Trouble with malt mill

[MrOH]

I recently received a malt mill for my birthday (Thanks honey!). It works great with the crank, but when I try to use my power drill with it, the rollers don't roll, it just kinda seems to burn up the motor. Is there some sort of trick that I don't know about? Any advice would be helpful, I just got promoted to a salaried position, so brew days will be less frequent and I'll need to get more done besides brewing on them. Thanks.

 

[Psych]

Higher power drill? With my Barley Crusher I need a FULL charge on my 18v little cordless drill. If it's not full, it's not going to turn, and I use the entire charge to do a hopper full.

So 18v cordless is not really enough to move my mill, maybe you're in the same boat?

 

[BBL_Brewer]

Motorize it, you won't regret it. Just plug it in and watch the grain disappear. There's a little more DIY work upfront, but more than enough time and lobor savings on the back end to make it worthwhile. You can pick up motors for almost nothing at the local scrap yard. Check out this link for more info on the build.

Motorizing a Malt Mill

 

[jma99]

I also have a malt mill and find that if I insert the shaft to far into the drill it wont grip.

Back it out a bit and try it again.

........

 

[MrOH]

I'll try the full charge and backing out tomorrow. Motorizing sounds like it will be a bit more than what I can invest time into in the near future. As I said, took a salaried position, which will probably mean around 70hrs a week.

 

[Aschecte]

+1 to psych I have the same issue I use a 18v Milwaukee hammer drill and on initial startup if I don;t have a full charge it doesn;t have enough torque to turn that first amount of grain. Also the further in you place the crushers shaft into the drill i find the better it turns over.

 

[Bobby_M]

What you need is a drill that has variable speed via gearing such as the Dewalt XRP series of cordless drills. Low speed and high torque. Don't be fooled by a corded drill that does speed adjustment via progressive trigger pull. These aren't gearing anything for higher torque.