Can you post a picture of the superior crush?
No worries. That's a fair point. You can see the testing results below.
We have lots of photos showing various different test results. It's difficult to draw direct comparison between one mill and another as if you set the gap distance on one mill this doesnt necessarily give the best results in another mill. So the optimal gap will vary depending on the mill design and roller surface. With that said these test were done with similar gap setting.
When we varied the gap setting we got similar relative results to each other.
1. If you look at the glass on the left this is clearly not milled grain.
2. The middle glass is grain that has gone through a 3 roller grain mill
3. The glass on the right is the grain that has gone through the
MaltZilla mill
This particular test we were measuring the volumetric difference in the grist. So more volume is generally considered to be better and this is probably due to the fact that the husks were more intact.
In terms of the amount of powder that was generated it was maybe slightly less in the MaltZilla but not a very big difference. All grains in both instances were fully cracked open. The
3 Roller Mill had many more of the grains and husk were fully chopped in half whereby the grist from the maltzill had the husk intact but the contents had been ejected from the husk.
If you look at the results below in the bags we did further testing with moisture added. We added 2% moisture (by weight) and in our testing this gave the best results in both instances and I would definitely recommend this practice for anyone milling their own grain. Adding moisture was done with a misting device while stirring the grain. Then we left the grain for about 6 hrs for the moisture to become even throughout the grist.
When wet milling and adding moisture I should say that most mills are also not particularly suited to this as the majority of rollers out there are made from steel and if you regularly add moisture to your grains then it's likely that steel rollers will develop rust on them unless you clean and oil them after each use but this is quite tedious. Both the
Standard MaltZilla and
Premium MaltZilla made from Diamond coated stainless for this reason.
As you can see from the results below we had the grist on the left with more favourable results whereby the husk was more intact and had not been "chopped" up as much by the knurling.
From out testing surface friction on a roller surface is far more effective at drawing grain and producing a good grist rather than aggressive knurling and also the diamonds have far longer lasting friction than the knurling that goes blunt over time.
Knurling for a long time has been the standard probably because knurling is a less expensive process and is quite easy to do and probably because we didn't know any better. For decades we have just made similar knurled rollers probably just because the first guy did it and nobody has thought to experiment with alternatives. It's definitely been enjoyable working on this project and challenging this long standing tradition of mill manufacture.
The long lasting surface friction developed by diamond coating is sufficient to eliminate the need for 3 roller mills and geared rollers.
