Knurling on a Mashmaster Mini Mill

[Maheel]

Thanks BBrew

once i get it up and running again i will do some tests

kind of happy to buy the roller as i reckon it's a great mill either way and well worth supporting the local supplier

 

[bradsbrew]

Thanks BBrew

once i get it up and running again i will do some tests

kind of happy to buy the roller as i reckon it's a great mill either way and well worth supporting the local supplier

Yeah, I only had the one roller replaced. I am almost tempted to see how much it would cost to buy the long roller. Will see how the blended rollers really perform once i can get back to brewing.

 

[Zorco]

Thanks BBrew

once i get it up and running again i will do some tests

kind of happy to buy the roller as i reckon it's a great mill either way and well worth supporting the local supplier

like bradsbrew I had only a single flute replaced and this arvo I swapped it into my mill. No shaft size issues whatsoever! Frank issued me with a couple of sheets of textbook abrasion paper due to his spot on awareness of other people's experiences. Considering these sheets are-a spare now I'll need to find some hardwood, BMWs or small children to rub a few microns off!

Now the knurled / fluted mill. It is friggin' SKOOKUM! Holy schmacko's it is alive again. menacing, exigent, violent. My DC/DC power supply can drive full power into any volt/amp combo. My mini mill is driven by an awesome Australian made wheelchair motor with worm drive gearbox and therefore has beefcake by the truck load. Setting it at 1 rev every 15 seconds, my yearning for slow mo sugar polymer extrication was duly satiated.

Absolutely brilliant Frank. The way the flute brutalities the grain into military order has a noticeable torque need which my drive must and does fulfill. I'm actually keen on investigating the possible advantages of the flute / knurled combination. My gut instinct is that I prefer this matchup. Using the ideal roller spacing I have excellent husk integrity and I hypothesize the knurling is giving the luscious white maltose/ maltotriose/ glucose core a little touchup without pulverising into flour.

With a flute flute combo I suspect it bites flute onto smooth and then smooth onto flute thus oscillating the crush. My combo has each roller with its own role...

Can do video for those with the curious minds!

 

[bradsbrew]

Just tasting the results of last weeks trial run of the new roller.
100% JW ALE, the mysery hops for bittering and a handful of styrians late.

Edit: not wey pils.

 

[Liam_snorkel]

first mash-in this afternoon with the new rollers. no dough balls. mash eff at 85% which is ballpark for this grain bill (6.5kg) before I started having issues with the old ones. you bloody ripper!

 

[Mr B]

Just tasting the results of last weeks trial run of the new roller.
100% wey pils, the mysery hops for bittering and a handful of styrians late.

How did you get it so clear so quick?

Is it finished fermenting?

 

[bradsbrew]

How did you get it so clear so quick?

Is it finished fermenting?

Brewed last Friday, pitched with around 250 to 300ml slurry on saturday. Fermented for 6 days at 18 then 1 day at 22 then crashed at minus 1 overnight. Filtered into keg this arvo. Gave it a 3/4 Ross method for fast carb. Should be spot on for carb tomorrow.

Cheers

 

[Mr B]

Brewed last Friday, pitched with around 250 to 300ml slurry on saturday. Fermented for 6 days at 18 then 1 day at 22 then crashed at minus 1 overnight. Filtered into keg this arvo. Gave it a 3/4 Ross method for fast carb. Should be spot on for carb tomorrow.

Cheers

Fair enough, thanks and nice work

 

[Markbeer]

I swapped my roller over to the fluted and it is milling very very quickly and I didn't even think my other one was that worn.

I had to spend a fair bit of time sanding the spindles so they would fit.

Should be able to mill 12kg in a few minutes now.

Thanks Frank.

 

[Mardoo]

Any more reports on sparge, efficiency, etc? Although I think I'm already sold on the new Mashmaster.

 

[Liam_snorkel]

I've brewed 3 times with the new rollers now - efficiency is the same as before, I BIAB so no comment RE sparge - the only noticeable difference has been NO dough balls when mashing in.

 

[Wimmig]

Hmmm I've got one of these units with knurling, makes me edgy :/

 

[Zorco]

Weekend before last: English Barleywine - Pre Boil 1.100 First Runnings, 1.060 Second Runnings for another Overall grain yield 82%.
Last Weekend : American Barleywine - Pre Boil 1.090 First Runnings, 1.044 Second Runnings for overall grain yield 81%

Super fast crush, not a single chance of a stuck sparge or slow recirc. I'm going to tighten the crush from 0.88mm to 0.80mm and try again.

I need a grant as well; suspect I'll get a better sugar transfer if I'm not sucking the wort with my pump.

+1 no doughballs
total, 50kg of grain in a fortnight.....in a matter of minutes.

Sounding stoked in my post above was entirely and libation inducedly deliberate.

 

[Rocker1986]

Echoing Liam's comment re the dough balls. I also BIAB, but my efficiency has gone up; this coincided with moving to a coarser crush and keeping the mash agitated through stirring it periodically, which I actually started doing before getting the new fluted roller. Coarser crush was mainly to try to get the grains to go through the thing. Now of course, no issue with that. So I guess the efficiency has remained pretty much the same on my system as well.

 

[waggastew]

I had some issues with crush in the last few brews and this thread made me paranoid. My main issue was grain jumping over the rollers and a slow feed.

Had a play yesterday with gap size and drill speed. Ended up widening the gap and speeding the drill up. I had previously made the gap thinner after reading about 1mm gaps. I had also slowed the drill down as again I thought slow results in less husk damage.

Long story short the crush now seems back to normal (i.e. how it performed when I first bought it), hardly any uncrushed grain and a nice fast feed.

Just posting to ensure people consider other parameters before assuming it's the knurling. no affil etc

 

[BrissyBrew]

I should have my new rollers by Friday so I will attempt to do a side-by-side with 2 different gaps measuring the time taken and with a photo of the crush.

I'll do something like this, all with 1kg of the same base malt:

Old rollers, 1.25mm
Old rollers, 0.9mm
New rollers, 1.25mm
New rollers, 0.9mm

My current rollers are possibly a bit more problematic than other people here - they are not perfectly cylindrical (i.e., the ends are smaller than the middle) so this may or may not be of use.

Just a quick word to advise that you will not get the same crush comparing new rollers and old rollers at the same gap setting, its a little apple and oranges comparing the fluted rollers to the knurled rollers. As for the slightly tapered effect (its super small) it is there to balance out that the rollers do flex under load like all mills and obviously they flex in the centre.

 

[BrissyBrew]

The gears do separate, they are held in place with three small screws. I’ve just tried removing the gear from the non drive roller so my mill now has one driven and one passive roller.

Really surprised to find that grain won’t pass through the rollers at all now. It just rolls and bounces around on top of them. Had to open the gap up till the grain could almost fall through before it worked.

Needless to say the crush wasn’t adequate.

Drive both rollers double the applied friction force in the pinch point of the grain and rollers, hence why still put gears on our mills plus you don't have any problems getting the mill to feed with a full hopper. With the two fluted rollers on the new mills the 26 flutes in each roller are synchronised with the mesh of the two flutes (it's why you mill with a gap setting of zero). The mesh of the two flutes vary as the rollers spin around this actually changes the grist distribution by a couple percent in each pan if you change the gearing ratio. Last mill development I tested no gears 1:1 gears and gears with a ratio of 1:1.25, statistically no difference between 1:1 and 1:1.25 ratios although some of the sieves there was a 2-3% shift in distribution and more flour with the 1:25 gear ratio. Zero gears forget it, grist distribution shifts with the gap setting as the differential speed. The new fluted rollers are also more stable across a larger RPM range tested at about 220RPM and 530RPM measured with a digital tachometer. For those thinking we put gears on as a marketing ploy, we have not, gears ensure the mill feeds grain and you don't get slip, almost doubled the friction force applied at the pinch grip squeezing the last drops out of the smaller diameter rollers. The 1:1 ratio on the gears along with the fluted rollers meshing allows for a constant get setting for each revolution and more constant grist distribution regardless of RPM (no gears obviously you get larger speed differentials).

 

[BrissyBrew]

If anybody is having issues with their old knurled rollers please email me [email protected] (unfortunately my [email protected] gets about 3000 to 9000 pieces of spam a month, and I am yet to find a spam filter that is as good as the one gmail uses.

A big thank you to all my customers for their time, patience and understanding to resolve the knurled roller problems.

 

[Parks]

BB you are a legend. You have come through in spades. Thanks!

 

[user 35653]

Drive both rollers double the applied friction force in the pinch point of the grain and rollers, hence why still put gears on our mills plus you don't have any problems getting the mill to feed with a full hopper. With the two fluted rollers on the new mills the 26 flutes in each roller are synchronised with the mesh of the two flutes (it's why you mill with a gap setting of zero). The mesh of the two flutes vary as the rollers spin around this actually changes the grist distribution by a couple percent in each pan if you change the gearing ratio. Last mill development I tested no gears 1:1 gears and gears with a ratio of 1:1.25, statistically no difference between 1:1 and 1:1.25 ratios although some of the sieves there was a 2-3% shift in distribution and more flour with the 1:25 gear ratio. Zero gears forget it, grist distribution shifts with the gap setting as the differential speed. The new fluted rollers are also more stable across a larger RPM range tested at about 220RPM and 530RPM measured with a digital tachometer. For those thinking we put gears on as a marketing ploy, we have not, gears ensure the mill feeds grain and you don't get slip, almost doubled the friction force applied at the pinch grip squeezing the last drops out of the smaller diameter rollers. The 1:1 ratio on the gears along with the fluted rollers meshing allows for a constant get setting for each revolution and more constant grist distribution regardless of RPM (no gears obviously you get larger speed differentials).

Out of interest what's the difference in performance between a Fluted pair and a Fluted/Knurled Mix pair from your test results?