+2 for more cubes, one of the cheapest, and yet most versatile, bits of kit you can get. I think 3 is probably the magic number.
On mills (very tentatively :unsure: )
A mill is a good bit of kit to have. I have a mill. But do I
need one? Short answer is no. As has been said, good hbs will mill for you: yes, even a whole sack. The whole "will it store or will it stale if it is cracked?" is a
whole other debate, which I won't get into here. So basically, if you want to buy in bulk, do you
need a mill? Short answer to that is (imho, and without opening that debate in this thread or expressing an opinion on it): If you believe cracked grain will store without staling for the length of time it will take to use it- no. If you believe cracked grain will
not store without staling before you need to use it - yes.
Incidently, just so you know, my decision to buy a mill was not influenced by the storage debate. The 3 main reasons were that a) I wanted a mill for uses other than brewing (ie flour), and I roast my own malt, and therefore need to have my grain whole to be able to do this. and c) I wanted the flexibility of being able to have my grain milled to different specifications per batch, if required, and change on the fly to best tweak the performance of my particular setup.
As I think someone else already pointed out, when making your purchases of essentials, think ahead to how you can incorporate non essentials. It's referred to as "modular thinking" in various trades. (such as IT....."if I get this motherboard with this amount of RAM because it's all I can afford, will that motherboard take more RAM when I can better afford it, or will I have to get a new motherboard when I update?")
And whilst I'm doing (another) long post; in relation to the retailers.....I have had dealings with 3 of the retailers who on this site. As far as the financial side of the transactions is concerned, I was very satisfied. (And I'm part yorkie, part scot. Which means that I will squeeze a penny tight enough that my palms bleed.) As far as the customer service of these 3 retailers is concerned, they were all excellent. I have never found retailers in any other industry to be so helpful as in brewing. Ever. For a retailer to spend time on a forum like this makes good business sense, as it builds a lot of goodwill. However, the retailers on here go well beyond goodwill with the amount of time and effort they make to post, helping anyone who asks, customer or not, without question. And thats not even going into brew demos, etc......
Sorry about the rather long-ish OT part of this......
Edit: spelling. My fingers are drunk.
