Just got the new "Cereal Killer" Grain Mill

Guidry said:

Would like to eventually motorize my mill also. I noticed you said you "geared" it to run at about 200rpm. Is that considered a good speed for milling? I have no clue. I use my cordless drill on the "driver" speed.

Thanks

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Yeah, in my research I read 150-300 is about right. If you get faster you get a lot of flour and crushing of the hulls which as you know can add astringency to your beer.

The bigger factor though is that the 14" pulley is very common, therefore cheaper. Bigger is far more expensive And the next size smaller in the common sizes would have it running too fast.

Steve

For anyone interested in motorizing their mill here is a very good link. The calculator does the tough work for you. http://www.gizmology.net/pulleysbelts.htm
A 1.5" motor pulley combined with a 9" mill pulley will get you just under the recommended 300rpm at 291.66. Even gives you belt length based on your pulley separation/distance apart.

Rickochet said:

I have purchased items from "Adventures in Homebrewing" and have always been very pleased with their service. I sent Jason from Homebrewing.org an email asking him what the delay was for the Cereal Killer Grain Mills. He responded within 10 minutes. Please see his note below.

The email from Jason:

"Rick,

Thank you for your e-mail. The mill parts are made over seas. When an item is imported, it can be inspected by customs. These parts have been stopped for an inspection. Inspections can take 24 hours or inspections can take six months. This is done by the federal government and we, as a company, can do nothing about this. The best part is, they charge us $100 for every day it is held for a "Storage" fee. The longest I have had to wait is thirty days. This shipment is getting very close to that.

I set the dates for imported items two weeks out from the expected date. The reason is to avoid any confusion on when the items may ship. I have a second shipment due in on December 15th- at this rate, I may see the second shipment before I see the first. I have not even listed these for Christmas because I know we will not be able to guarantee them before the holiday.

Why do we not order more? This mill is still going through upgrades. When we have made our final version, ship times will not be an issue. The past issues are noted on sites like Homebrewtalk.com- We want to order in small enough quantities to have each version of the mill tested by the homebrew community.

For anyone with concerns, they are welcome to ask for a full refund. I truly apologize for any delays but cannot do anything about the inspection of items entering the United States.

Finally, when should they be available? The honest answer is, I do not know. They are here. I could show up in Ann Arbor on Monday and have a truck sitting at the door full of grain mill parts. This may also take another 4 months. Obviously, I believe we are closer to any day rather than four months but I can only guess at this point.

Yeah, I do not think anyone ever questions our speed of shipments- it is the rare case when we get the delay on products. We have over 3000 items that ship daily with no hiccups. Then you get one product that gets all of this attention.

Importing this time of year is a nightmare. Everyone wants items to arrive by Christmas. I am sure the Walmarts of the world have people at the loading docks ensuring their products do not get stopped. I am sure the government has a quota of shipments to check. The small businesses are going to be inspected at the ports and this is just another hurdle we have to jump to compete with corporate America.

If it was all easy, I would not enjoy it nearly as much

Thanks for asking, sorry I do not have a better answer.

Cheers!

Jason"

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Rick, thanks for posting this.
I have to say I'm a bit dissapointed they haven't drafted some sort of email to all their paid depositers explaining the same thing. My card was charged over a month ago and all i've received was a one line response around thanksgiving that "they aren't here yet".

Guess I'll just keep my fingers crossed in hopes that it comes soon.

Got mine today. Will give it a try this weekend.

Jason from Adventures in Homebrewing recently sent me an email with an update. They received a large shipment of Cereal Killers and have been up into the wee hours of the morning assembling & prepping to ship. Sounds like they have a few upgrades that make the mills even more awesome! If you have one ordered, it should be on the way!

I got one dropped on the doorstep yesterday.

Mine got dropped off earlier this week. Planning on milling tonight for tomorrow's brew day.

pm5k00 said:

Received my Cereal Killer 10/17 and used it 10/22. I left it on the factory gap setting and got 77% efficiency, was planning on double crushing but my battery died for my drill, and I had to put a pair of vice grips on shaft and rotate by hand. The mill worked well, hopper could be a smaller gauge, and wood was damaged on the bottom, but still a steal at $89 shipped.

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Used it again today with the gap set at the thickness of a credit card. I got a 92% efficiency with an 8.5lbs grain bill, and a single batch sparge. Pretty good, I expect around 86-88% efficiency with a larger grain bill, but will post again when I know.

I just got mine yesterday and I'm pretty stoked to start using it. It's inaugural brew will be my first 10 gallon batch so I'm pretty excited to grind my own grain at home so I can get better efficiency out of my BIAB setup. I think I might stop by the LHBS tonight to buy a pound of 2-row or so to run through it as a test. I'll make a mini BIAB mash with it to check efficiency of my crush. It will also be a good time to test out my new refractometer too.

Wish they made a bigger hopper.

worxman02 said:

I just got mine yesterday and I'm pretty stoked to start using it. It's inaugural brew will be my first 10 gallon batch so I'm pretty excited to grind my own grain at home so I can get better efficiency out of my BIAB setup. I think I might stop by the LHBS tonight to buy a pound of 2-row or so to run through it as a test. I'll make a mini BIAB mash with it to check efficiency of my crush. It will also be a good time to test out my new refractometer too.

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I just did a test batch with a pound of two row crushed at a 0.032 gap and 2 quarts of water and an hour mash, I got 80% efficiency which is higher than my last two batches. I'm pretty stoked about the increased efficiency. Should I be shooting for higher than this? I always thought I heard that around 80% is what you should be shooting for. I'll post pictures of my crush later.

personally, i'd be less worried about getting a specific number, and more worried about hitting a given number consistently. 80% is a high and round number. get yourself set up to where you're always getting 80% and plug that into your brewing software - consistent beer awaits you!

starsailor said:

That sticky oil/wax coating is usually a dead ringer for "made in china" or at least made overseas and shipped in container by sea. It's there to protect steel parts from corrosion in the high humidity of a marine environment. Just go to Harbor Freight or any discount auto parts brand and touch anything and that looks like steel or cast iron you'll know how to id it.

It comes off really easily with carb cleaner, brake cleaner, or any half decent solvent. Just make sure you don't wash the lube out of the bearings as they likely have only dust caps and not good liquid tight seals in them.

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Cosmoline

Hi Guys,

I got my mill last week and already used it to crush wheat with poor results. Not sure if all the mills has the same flaw but the one posted here and mine have a small gap in the roller that is not attached to the handle... the perfect gap for the small wheat grains to block the roller. My question is... Can you move the rollers so the space is equal in both sides? Besides that I quite like it and works quite well (at least when using barley).

Thanks!

reinstone said:

Cosmoline

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Im kinda surprised more of the brewing stuff that comes from china isnt covered with cosmoline. Like ss brewing / bru gear stuff and even the blichmann kettles? My point is, we generally seem bash the inexpensive stuff that comes from china for being made there, but seem to want to pretend most the more expensive stuff doesn't come from there too? Not to say anyone directly was making negative comments here but I guess im just tired of constantly defending my purchases against people who own chinese Iphones and chinese made stuff they just paid more for under the illusion it was made elswhere.. Yes my mill was cheaper and it has nothing to hide about where its from unlike say a korean made deawoo resold here as a chevy..

I'll point out that the cereal killer closest competitor brags about "assembling" its mills in the USA from chinese parts and it is inferior with many issues and complaints of worn out knurling on the rollers in a short period of time..

That "assembled" gets reinterpreted of course by owners as "made in the USA" these days since we see things the way it fits us at the time.

stepping off my soapbox now..

BTW I love my motorized cereal killer... bought it a couple years ago for $99 with free shipping and its been an awesome investment. used some pulleys and adapters from tractor supply and a gear reduction motor and the thing kicks ass. I've only gone through 7 or 8 sacks of grain plus specialty grain so far but no signs of wear at all yet.

augiedoggy said:

BTW I love my motorized cereal killer... bought it a couple years ago for $99 with free shipping and its been an awesome investment. used some pulleys and adapters from tractor supply and a gear reduction motor and the thing kicks ass. I've only gone through 7 or 8 sacks of grain plus specialty grain so far but no signs of wear at all yet.

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Have any tips for adding a motor to the mill? Instead of having a drill permanently affixed to it, I think I'd like to go the route you did.

davidgaines said:

Have any tips for adding a motor to the mill? Instead of having a drill permanently affixed to it, I think I'd like to go the route you did.

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Yeah, if you find a large DC motor like I did you can make a super cheap AC to DC variable voltage controller with a $3 bridge rectifier and a regular wall light dimmer switch.. it sounds more complicated than it is (very easy to wire up and gave me speed control with the dimmer. you could get fancy with smoothing capacitors and all that but no need when driving a motor.
I have been using this version 2 setup not for about 6 months and it is flawless... my older, smaller ac motor was too weak to relably get through just roasted grain.

I cut up an old particle board entertainment center and made a cheap cabinet to mount everything and house the bucket underneath...

pulleys are available at TSC stores or ebay... I did have to make a plastic spacer for the oddball shaft size on the mill and then used the setscrew on the pulley adapter to hold it all in place... I just found a piece of plastic tube that worked. use a bigger pulley on the motor than the mill to make the mill grind faster or a larger pulley to make it go slower depending on whether you have a gear reduction motor which is better (thats what I found) just remember a 10 speed bike and how the different size sprockets changed things dramatically.

augiedoggy said:

Yeah, if you find a large DC motor like I did you can make a super cheap AC to DC variable voltage controller with a $3 bridge rectifier and a regular wall light dimmer switch.. it sounds more complicated than it is (very easy to wire up and gave me speed control with the dimmer. you could get fancy with smoothing capacitors and all that but no need when driving a motor.
I have been using this version 2 setup not for about 6 months and it is flawless... my older, smaller ac motor was too weak to relably get through just roasted grain.

I cut up an old particle board entertainment center and made a cheap cabinet to mount everything and house the bucket underneath...

pulleys are available at TSC stores or ebay... I did have to make a plastic spacer for the oddball shaft size on the mill and then used the setscrew on the pulley adapter to hold it all in place... I just found a piece of plastic tube that worked. use a bigger pulley on the motor than the mill to make the mill grind faster or a larger pulley to make it go slower depending on whether you have a gear reduction motor which is better (thats what I found) just remember a 10 speed bike and how the different size sprockets changed things dramatically.

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Very cool! Thanks for all of the information. Gonna give it a shot myself.

Any other comments about the longevity of the Cereal Killer? My Barley Crusher is over 5 years old and it is having trouble gripping the grain, I have to open the gap to get the grain to flow, but then my efficiency drops.

Posts in this thread indicate the rollers on the Cereal Killer may be harder, so I'm wondering if any owners have noticed a drop in efficiency over time.

I have been using mine since 10/2012 brewing 1-2 batches a month, and my ceral killer is still works like new. I have to re-adjust the spacing of the rollers every few batches but no issues otherwise. I use a 18v cordless drill to power it.

pm5k00 said:

I have been using mine since 10/2012 brewing 1-2 batches a month, and my ceral killer is still works like new. I have to re-adjust the spacing of the rollers every few batches but no issues otherwise. I use a 18v cordless drill to power it.

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im in about the same boat only I think I bought mine in 2013 possibly christmas time in 2012... Rollers and bearings are fine.. had an issue after playing with the gap that I thought was the mill but after using an actual feeler gauge I learned I just adjusted it unevenly causing the roller to bind... works perfect now and Ive never even cleaned mine...


The barley crushers use soft metal for their rollers which wear down quickly. IMHO they are the worst mill a person could buy. They should have spent their marketing money on better steel treatment. LOTs of threads on this though.

BTW these cereal killer mills are now being sold directly from chinese retailers for as little as $54 same mill just not through the "cereal killer company"


Im sure folks will post its bad to buy direct for half price because some design was stolen from CK although I know thats not true because the older barley crushers used the same exact design first and if CK contributed anything to the chinese mill that wasnt already stolen from BK it was the wooden base they added in the states to say its was "made in the usa" Barley crusher used american made rollers (ironically the part that always fails on them) but the rest of the mill besides the woodenbase was from china as well. "kegco" mills are also the same as the CK and are sold in 3 roller varieties as well... Just different folks rebranding the same generic chinese mill. Point here is its a good mill for the money.

bzomerlei said:

Any other comments about the longevity of the Cereal Killer? My Barley Crusher is over 5 years old and it is having trouble gripping the grain, I have to open the gap to get the grain to flow, but then my efficiency drops.

Posts in this thread indicate the rollers on the Cereal Killer may be harder, so I'm wondering if any owners have noticed a drop in efficiency over time.

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I've had mine 3 years mill around 50 pounds a month so hundreds pounds and it still runs like new. Never adjust and I'm around 75%-80% efficiency

+1 on the durability of the CK. i've had mine for 2 or 3 years now, still works as new, minimal to no signs of wear on the rollers.