Grain Mill Advice

[mosto]

Hi all,

Back for some more advice. Purchased some grains for my first go at steeping to add to a kit. Looking at buying a grain mill to do small quantities for kits and bits initially, but with an eye to moving to BIAB later. I've found a couple online to compare:

This one
http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=victorio...29,r:0,s:0,i:73

on ebay for $80 odd delivered

or this one

from a sponsor for about $200 delivered.

Given I'll be eventually looking to do full grain bills, I'm thinking it would be worth the extra $ for the second one as it looks as though it would handle bigger volumes.

Any thoughts/opinions appreciated, or if anyone has a cheaper/free alternative for milling up to 500g of specialty grains that I could use in the meantime and delay purchasing a proper mill until I'm ready to do full grain bills would be appreciated as well.

Cheers,
Mosto

 

[mxd]

i'd go a "real" one, some guys use coffee ginders and carona (I think that's what there called) mills, another option is buy from a shop and have it milled there. Some shops allow you to buy a "sack" and keep it at the shop.

Hi all,

Back for some more advice. Purchased some grains for my first go at steeping to add to a kit. Looking at buying a grain mill to do small quantities for kits and bits initially, but with an eye to moving to BIAB later. I've found a couple online to compare:

This one
http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=victorio...29,r:0,s:0,i:73

on ebay for $80 odd delivered

or this one

from a sponsor for about $200 delivered.

Given I'll be eventually looking to do full grain bills, I'm thinking it would be worth the extra $ for the second one as it looks as though it would handle bigger volumes.

Any thoughts/opinions appreciated, or if anyone has a cheaper/free alternative for milling up to 500g of specialty grains that I could use in the meantime and delay purchasing a proper mill until I'm ready to do full grain bills would be appreciated as well.

Cheers,
Mosto

 

[Crusty]

Quite a few of us have this one, excellent mill.
Run it with one of these & you'll never look back.

 

[Yob]

Sort through this lot

FWIW, I use a Marga Mill on an Aldi ($50) drill similar to that linked above, we recently got through a metric butt load of grain in a pretty short period of time.

If you are just going to do small amounts to begin with just do it by hand and get the drill (or use a battery drill) when you step up to cracking kilo's at a time, when I was still messing about with crystal additions to Kits and extract, it took longer to set it all up than it did to mill it.

Yob

 

[gravey]

$200 gets you a Monster Mill 2 with Base and Hopper delivered. Very happy with mine: http://www.monsterbrewinghardware.com/index.html

 

[sponge]

Yea I got myself a crankandstein 2A mill, with the base and hopper, and has worked a treat for a year now. Granted, its still early days compared to how long some people have had their mills for, but with the decent exchange rate, theyre not overly expensive to get them shipped with the extra for the price of a standard mill from AUS.

Crankandstein mills

Just another option...


Sponge

 

[Bribie G]

Marga mills are great, I'm onto my second one (first one was yonks old when I got it, the shaft finally stripped out but I gave it to a member who is handy and he's got it up and running again). I was more than happy to go again.

They can be easily adapted with chutes and bits from Bunnings. Hand cranking is a PITA, mostly just because of the time not the effort, which is surprisingly light.

Drill from Masters works fine, there are ways of easily fitting a shaft for the drill to grip onto, either a dynabolt or a shaft with a "wing" on each side at the end to fit into the existing slot in the mill, such shaft can be made by smashing the clear resin handle off a suitably sized Phillips screwdriver B)

So a total non engineer noob can get a Marga running quick smart.

See also:

For BIAB it pays to drill a hole or two in the "control dial" to give finer crushes which can improve efficiency and draining (but not too good for mashtun systems)

 

[jeremy]

+ 1 for Monster Mill II with base and hopper. I paid $221 incl delivery and it crushes my 6kg grain bill in under 2 mins with a $35 drill from the green shed.

 

[felten]

Go the crankandstein or monstermill, they should last a lifetime if looked after. Or spend a bit more for the mashmaster one, that should last several lifetimes.

 

[Amber Fluid]

I went through all this saga a month or two ago now. I had the Marga mill which was ok to do the job but I wanted something better so got the Millmaster Minimill and now all I can say is WOW!

 

[Wolfy]

Since you are just starting out, have a low volume of grain to crush, I'd suggest looking for a 2nd hand Marga mill, should come in around $50.
Then later on you can sell it for much the same price and upgrade to one of the 'real' more expensive brewing-grain-mills once you know you will get the use from it that will justify the expense.

 

[mosto]

Well, as always, plenty of great advice. The 2nd hand option may be the go Wolfy, until I progress to bigger grain bills. I've had a quick look on ebay and similar sites but can't find much. any ideas on where the best place to look may be?