I've done three batches with mine so far, and while I want to rough it up a bit more, it's been taking me about as long as my mash water takes to get up to temperature to grind 11 pounds of grain. That seems to work out pretty well for me. Efficiencies 77%-82% or so. I'm using it on 5. I might try running it through on 6 and then 5 to see if it is much faster.
Brewed my first batch with my crushed grain today. My efficiency was lower than expected but still not bad. It was my first all grain so I will work out the kinks! It took forever to grind the first 3lbs, and ran my cordless drill dead. I finally opened the gap more and and it all went through, with a crap crush. So I had to take off my hopper and score the rollers more... whoever said it earlier was not kidding, they need to be scored alot!
So after all that I put on another 4lbs and pulled it through great. I think next time I'm going to run it through twice but the crush turned out ok. Overall I'm very happy, and I won't be purchasing a barley crusher or any other commercial grain mill. This thing is an awesome value and was fun to build and left me with a great sense of satisfaction!
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Primary 1: Pliny the Elder Clone
Primary 2:
On Deck: RIS, Snow Cap, Double AB (round 2)
Kegged: Graff
Kegged: American Amber Fermentation Chamber Project
Thats at least two that have died in this thread....
Yes, but at 25,000 views of this thread...how many are running fine??
Some failures could certainly be attributed to the operator. My cordless drill died one night, and I spun the pasta maker w/ a reg. high speed drill, I knew I was above red line for the pasta mill, but ...the mill survived??
You gotta use these inexpensive things w/in their limitations.
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-------------------------------------------------------------------- CORONA MILL BUCKET SYSTEM V. 2.0 "crushing grain on a beer budget" http://www.homebrewtalk.com/1308996-post144.html
Yes, but at 25,000 views of this thread...how many are running fine??
Some failures could certainly be attributed to the operator. My cordless drill died one night, and I spun the pasta maker w/ a reg. high speed drill, I knew I was above red line for the pasta mill, but ...the mill survived??
You gotta use these inexpensive things w/in their limitations.
Yeah, I was definitely abusing mine when I broker it.
Well I just ran another 18.5lbs through mine today. The only thing that died was my cordless drill battery (on my second one already). So I went to find the cheapest drill possible, in the middle of my grain bill of course. Got a cheapie $20 drill at Schucks Auto Supply that spins a minimum of 2000rpm! WAY TOO FAST.
But it chewed through all the grain, and the mill held up fine. I kept stopping to see if it was falling apart or getting hot. It held up fine. For $14 I will buy a new one when this thing dies. I will not buy a commercial mill, this works too well.
__________________
Primary 1: Pliny the Elder Clone
Primary 2:
On Deck: RIS, Snow Cap, Double AB (round 2)
Kegged: Graff
Kegged: American Amber Fermentation Chamber Project
I used mine exactly once to crush 5 lbs of wheat and 6 lbs of 2-row barley. The wheat was more difficult but nothing the cheapo pasta machine couldn't handle. I cranked out all of it by hand in about 30 min and it went fine. No big deal. I'm curious about the failure mode of the broken machines. I took mine apart and it seems pretty simple inside.
I'm curious about the failure mode of the broken machines.
Well, if you ever run one w/ a high speed drill, you'll have your answer, somewhere over 1,000 RPM's, maybe 2000??, the pasta mill sounds like it is about to fly apart. Not a pretty sound at all, screaming w/ a little intermittant clicking...very bad!
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-------------------------------------------------------------------- CORONA MILL BUCKET SYSTEM V. 2.0 "crushing grain on a beer budget" http://www.homebrewtalk.com/1308996-post144.html
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