Want To Buy A Grain Mill...

[Paul H]

Clark Rubber has a selection of rings which will suit. If not, you can get an o ring kit and make your own, though I would be very surprised if off the shelf o rings are not available.

Other places to try would be Enzed, Pirtek or any hydraulic shop.

Thanks will try..

Cheers

Paul

 

[Howlingdog]

Thanks will try..

Cheers

Paul

Paul,

A & B Seals PTY LTD‎ , 3 welch st, Underwood will have any seal you need.

HD

 

[felten]

Even though some Monster Mills and Crankandsteins can be adjusted relatively easily you will need a feeler guage to set the gap. Mashmaster has a big knob and you can click it around a couple of positions.

No feeler gauge required on the crankandstein 2d and 3d, they have detented adjusters with set increments, the same as the mashmaster I guess. It looks like the 2s, 2a and 3e would require a gauge though. Not sure if the monstermills have the same feature.

 

[stux]

MonsterMill's have straight eliptical adjusters (ie no clicking/notches)

So, it sounds like the lucky sod's with the stainless steel MillMaster's will have an indestructable rarity

A good tip I heard was just to use a credit card to set the mill gap, not sure what that equates to though

 

[tavas]

A hacksaw blade is about 40" or 1 mm, give or take a bit. Or a set of feeler gauges is pretty cheap. Credit card is probably about the same but would you want the knurled roller scratching your card?

 

[QldKev]

A hacksaw blade is about 40" or 1 mm, give or take a bit. Or a set of feeler gauges is pretty cheap. Credit card is probably about the same but would you want the knurled roller scratching your card?

Use the wife's c/card. Saves buying feeler gauges and saves her buying more crap


credit cards, set the points in a distributor, set the gap on a mill, even buy things, is there anything it can't do

QldKev

 

[Batz]

So, it sounds like the lucky sod's with the stainless steel MillMaster's will have an indestructable rarity

It does sound I like should have snapped one up in case the old Valley dies, and one day it will I suppose.

Current Millmaster is discontinued, as the demand for what was basically a commercial mill was not great enough against the current crop of cheap imports.
On the good news front, a new mill is on its way. Basically the same size rollers as the Monsters etc, but fully geared. I don't have news on the pricing yet, but i'm assured it will compete
very favourably with the current imports. I'm hoping less than a month away, but will confirm & announce formally when I have something definate.
I would recommend anyone wanting a new mill to hold fire & weigh this one up against the USA imports before making a decision.

Cheers Ross

It sounds like the new ones will be build for a price to compete with imports rather than a commercial quality unit. Bad luck for us brewers happy to pay that bit more for a mill that would have lasted life, who's fault? Ours!

Still mine stills works a treat and I maybe dead tomorrow..... especially as Tidalpete's paying the Cave a visit.

 

[Ross]

It does sound I like should have snapped one up in case the old Valley dies, and one day it will I suppose.




It sounds like the new ones will be build for a price to compete with imports rather than a commercial quality unit. Bad luck for us brewers happy to pay that bit more for a mill that would have lasted life, who's fault? Ours!

Still mine stills works a treat and I maybe dead tomorrow..... especially as Tidalpete's paying the Cave a visit.

Quality won't be comprimised, it's just the original mill had over 12kg of S/S in it with it's huge rollers, this impacted on material & freight costs.
There will be a new commercial mill even better specked than the current Millmaster, but it's a while off from production.

cheers Ross

 

[Batz]

Quality won't be comprimised, it's just the original mill had over 12kg of S/S in it with it's huge rollers, this impacted on material & freight costs.
There will be a new commercial mill even better specked than the current Millmaster, but it's a while off from production.

cheers Ross

Good to hear Ross, mines still crushing ATM but when it dies I'll be over for a mill and a beer, maybe two.....beers that is!

 

[kymba]

hey paul, i bought my o-rings from porters industrial sales - they have quite a range

i drive a home made wooden roller mill with 2 o-rings no worries. I put one o-ring each on each end of one roller then lever the the opposite roller into it, otherwise i get slippage

 

[Peteoz77]

Quality won't be comprimised, it's just the original mill had over 12kg of S/S in it with it's huge rollers, this impacted on material & freight costs.
There will be a new commercial mill even better specked than the current Millmaster, but it's a while off from production.

cheers Ross

Ross, if they had just kept making the original mill instead of only offering the stainless model, they would still be selling a lot of mills. I bought one a few years ago, and I consider it to be better than any other non commercial mill available (except the stainless model) I bought mine, made a table, motorised it and set up a hopper for less than $375. I am 110% happy and know I will be for as long as I make beer. Not sure why Mashmaster made the mistake of stopping the hardened steel version.. but as i said.. if they still offered them , they would still be selling them.

 

[tallie]

Hey Kris,
The millmaster is exactly designed that way, the biggest reason why I chose it after looking at the american mills. Have a look at one when you get a chance, there is no way this mill will fail the way it is geared. Not sure if there are any other mills designed that way.
IMO if you can somehow afford one now it's definately worth the money in the long run.

As I said before, something your kids will inherit and still use for decades.

As I was begining to suspect, it sounds like a geared mill is the way to go. Holding fire at the moment until the latest offering from Ross comes in.

Kris.
You are welcome to have a sticky beak at mine if you want. Combine a look at the mill with picking up your CPBF perhaps?
PM or drop me an email or give me a call...

Thanks Ben, would be good still to see the alternatives out there. I might even have a batch of grain that wants to have a closer look at the mill too - you know, to get a better idea on how it performs . Will be in touch once the weekend plans are known.

Cheers,
tallie

 

[Hatchy]

I ended up going with the 2" MM2. I was planning on getting the 1.5" MM3 but had a chat with a few brewers at brewboys last Thursday & ended up deciding that the bigger rollers were the way to go over the 3rd roller. I'm not sure how much difference it's likely to make.

Malted, maybe an experimental brewday one day? 2 batches with the same gear & same recipe, one batch milled with yr 3 roller & one milled with my 3 roller once I get it? Then we get drunk, forget which batch is which & decide that it doesn't matter which mill we use.

 

[argon]

I don't think I've heard brewers complain about the Monster Mill having slipping issues?

Timely bump to this thread... Crushed some grain last night with my mm2 which is about 3 months old and has had maybe 25kg through it. I am getting very frequent slippage on the non-driven roller. Essentially thgrain won't go through and the sriven roller just spins. Frustrating as he'll... Not sure what is gong on. Had to give the whole thing a bit of a shake/bump to get it going again. This happened a few times.

Assuming it's my gap set at 0.038? = too narrow? Or the amount if grain hitting the rollers. The hopper is a cooler bottle stuck in a piece of mdf with the whole at full bore of the neck of the bottle. Perhaps a combo of each? Too wide a feed and and too narrow a gap?

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[QldKev]

Timely bump to this thread... Crushed some grain last night with my mm2 which is about 3 months old and has had maybe 25kg through it. I am getting very frequent slippage on the non-driven roller. Essentially thgrain won't go through and the sriven roller just spins. Frustrating as he'll... Not sure what is gong on. Had to give the whole thing a bit of a shake/bump to get it going again. This happened a few times.

Assuming it's my gap set at 0.038? = too narrow? Or the amount if grain hitting the rollers. The hopper is a cooler bottle stuck in a piece of mdf with the whole at full bore of the neck of the bottle. Perhaps a combo of each? Too wide a feed and and too narrow a gap?

Anyone have any ideas?

With 0.038 do you mean 38 thou ? Cause that is not too narrow. Let use metric its easier 38 thou = 0.9652mm

I'm run my mm2 at 0.8mm and get no slippage at all, I start with a loaded hopper and push batches of about 20kg of grain through it and never have issues.

The key thing for the Monster mills is when mounting them they have to be perfectly square; and you need to ensure the free roller can spin freely. If it is tight to turn by hand you don't have it mounted square and you will have issues with feed.

QldKev

 

[sanpedro]

The key thing for the Monster mills is when mounting them they have to be perfectly square; and you need to ensure the free roller can spin freely. If it is tight to turn by hand you don't have it mounted square and you will have issues with feed.

I can second this I have only recently got an MM2 with their hopper and base. When I put it together the free roller wouldn't turn, but I re-torqued the mill onto the base more carefully, testing the free roller as I went and this fixed the problem

 

[argon]

With 0.038 do you mean 38 thou ? Cause that is not too narrow. Let use metric its easier 38 thou = 0.9652mm

I'm run my mm2 at 0.8mm and get no slippage at all, I start with a loaded hopper and push batches of about 20kg of grain through it and never have issues.

The key thing for the Monster mills is when mounting them they have to be perfectly square; and you need to ensure the free roller can spin freely. If it is tight to turn by hand you don't have it mounted square and you will have issues with feed.

QldKev

Thanks for that... yes 0.038thou via feeler gauge (had it set to 0.035thou originally but then opened up in an effort to rectify - no difference) The free roller turns fine by hand, from memory. Will have another look when i'm home. The other things i can think of is the speed of the driven roller... perhaps my drill is running too fast? When power is applied the driven roller spins and doesn't 'feed' the grain into the gap.

 

[Malted]

Malted, maybe an experimental brewday one day? 2 batches with the same gear & same recipe, one batch milled with yr 3 roller & one milled with my 2 roller once I get it? Then we get drunk, forget which batch is which & decide that it doesn't matter which mill we use.

I like your logic! :super:

 

[QldKev]

Thanks for that... yes 0.038thou via feeler gauge (had it set to 0.035thou originally but then opened up in an effort to rectify - no difference) The free roller turns fine by hand, from memory. Will have another look when i'm home. The other things i can think of is the speed of the driven roller... perhaps my drill is running too fast? When power is applied the driven roller spins and doesn't 'feed' the grain into the gap.

Check out the roller, it should spin very freely. I used to use a drill to run my mill, but in low range it was a 0-350rpm unit. Funny thing is ever since I've had the mill it has only ever slipped once. It happened to be when a mate was crushing his crain for the first time on it. That was over a year ago and it has never done it since.

QldKev

 

[argon]

Check out the roller, it should spin very freely. I used to use a drill to run my mill, but in low range it was a 0-350rpm unit. Funny thing is ever since I've had the mill it has only ever slipped once. It happened to be when a mate was crushing his crain for the first time on it. That was over a year ago and it has never done it since.

QldKev

ok sweet... will check that... as i reckon that could easily be the culprit. (fingers crossed) Hopefully it's just holding a little more friction than it should. Hopefully realigning it will fix it up.