Grain Mills

I understand the Victoria Grain Mill and the Corona are made by the same company. Are they the same or is the Victoria better? The Victoria at the LHBS is twice the price of the Corona on Amazon.

There the same. and they both suck.

I have used my Victoria suck-mill for the past 2.5 years. It was cheap ($23 delivered), and with minimal fiddling, it produces a crush that lets me hit my OG number when I'm brewing. I'm happy with the results, and that's all that counts to me. Others may do as they please- buy roller mills or whatever, and construct Louis Quinze furniture to install and admire them in. Go for it!

In terms of provenance, I think those things all come out of the same factory in Mexico, and different brands are hung on them for marketing purposes......

mburnett274 said:

There the same. and they both suck.

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Have you actually used them, or are you just venturing a baseless opinion?

Other's would beg to differ....Including Charlie Papazian who's been using one forever and gets 87% efficiency...

He must really suck, as a brewer for using such "inferior" equipment, eh?

A lot of other folks beg to differ as well.....

I've used one of those mills for ages and had no problems, other than the fact that it takes a bit longer than a roller mill.

Looks like the Victoria has a smaller hopper than the Corona.. on Amazon. The one at the LHBS seems to have a large hopper. The Corona's that appear on Amazon seem to have the large hopper.

I was just wondering if the Victoria might be the Cadillac of the two.. or vs vs.

HbgBill said:

Looks like the Victoria has a smaller hopper than the Corona.. on Amazon. The one at the LHBS seems to have a large hopper. The Corona's that appear on Amazon seem to have the large hopper.

I was just wondering if the Victoria might be the Cadillac of the two.. or vs vs.

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I have a Victoria....and if it's a Cadillac, it was hammered out by some spastic dwarves on PCP. I'm not saying it doesn't do a great job, it does. I'm just saying that these things (I'm referring to all of the brands, because I think they're basically made in the same factory) are made very crudely, to sell at a low price point, performing a particular function that they do very well, which is to mill corn meal. Serendipitously, these machines also happen to be very, very good at milling malt for beer. The coarse crushes that are desired for corn meal are also exactly what we're looking for in our grist.

Not to hijack the thread, but since we're somewhat on the subject...I've noticed, in a lot of homebrew shops they sell meat grinders as a substitute for grain mills. I'm new at all-grain brewing and was looking into possibly buying a grain mill and at a few local shops, that is all I can find. What's the deal with that? Why can't I find an actual mill at my local homebrew stores?

I mentoned on the other thread that I bought one in the early 80's. It was the only one available. It was either a Corona or a rolling pin. The Corona, more so, shreds/tears the grain. Where as, a roller crushes the grain. I made many gallons of beer using the Corona. Since Charlie uses a Corona, and gets 87% eff., using his Crap-Zap-Pap plastic bucket lautertun. Just imagine how many Coronas and buckets were sold! I thank the guy for what he did for the home brewing industry. Without Charlie, there wouldn't be all the LHBS. There wouldn't be the wide variety of supplies, today......OK, Charlie. Where's my royalty check?