller gets you, and my innate desire to not buy the wrong thing because it's cheap makes me really want to get a 3 roller one just in case.
 
A three roller mill has two crushing surfaces, the interface between the top two rollers and the interface between the bottom roller and one of the top rollers, depending on what direction the bottom roller turns. Anything that gets past the top two could be crushed by the bottom one. In practice, I don't think it makes a lot of difference. As mentioned above, I get a great crush from the two-roller mills at the homebrew store and they've been in service at least four years. A three-roller mill would get you a marginally better crush, as mentioned above. I can't see how it would make that much of a difference at our scale.
 
I double mill my grains and figure that gives the same result as a 3 roller mill would.
 
From an engineering perspective, that's exactly what you're doing with a 3-roller mill.
 
Been following this post and got to thinking, how much malt will a crusher mill?
So I checked my brewing report for mine and My "Barley Crusher" has gone through over 2300#s. The roll bushing have no more wear than when it was new, and I do check it every 5 batches or so. I have taken it completely apart for cleaning once last year, the second roller was gumming up a little in the bushings, but it cleaned out and has worked well since then.
You could only guess how much one in a LHBS runs through.
 
That's good to know. I'm always paranoid on buying stuff so I appreciate the input.
 
Hawkbox said:
I don't really understand what the 3rd roller gets you, and my innate desire to not buy the wrong thing because it's cheap makes me really want to get a 3 roller one just in case.
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The idea of the three roller is to leave more of the husk intact. The first gap is set wider, first pass opens the grain without too much damage to the husk, the second pass crushes the kernel. Idea is less potential for a stuck mash. Milling twice through a tighter set gap doesn’t do this.

After wearing out my barley crusher I upgraded to a three roller monster mill with the larger rollers.
 
I have a pretty wide gap in mine and some grain is smaller then others and I just saw the other day about a third of my grain was just smashed and not cracked open so I started double milling it and now the second time gets it not sure why, if I mill too fine I cant recirculate the speed I need too to keep my temperature correct with the pid
 
Ozarks Mountain Brew said:
I have a pretty wide gap in mine and some grain is smaller then others and I just saw the other day about a third of my grain was just smashed and not cracked open so I started double milling it and now the second time gets it not sure why, if I mill too fine I cant recirculate the speed I need too to keep my temperature correct with the pid
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I have found if I mash in, recirculate a couple of minutes, stop and stir, the grain gets wetter and swells would be my guess and changes the viscosity of the mash so it doesn't compact as much when recirculating is started again.
 
I've changed the way I mash recently, I'm starting to do that in a way, I start out in the 140's and let the grain get saturated for about 10 or 15 minutes, stir a few times then I recirculate while raising it to the target at a very slow speed, once it hits my target I do another stir and set my speed at full and start my timer for 60 minutes and leave it, that seams to get me more sugar than my standard way
 
I look at buying a grain mill all the time. Problem is, my lhbs' mill does such a fine job I really have a hard time justifying the price or mess at home. I'm a spoiled homebrewer. I've got an excellent homebrew shop, and most of the grains I use are grown on the properties surrounding my farm. I can see the malt house (Root Shoot) from my house. Pretty incredible!
 
thunderwagn said:
I look at buying a grain mill all the time. Problem is, my lhbs' mill does such a fine job I really have a hard time justifying the price or mess at home. I'm a spoiled homebrewer. I've got an excellent homebrew shop, and most of the grains I use are grown on the properties surrounding my farm. I can see the malt house (Root Shoot) from my house. Pretty incredible!
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My LHBS is 100 miles away. I can't drive for 5hrs for every batch so I buy bulk from them and don't want a bunch of milled grain sitting around getting stale. Usually my brew partner grinds the grain while I fill and salt the brew water in HLT.
 
soccerdad said:
Me too, but it's part of my brew day therapy to crank it. I love mine.
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I have a concrete mixing drill I use to run mine. Took me 5 minutes to do a 5 kg batch. It is kind of therapeutic though.

I have 2 LHBS in 15 minutes either way but I just buy the bulk grains from them. I'd rather mill it myself personally.
 
thunderwagn said:
I look at buying a grain mill all the time. Problem is, my lhbs' mill does such a fine job I really have a hard time justifying the price or mess at home. I'm a spoiled homebrewer. I've got an excellent homebrew shop, and most of the grains I use are grown on the properties surrounding my farm. I can see the malt house (Root Shoot) from my house. Pretty incredible!
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Ditto that. Except for seeing Root Shoot, of course. I'd have to drive a few miles for that. But the brew shop's mill is very good, they brew themselves so they keep it set correctly, and as long as that's the case, I don't see a need for a mill.
 
if you buy each batch every time that's fine and I'm starting to do that but if you buy grain in bulk, a mill is a must and very handy
 
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