MillMaster v MaltZilla Mills

[Cloud Surfer]

I need a mill. I was going to get the MaltZilla, then I found the MillMaster which looks very good. The larger, fluted rollers in the MillMaster look better to my eye than the rollers used in the MaltZilla.

Anyone care to comment on these mills or any others I may have missed.

 

[Outback]

when i upgraded my mill i was heading to a millmaster, but when i found out how much they have gone up in price stayed looking around. I ended up with a mattmill. Awesome bit of kit, full of German know how and comes with a fair amount of gravity so you know there is some serious metal in there.

 

[duncbrewer]

I looked at the MattMill and it's solid, was prohibitive shipping to NZ, did think of getting one on a return to UK. However Covid scuppered those plans and then Brexit has made export to UK tricky. The Maltzilla I have looks to have a lot of copy of these Mattmills.

 

[Cloud Surfer]

I need it now, so no chance getting one when I’m overseas or having to wait for delivery.

The MillMaster and MaltZilla are almost the same price once you buy the power source for the MaltZilla. You need a drill for the MillMaster but I’ve got lots floating around here. All the negatives I’ve seen about the MaltZilla were from the free spinning roller that gets jammed. I wonder if you’ve seen that issue dunc. The rollers look a lot better on the MillMaster being fluted and much larger.

 

[philrob]

I've been using the original MillMaster since it was first released about 13 or 14 years ago. I still hand mill, and don't bother with a drill any more, as I can mill 5 kg in no more than 10 minutes. Unless you can seriously slow the speed of your drill, you will get a better crush hand milling, as it leaves the husks mostly intact but crushing the grains, rather than shattering the husks and grains. Works for me, and I normally achieve over 90% extraction efficiency. For the brief period I tried milling with a drill my efficiency dropped. One great feature of the MillMaster is that the rollers are geared, so never any slippage.

 

[Cloud Surfer]

Sounds good Phil. I think I’ve made my choice.

 

[TheAussieBrewer]

MillMaster hands down, is the best mill on the market, sure this MaltZilla fills a gap in the market but it is not built to last like the MillMaster.

The question is, Do you want to buy 1 mill or 2?

My MillMaster has probably milled a couple Ton of malt and is showing no signs of slowing down

 

[Cloud Surfer]

I think 1 will suffice.

 

[TheAussieBrewer]

I think 1 will suffice.

Then I’d suggest buying the MillMaster so you don’t have to buy it second

 

[Cloud Surfer]

Yes my philosophy is to buy once, so I always look for quality that will last.

 

[duncbrewer]

Cloud Surfer

I'd say that most of my views were expressed in this thread a few days ago.

https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/brewzilla-65l.102574/page-3#post-1566758
We discussed mills and my experience with the maltzilla on the end of this thread page 3 with lots of links etc.

 

[Cloud Surfer]

Sorry dunc, I forgot it was you who gave me all that great info in your post. Based on that I was literally about to hit the buy button on the MaltZilla when I thought I should do a quick google check. That’s when I found the MillMaster.

I really appreciate the effort you went to and feel like I am well informed because of that.

 

[hairydog]

I bought a millmaster years ago pre fluted rollers (knurled) and found the grain husk wasnt grabbing to the mill roller
and millmaster sent a fluted roller free of charge and it hasnt missed a beat,i coupled this with a gearbox and speed
controller and a mate bent up a hopper and she hasnt missed a beat.

 

[Cloud Surfer]

I bought a millmaster years ago pre fluted rollers (knurled) and found the grain husk wasnt grabbing to the mill roller
and millmaster sent a fluted roller free of charge and it hasnt missed a beat,i coupled this with a gearbox and speed
controller and a mate bent up a hopper and she hasnt missed a beat.

I noticed that the German MattMill has knurled rollers, and the original MillMaster had knurled rollers before changing to fluted rollers. Just like your comment, everything I found suggested the fluted rollers were a good upgrade for the MillMaster.

I bought the hopper to go with it so I’m looking forward to using it next week.

 

[Keg King]

Take a look at our Malt King 3 roller geared if you get a chance.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

I've been using the original MillMaster since it was first released about 13 or 14 years ago. I still hand mill, and don't bother with a drill any more, as I can mill 5 kg in no more than 10 minutes. Unless you can seriously slow the speed of your drill, you will get a better crush hand milling, as it leaves the husks mostly intact but crushing the grains, rather than shattering the husks and grains. Works for me, and I normally achieve over 90% extraction efficiency. For the brief period I tried milling with a drill my efficiency dropped. One great feature of the MillMaster is that the rollers are geared, so never any slippage.

I would be interested to see your grist. Certainly the MillMaster is well built and draws grain really well. The only issue that we found is when grain falls in between the flutes you get the grain not going through as small a gap and other pieces of grain get squashed quite a lot as they get squashes by the peaks in the roller. The MillMaster mills quite fast though so if you are milling more than 50kg of grain you might find the time saving to be 10-20 minutes faster than our MaltZilla.

The MaltZilla has much finer roller surface and certainly if you do not clean the mill the surface of the diamond coating can get bogged up eventually so just requires a small clean with wire brush, cloth, compressed air or something. The diamonds practically last forever though and will not go blunt like knurling. Often the knurling on other mills like our three roller grain mill work really great when new but when the knurling goes blunt it doesn't draw as well. The diamond coating gives the most consistent crush as all the grains fall through a very consistent gap size.

So having used both mill types I would say:

MaltZilla Pros
- More consistent crush and very high quality crush
- Includes integrated low rpm gearbox and motor
- Very long lasting diamond coating

MaltZilla Cons
- Mills slower so not as good for large batches when doing more than 20kg of grain
- Requires the odd clean every now and then


MillMaster Pros
- Mills faster and great for large batches of grain 50kg and above
- Fluted rolls never require cleaning and will still draw due to aggressive fluted.
- Heavy duty construction

MillMaster Cons
- No motor included
- Not as consistent crush in our opinion


I would not really recommend using a drill in my opinion. It's hard to control the speed consistently and if you vary the mill speed from batch to batch it's just one more variable you have to contend with on your brew day. So whatever option you go for I highly recommend installing a motor that will deliver a slow consistent RPM. Yes a cordless drill will work but it's hard to get the speed consistent and at a low RPM. Would be keen to hear about what other motors you guys have found for the job? Any good ideas out there?

 

[Cloud Surfer]

I would be interested to see your grist. Certainly the MillMaster is well built and draws grain really well. The only issue that we found is when grain falls in between the flutes you get the grain not going through as small a gap and other pieces of grain get squashed quite a lot as they get squashes by the peaks in the roller. The MillMaster mills quite fast though so if you are milling more than 50kg of grain you might find the time saving to be 10-20 minutes faster than our MaltZilla.

The MaltZilla has much finer roller surface and certainly if you do not clean the mill the surface of the diamond coating can get bogged up eventually so just requires a small clean with wire brush, cloth, compressed air or something. The diamonds practically last forever though and will not go blunt like knurling. Often the knurling on other mills like our three roller grain mill work really great when new but when the knurling goes blunt it doesn't draw as well. The diamond coating gives the most consistent crush as all the grains fall through a very consistent gap size.

So having used both mill types I would say:

MaltZilla Pros
- More consistent crush and very high quality crush
- Includes integrated low rpm gearbox and motor
- Very long lasting diamond coating

MaltZilla Cons
- Mills slower so not as good for large batches when doing more than 20kg of grain
- Requires the odd clean every now and then


MillMaster Pros
- Mills faster and great for large batches of grain 50kg and above
- Fluted rolls never require cleaning and will still draw due to aggressive fluted.
- Heavy duty construction

MillMaster Cons
- No motor included
- Not as consistent crush in our opinion


I would not really recommend using a drill in my opinion. It's hard to control the speed consistently and if you vary the mill speed from batch to batch it's just one more variable you have to contend with on your brew day. So whatever option you go for I highly recommend installing a motor that will deliver a slow consistent RPM. Yes a cordless drill will work but it's hard to get the speed consistent and at a low RPM. Would be keen to hear about what other motors you guys have found for the job? Any good ideas out there?

All good information. I'm not sure how much the MillMaster design has changed over the years, but the current model has geared, assymetric rollers so the peaks and valleys in each roller match up to provide a uniform gap. MillMaster also state that crush quality is independent of mill speed and you can crush anywhere between 100rpm and 500rpm, so a hand drill is a good choice. Maybe not so using knurled rollers.

My understanding was that fluted rollers produce a higher quality crush because they don't rip the husk like the knurled rollers do.

 

[MHB]

Be a little careful going too fast, you can get enough heat generated from compression to harm enzymes.

At a guestimate I would say aim for around 300 RPM.
The speed does make a difference to your crush in other ways to. If you are going too fast the endosperm sort of explodes and you get more flour, same gap going a bit slower and you will get more kibble and better husk fragments that act as filter material.
Milling is the first chance most brewers get to effect the brewing outcome its worth "wasting" a couple of kg of malt getting the speed and the gap optimised, will pay dividends for the rest of your brewing life.
Mark

 

[Cloud Surfer]

Be a little careful going too fast, you can get enough heat generated from compression to harm enzymes.

At a guestimate I would say aim for around 300 RPM.
The speed does make a difference to your crush in other ways to. If you are going too fast the endosperm sort of explodes and you get more flour, same gap going a bit slower and you will get more kibble and better husk fragments that act as filter material.
Milling is the first chance most brewers get to effect the brewing outcome its worth "wasting" a couple of kg of malt getting the speed and the gap optimised, will pay dividends for the rest of your brewing life.
Mark

I’ve organised Steve to help me optimise the gap.

 

[MHB]

I'll arrange for my sift set to be available; I have seen optimising a mill change efficiency by up to 20%.

Which if you think about it means every 5th grist is free, even 10% means 1 in 10 comes cost free.
Getting it right will make for more extract, better conversion, faster recirculation and even less extraction of husk tannins.
Worth working on.
Mark