Grain mill question

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butter08

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I am finally going to make the jump and buy my own mill and buy bulk grain. Is it ok to go cheap or is it worth it to buy a more expensive one. Should I lay out 250+ for a grain gobbler or is it ok to get a schmidling or barley crusher.
 
I got the barley crusher with the small hopper. It's been great. Getting 80% plus efficiency in the mash. No reason to spend more but I wouldn't cheap out either.

Hope this helps,
 
Oh and btw the best deal on these is on the BeerSmith web site. See link on the right side.
 
I have a non-adjustable JSP mill and am thoroughly satisfied with it. Although it is set to .045" and cannot be adjusted, I get 85% mash lauter efficiency efficiency, and has never given me any problems with the 1600 pounds or so of grain that it has milled.

-a.
 
I have been researching this myself, and I am going to get a Barley Crusher. I LOVE the MM3, and am a bit of a "bling collector" (hey, I like pretty yet functional stuff- Blichmann), but from lots of reading, the BC seems to be a great value with good performance.
 
I also have a non-adjustable JSP Malt Mill and it is great! I got mine on Craigslist for about $50 or so. It was clearly used, but I've put over 1000# of grain with no issues. I've put everything from 2-row, rye malt (pretty small grain) to fortified wheat with zero issues.

Mine is hand cranked which kinda blows. I would would get a decent (barley crushed, NAp, etc) and spend the rest of the budgeted $250 on making it motorized if it were me.

I should Sat that Frankenstein, Monster Mill, etc., are all wonderful mills. No reason NOT to get one, but for the same price I could basically build a motorized JSP, or BC. Also, I understand that many like the adjustable mills.

The one thing I would avoid is a Corona type mill. They don't crush well, the adjustments suck, and they are cheap
 
I purchased my first non-adjustable Jack Schmidling Productions (JSP) MaltMill over twenty years ago. Back then, the JSP MaltMill was a big fish in a small pound. I hand-cranked over 2,000 pounds of malt through that mill before selling it during a long hiatus from the hobby. The non-adjustable JSP MaltMill is definitely not a sexy mill by modern standards; however, it is a design that has withstood the test of time, which is why I purchased another one when I decided to reenter the hobby. I currently have no plans to motorize my mill because I actually enjoy using a manual mill.
 
Yeah, but 30# of grain is not fun to crank by hand... I would much rather flip a switch :mug:
 
Komocabo said:
Yeah, but 30# of grain is not fun to crank by hand... I would much rather flip a switch :mug:
Click to expand...

I don't brew enough to get tired of hand cranking. I sort of enjoy it, 25lb grain bill is my norm

Will say though I motorized it with a drill a couple times when time was limited.
 
Komocabo said:
Yeah, but 30# of grain is not fun to crank by hand... I would much rather flip a switch :mug:
Click to expand...

I can understand not wanting to crank 30lbs of malt through a Malt Mill by hand. I routinely cranked between 25lbs and 30lbs through my mill by hand without taking a break when was I in my thirties; however, I was in outstanding physical condition at that point in time.
 
At the risk of opening up the interminable discussion of roller mills (all the stuff discussed heretofore in this thread, e.g., Malt Mill, Crankenstein, etc.) and a Corona-type plate mill, I've been using the latter for over four years with complete satisfaction. I use a "Victoria" mill bought from Discount Tommy on eBay for less than $25 delivered, and power it with an old Craftsman 1/2" drill I had lying around. I can go through 20# of grain in under 10 minutes, and the resultant grist hits my numbers in all kinds of beers, every batch. The mess associated with these mills can be pretty much eliminated by mounting it in a 5-gal. bucket.

My rig, along with many others, can be viewed in the "Ugly Junk" thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-ugly-junk-corona-mill-station-90849/index21.html#post1408147
 
My 2 cents...

I went cheap and bought a cereal killer for around $100. Its been a good mill. Run it with a drill, takes about 10 minutes, including setup & weighing, to do a 15 lb grain bill. That being said, I've run probably 200lbs of grain through it and I can already tell that the rollers are getting worn out. I sort of wish I would have saved an extra hundred dollars or so and bought a monster mill.
 
The monster mills will last longer,being harder metal. but costs a couple hundred having to buy all the parts seperately. I got the Barley Crusher with 7lb hopper,hand crank & mounted to the baseboard that fits on top of my 5G home depot bucket for $130 something. Since i do partial mash,hand cranking 4-6lbs of grain isn't bad at all. I also wonder if using drills,etc on them are the reason some wear out so fast?!
 
Heck yeah it's "ok" to just get a Schmidling JSP maltmill -- those things last forever. The Brew n Grow stores around here like to use those for customer grinding, and with all that use, they seem to hold up. You could probably argue they're overkill for home use.
 
My Barley Crusher hasn't let me down yet, though I've only got a year on it. The biggest downside I've come to is the adjustment mechanism. Each side of the roller must be adjusted individually. It's not a big complaint but if something's got to be nit-picked, that'll be it for me. Kyle
 
If you can swing the cash, Monster mill2 2.0. With hopper and base. So easy to adjust and built like a tank. You will also need a drill though to run it. So it is a little expensive. But its a sweet mill!
 
Stocktonbrew said:
If you can swing the cash, Monster mill2 2.0. With hopper and base. So easy to adjust and built like a tank. You will also need a drill though to run it. So it is a little expensive. But its a sweet mill!
Click to expand...

My experience also. Started with a barley crusher, then MM3 which was a pain to change gap settings, ended up with MM2 with the 2" rollers. So far - 2 months - it seems the sweet spot, easy gap setting, good consistent crush, no mechanical issues at all.
 
speedyellow said:
heck yeah it's "ok" to just get a schmidling jsp maltmill -- those things last forever. The brew n grow stores around here like to use those for customer grinding, and with all that use, they seem to hold up. You could probably argue they're overkill for home use.
Click to expand...

+1
 
Sounds like there are several good mills out there. I have had the adjustable JSP mill for around 10 years and never had an issue with it. I actually just got off my but and am in the final stages of hooking a motor up to it. I used to use a drill and it was a piece of cake. I recently started brewing more and decided to buy 2-row by the sack so I wanted to finally get the mill motorized. I'm a furniture maker on the side so i'm going to build a really nice mill that will actually look like a regular piece of furniture when not in use. I'm excited to start it and will certainly post pics. Anyway +1 for the JSP but it really does sound like you have a lot of good choices and you can basically but the one that fits your budget and still meets your bling requirements.
 
Stocktonbrew said:
If you can swing the cash, Monster mill2 2.0. With hopper and base. So easy to adjust and built like a tank. You will also need a drill though to run it. So it is a little expensive. But its a sweet mill!
Click to expand...

The Monster mill2 2.0 now has a new adjuster on it that I like a lot. Although once set, there is little adjustment necessary. Go to there website to see the new adjuster, it is pretty sweet.
 
Rebel mill for the win. Its an awesome mill. I don't know if they still make them.
 
All of you have great suggestions on a mill but nobody asked what style of mashing (tun or BIAB), how big of batches, how often he plans to brew, nor how big his bank account is. All of these should be considered before purchasing a mill.
 
I should have caveated my recommendation by stating the non-adjustable MaltMill is gapped with continuous sparging in mind. The non-adjustable MaltMill will work with other methods, but it will not crush malt into fine powder. It is gapped to leave most of the husk intact. However, for those who continuous sparge, the non-adjustable MaltMill is a rock solid, low-cost roller mill that stands up to years of heavy use. The only downside to purchasing any of the JSP MaltMill models is having to deal with Jack.
 
I've read way too many horror stories about Barley Crusher's customer service to ever want to buy their products. I bought a Monster Mill 2 and it's fantastic.
 
Good choice. All I can say about the BC is that I've had great success with their mill. I was skeptical about BC's customer service recently, and dreading the apparent no response via email.... But to my surprise, they responded within 2 days and took the time to answer my questions.
 
My barley crusher has worked fine so far. But I was wondering if it breaks down eventually,if the MM2 roller parts would fit in place of the BC one?
 
Has anyone used a Millar Mill B3? I came across its website and it says it has hardened rollers and a similar gap adjustment system like a monster mill 2.2.
 

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