Mill suggestions

[pilgrimspiss]

I'm not overly fussed by the hopper size (just pointing it out), I am happy to just keep filling it up and let the drill work it's magic. The shaft fits fine to my Ozito spade drill.

Just bought one of these instead of using the drill. Constantly have inconsistent speeds and burnt out a few drills doing the 'whoops pulled trigger to hard....whoops now its to slow....dammit! pulled trigger to hard again!!' Hard mount FTW.

http://www.motiondynamics.com.au/worm-drive-motor-12v-24v-200w-180-rpm-20nm-torque.html

 

[spog]

MashMaster mill for me very happy with it powered by an old washing machine motor with a fan belt onto a 12 inch wheel turns at a nice slow speed.
Cheers....spog..

 

[sp0rk]

MashMaster mill for me very happy with it powered by an old washing machine motor with a fan belt onto a 12 inch wheel turns at a nice slow speed.
Cheers....spog..

Where did you get the 12 inch wheel from?
I've been looking for one for a while now

 

[spog]

Where did you get the 12 inch wheel from?
I've been looking for one for a while now

The mill wheel comes from Adelaide pulley company it was a bulk buy organised by BYB a few years back can't remember the price.
They are in the phone book,try online yellow or white pages.
The belt I got from a machinery supply shop,I did a rough measure of the size got one as close as possible and mounted the motor at a height to suit.


The pulley came with a grub screw fitted for locking onto the flat face of the roller spline,but no " key" ? to lock the wheel onto the spline. ( this the groove in the spline which has a matching groove in the wheel/ pulley centre) I made one from a piece of metal which suited the groove width using a grinder.
The motor which has shit it's self was 1/4 hp 1450 rpm and the 12 inch or 305 mm wheel reduced the mill speed to 950 rpm. If I remember correctly.
Cheers....spog... On a side note in the third pic on the rhs you may see a small white package,this is silica gel usually found in electrical/ white goods packaging this helps keep moisture under control so the rollers are protected.

 

[pk.sax]

Crankendstein with ss rollers. My hopper is ghetto and effective to the point I'll probably never upgrade it. Some day someone will make a water bottle larger than 4L that fits into a standard juice bottle cap and that'd be it. It's had a few rebirths, just chuck the bottle when moving/packing/damaged and get another again. Holds about 4 kg of grain each run, I use the ozito spade handle drill too. Have got the speed setting just right and simply power it on.

 

[aussiebrewer]

I wouldn't go the Keg King mill again
The bearings in mine are already gummed up and starting to get a little "grindy" (in less than 1 & 1/2 sacks of grain)
Might have to look at replacing them with bushes or maybe ceramic bearings

I have the keg king mill. Had it for about 18months. Probably done about 400kg of grain so and still going strong. Maybe you got a dud... For the price I really couldn't pass it and hopefully the next mill I buy is a commercial one.


Cheers
Matt

 

[Helles]

Pretty ghetto hopper on a keg king mill
Mill has been awesome never missed a beat
Run it with a drill for now ready to rig up to a motor
Hopper is just screwed to hopper that came with mill and screwed together
Took me about an hour to do hopper

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Just few things.

All miils are different

Different grains mill diferent

Speed can affect your crush

Roller diameter and finish affect your crush

Dry /moist/wet grain will affect ctush

There is no proper mill roller gap

You need to get the feel for YOUR mill. Spend time playing with it.

The same grain from the same supllier will vary from each batch

You will find your self adjusting your mill over time.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

.

 

[Camo6]

You are probably best with a purpose built malt mill when talking about those sorts of dollars.

I did a lot of research recently and arrived at a Mashmaster Mini Mill. There are lots of different mills on the market and lots of people have about 3 or 4 different varieties - you can google "Grain Mill site:aussiehomebrewer.com" to get heaps of results. I went for the Mini Mill as apparently people believe the gear drive is a real advantage over other mills.

http://www.mashmaster.com/p/4571858/mashmaster-minimill-stainless-steel-grain-mill.html

Cheers,
Idzy

Another vote for the mash master. Get an ozito drill to drive it. Stainless steel and geared. I haven't put that many bags of grain through mine yet, but it is excellent.

I have a mashmaster mini mill. With the teeth on the rollers, itll never slip. There are two negatives I believe. It only holds 1kg of grain in the supplied hopper and the drive wont take a standard cordless drill. Its too big. Using my 240V drill it rips it up too much. I crack by hand which is fine, but does take a while to get through 10kg due to these two points. I should really build a bigger hopper...

+1 for the Mashmaster Mini. Fantastic mill, the only downside the the small hopper. I use the high-tourque Ozito spade drill to power it, got through 10kg of grain in about 5 minute.......GOLD!!

Also set the gap to about 1.1-1.2mm got the most perfect crush, husks were 90% intact the rest crushed quite finely but mash tun still drained very quickly.

I love this mill. Did all my research first and the extra $40-50 outlay outweighed awaiting delivery from the states or having to reinforce the frame or having a lazy roller. Being Australian made was a bonus but not the final selling point.
The hopper is a piece of crap however. Do not buy! It's not very durable and mine was cracked before I'd even put grain through it. For about $30 and a couple of hours mucking around I had a decent MDF hopper made that'll handle 10 kilo of grain.
The drive is 1/2" from memory and won't fit in most drill chucks. I bought a 1/2" drill press chuck from bunnings for sweet FA and used it as an adaptor for a 3/8 chuck. Saves marking the input shaft every time you do up the drill chuck too.
I ended up attaching a wiper motor to mine and while it's damn slow to crush, it produces very little flour and runs off a 12v car battery that hasn't been recharged in a year and a half. And it's extremely mobile.
Here's some pics of probably my favourite brewery addition:

 

[idzy]

Another vote for the mash master. Get an ozito drill to drive it. Stainless steel and geared. I haven't put that many bags of grain through mine yet, but it is excellent.

Vouch for the drill too. Very good, slow speed, high torque.

http://www.ozito.com.au/ozhd1050wa

 

[idzy]

Just bought one of these instead of using the drill. Constantly have inconsistent speeds and burnt out a few drills doing the 'whoops pulled trigger to hard....whoops now its to slow....dammit! pulled trigger to hard again!!' Hard mount FTW.

http://www.motiondynamics.com.au/worm-drive-motor-12v-24v-200w-180-rpm-20nm-torque.html

Have one of these too, yet to build it however, waiting for the right table/bench/trolley to build onto. The trigger too hard/soft/fast/slow thing is combated by the adjustable knob on the trigger, it is like a cruise control to set the speed/torque the unit operates at. That is the reason this 1050W drill is so good, many other drills are too fast and not torquey enough.

 

[pilgrimspiss]

Where did you get the 12 inch wheel from?
I've been looking for one for a while now

Try a local ag machinery type place or local engineering place. They tend to carry a lot of pulleys for farm machinery.

 

[Yob]

Ain't nobody mentioned the poor old marga mill 3 roller yet, mine came second hand with my first ag rig (thanks Mario) and hasn't failed me yet after years of faithful service.. Got one of those 10l water bottles with the base cut off for the hopper... Aldi Taurus drill to drive it. Cheap as chips and ghetto as Detroit but it's not meant to win prizes for aesthetics, I did note that it wasn't quite as fast as the malt muncher at the last swap though and it's metal will surely be tested at the next one

 

[spog]

A point to consider about a hopper is if you have a large one maybe try to fit some kind of shut off gate so if the power fails or any other disaster you can lift the hopper off the mill without spilling too much grain.
I think a member here did this and posted pics years back.
Cheers...spog..

 

[mrsupraboy]

Hey guys thanks for the comments been reading all of them and following. I'm surprised no one has put a diy thing on making the hopper. And catch bag for the grain. What is the difference the mm2 and the new one. And the mm3 etc

Thinking I'm gonna get the mm2. And maybe building up with mdf. Tho wondering how you would clean the mdf up. So may look into something else.

 

[spog]

I use a cut down water fountain bottle these work well and come with a built on handle.
Mine won't hold a full crush as it had to be fitted under the mill and there wasn't much room so I have another which I transfer into then carry on crushing.
As for your hopper maybe use some ally sheet held together with small section angles a and rivets then it can be washed if need be.
Practice getting the hopper size and cuts right by building it out of cardboard first,getting a got fit and not stuffing up good ally sheet.
The ally sheets can be found in hardware shops
..
Cheers...spog...

 

[mrsupraboy]

Hey guys so for bringing this thread back. I've decided to go the monstermill. Was wondering what was better the mm3 or the mm2. Is the mm3 gonna do the grain 2 much or is it the better way to go

 

[QldKev]

Mm2 and mm3 are both great mills. The mm3 allows you to crush faster and is supposed to give marginally better crush. The mm2 gives a great crush and after using AndrewQld's when I first got into all grain, i went the same way. I thought the extra money for upgrades to 3 rollers, etc was better spent elsewhere in the brewery, such as a dedicated motor to run it. I'm still happy with the mill about 5 years later.

 

[Kranky]

Hey guys so for bringing this thread back. I've decided to go the monstermill. Was wondering what was better the mm3 or the mm2. Is the mm3 gonna do the grain 2 much or is it the better way to go

I got a three roller a few years back when I first started brewing. I never got the gist of how to use it properly and I had more than one **** attack trying to use it.

Maybe I completely missed something I dont know. Basically each side of the adjustable roller fitted into an orbital knob on either side. Once out of sinc I could rarely get back into sinc, so milling was very difficult. There was nothing on the side knobs to indicate what position they were in.

Eventually one of the knobs on the side became firmly wedged into the side wall so I tried to smash the fucker out with a shifter. Goodbye mill. The rollers are still in good nick though. They're in a box somewhere in my shed.

I think they may have mad some improvements since I got mine but I wont ever get another.

I got a mashmaster mill next. Much, much easier to use but somehow I managed to snap the 3 pins holding one of the rollers in. A mate of a mate fixed it.