Barley Crusher not performing...

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Mellman

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I've had a barley crusher for 2-3 years now and It's been great. about 4 brews in, it lost that O'ring that helped both wheels spin at the same time... It turned up in my mash tun, but the mill still performed and I was getting 73+% efficiency so figured it wasn't needed. So this weekend I brewed two batches and had nothing but issues with the mill! It would just spin the one roller and no grain would get fed. I never touched the settings since i received it since it was working fine. So in order to get grain to crush I had to widen the gap...then run things through a second time with a slightly finer crush. My efficiency suffered greatly as I came in roughly 10-13 points lower than my target OG.

So I guess that rubber O-ring is really required? or is something else going on here?
 
Just had this problem recently as well. I found that if you start out with only a little bit in the hopper, crush for maybe 5 seconds to get it going, then fill your hopper all the way up, it seems to work. It just seems to need a little umph to get it going. Pain in the ass though, if you ask me. I have adjusted mine a bit to get a finer crush.

If anyone does have some other options, I'd love to hear them as well.
 
I run mine at .032 without the o-ring. That o-ring failed the second time I used it and I've never missed having it. I do condition my grain. I also run mine with a 1/2" drill motor as slow as I can.

Do the rollers spin freely? Maybe a spot of oil in the bushings will help...
 
Mine is set at .035, no o ring and no issues. It's a couple years old and serves me well with a consistent 82% mash/lauter efficiency.

Sounds like one of your rollers is off or stuck. I too use a drill at low speed and it works well.
 
Mine is set at .035, no o ring and no issues. It's a couple years old and serves me well with a consistent 82% mash/lauter efficiency.

Sounds like one of your rollers is off or stuck. I too use a drill at low speed and it works well.

This. Check your rollers. My o-ring fell off the first time I used it and I just assumed it was there for shipping purposes. Haven't thought about it since.
 
rollers spin fine if i try to move them with my hands, i put a little grain in ther and spun slow and it just jostled the grain around wouldln't actually get any between the rollers., use a 1/2" drill at low speed same process i've used for the past 2 or 3 years since i bought this thing. again it would crush if i used a wide gap but was hardly efficient.
 
fwiw, the o-ring is installed during assembly of the mill to assist alignment of the end plates while assuring the free roller spins easily. Once all the bolts are run tight the o-ring's function is pretty much done.

I have a BC and periodic cleaning is a must. Flour gets packed between the roller ends and the end plates causing binding of the free roller. I have a compressor so after milling my bill I blow out all the built-up debris...

Cheers!
 
Mellman said:
rollers spin fine if i try to move them with my hands, i put a little grain in ther and spun slow and it just jostled the grain around wouldln't actually get any between the rollers., use a 1/2" drill at low speed same process i've used for the past 2 or 3 years since i bought this thing. again it would crush if i used a wide gap but was hardly efficient.

Is it possible the ridges are wearing out on the rollers? 2-3 years old and how much grain do you mill?

The rollers ridges will wear down over time with a lot of use. Also did you check your gap? Is it possible it closed up a bit ?
 
suppose it could wear down...it has seen a lot of use, but i don't know what a lot is, a quick estimate is probably 2-3000 lbs of grain it's had through it? Done quite a bit of brewing in the last year. I'll try cleaning with the air compressor/taking it apart.
 
The same thing has happened with mine 3 times in the last 4 years. I'm convinced that the grain jams against itself at the bottom of the tapered hopper preventing it from falling into the rollers. I push a long thin screwdriver down to the rollers to break up the jam ( with nothing rotating of course ). It then works fine.:mug:
 
This happened to me and my barley crusher (the roller that isnt attached to the crank/drill) was decently stuck. I thought that my BC was toast and that I had wasted substantial money. Then I bought a feeler gauge, took the thing completely apart and cleaned out all the built up debris. Put it back together at the .039 factory setting and this baby is working like new! Been getting 80+% efficiency as well.
 
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