How often do you clean your grain mill?
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I blast mine with compressed air after each use. I'm not comfortable with letting it sit around with all that sugary starch clinging to it. My concern is mostly that it may attract ants and other insects. Other than that, keeping the mill clean will help prevent the roller bushings from gumming up with flour which can sometimes lead to the non-powered roller binding up. I've got a single roller mill, so that isn't a problem with mine, but most others have two or three roller mills and some have reported this problem. Cleaning the mill seemed to fix the problem in most cases IIRC.
nebben
Well-Known Member
I think I had a mouse live in mine last winter. I definitely blew the poop out though before the new-year-brew occurred. Mouse poop might have tannins that even I couldn't stand....
oldschool
Well-Known Member
instructions with the barley crusher say to use a soft brush to clean the rollers after each use. I just let them be dusty.
SankePankey
Well-Known Member
Single roller mill? Am I not getting something? Isn't that a bit like one handed clapping in a forest with falling trees with nary a witness?
wyzazz
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SpanishCastleAle
Well-Known Member
I never have and I condition my malt. I check for spiders underneath, check the gap, and grind away.
+1 Since I started conditioning the malt, grain dust has been dramatically reduced and mill stays much cleaner.
Not sure that starch is sugary until you mash it.
Ever heard of crystal or caramel malt? IIRC, all malt will contain at least some sugar as a result of the malting process. The bugs would probably settle for some starch on the menu if the sugars were in short supply.
wyzazz
Well-Known Member
Not at all. It's something entirely different. No clapping involved and while it isn't not completely silent, it doesn't make much noise when it's milling around.
Bingo! It's the now extinct Phil Mill I. It's a great little mill. Too bad they are no longer in production. Basically the roller smashes the malt against a stationary plate. One moving part. Elegant simplicity and it produces a first class grist. It has always been under-rated IMO for reasons beyond me. It's very low on the bling scale. That could have something to do with it. The feature I like most is that it is adjustable while it's running. All malt mills should have that feature. Adjustable on fly and easily dialed in visually with no need for feeler gauges or fooling around adjusting eccentric bushings etc.
ksbrain
Well-Known Member
oldschool
Well-Known Member
This sounds like a fabulous mill. If i would have seen this I would have picked one up. Maybe we should get together and build one, only with some effin bling!
Catt22,
They get "dissed" because they're darned hard to crank for a big grain bill. When my old Iowa brewing buddies and I stepped up to 20 gallons from 5, the Phil Mill just was too much work. We got an also now extinct Valley Mill and motorized it. That was in 1996 and I've still got it. My buddy still has his Phil Mill, last I heard, though mostly he uses a 3 roller Crank 'n' Stein.
No arguments on the Phil's crush, it's very good.
Cheers,
John
They get "dissed" because they're darned hard to crank for a big grain bill. When my old Iowa brewing buddies and I stepped up to 20 gallons from 5, the Phil Mill just was too much work. We got an also now extinct Valley Mill and motorized it. That was in 1996 and I've still got it. My buddy still has his Phil Mill, last I heard, though mostly he uses a 3 roller Crank 'n' Stein.
No arguments on the Phil's crush, it's very good.
Cheers,
John
To be honest, I've never hand cranked mine. I motorized it with a Bodine Gearmotor from the start. I refuse to hand crank any mill. I'm much too old for that. I'd certainly fork out some small cash for a 1/2" Harbor Freight drill motor if the Bodine had not been dropped in my lap for almost nothing. You think cranking a Phil Mill is tough? I bet if you fully loaded those long rollers on a Valley Mill, Schmidling Malt Mill or even the more common Barley Crusher you would find out that they are even more difficult to crank. Most of them get around this by not letting the grain spread fully across the rollers. The feed chute is usually restricted in some way. This kind of defeats the purpose of having wide rollers IMO. I still think that all mills should be capable of adjustment on the fly. That's my biggest complaint about the currently available mills. None of them have that feature AFAIK. My best friend has a three roller Crankenstein. It's a very nice mill and high on the bling scale, but my little Phil Mill produces grist every bit as good. The good news is that generally everyone loves whatever mill they happen to buy. That means that you can't really go wrong, or at least one will never know the difference.
I just use a corona. I replaced the hand crank with a nut so that I can run it with a drill. It works great. Cleaning it is kinda tough, though. I'd have to take it apart which would result in me having to dial it in again the next time I need to use it. I'm very happy with the crush atm so I just let it be.
GreenMonti
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ROTFLMA.......The responses in this thread are great. Good stuff.
On subject, I just hit mine with compressed air. Good to go after that.
On subject, I just hit mine with compressed air. Good to go after that.
Great tips in this thread. I will now be checking my mill for spiders and mouse poop before each use. Now I'm not going to go all crazy and start cleaning it. But checking for critters and critter crap before grinding seems like a step that might improve my beers.
Catt22,
Which PhilMill do you have, the original brass & wood one with no bushings or the "2", with the aluminum body. It's the brass one I'm talking about. 5-10 lb grists were OK, but some of the 30-40 lb ones we were doin' in Iowa; forget about it!
I can tell you that fully loaded, the ValleyMill was easier to crank by hand; less torque per revolution. Not that one revolution was killer either way, but a couple of thousand of 'em??? Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration. Not to mention that the longer rollers needed less revolutions anyway.
Which PhilMill do you have, the original brass & wood one with no bushings or the "2", with the aluminum body. It's the brass one I'm talking about. 5-10 lb grists were OK, but some of the 30-40 lb ones we were doin' in Iowa; forget about it!
I can tell you that fully loaded, the ValleyMill was easier to crank by hand; less torque per revolution. Not that one revolution was killer either way, but a couple of thousand of 'em???
Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration. Not to mention that the longer rollers needed less revolutions anyway.
On Leap Years.
Catt22,
Which PhilMill do you have, the original brass & wood one with no bushings or the "2", with the aluminum body. It's the brass one I'm talking about. 5-10 lb grists were OK, but some of the 30-40 lb ones we were doin' in Iowa; forget about it!
I can tell you that fully loaded, the ValleyMill was easier to crank by hand; less torque per revolution. Not that one revolution was killer either way, but a couple of thousand of 'em???
I've got the more recent 2" square aluminum body model with bushings. Yeah, the longer rollers mean fewer revolutions required, but you are crushing that much more malt with each revolution. I remember some discussion awhile back about the Schmidling Malt Mill having a slow feeding hopper design which would not allow the malt to spread fully across the rollers and i think I understand why it was made that way. As I said, there's not way I'm gonna hand crank a mill when powering them is so easy to do. OTOH, one of my friends had a four year old daughter that just loved to hank crank his grain mill, so it can't be too difficult.
I'd still like to see someone produce an on-the-fly adjustable mill again. That's what I really like about it most. All mills seem to be able to produce a satisfactory grist whether single or with multiple rollers, so that's not a big deal IMO. OTOH, my Phil Mill should outlast me, so I probably won't be needing to buy another mill.
I think I've hit it with a paint brush once in the last 3 years.
catt22, I've heard the PhilMill 2 was a big improvement over the brass one, though I've never even actually seen one up close.
As I said, the brass one had no bushings. Great crush, lot's of labor to earn it. I found this quote just now on the Bodensatz static pages: "The Phil Mill 1 requires by far the most cranking, but in exchange it is the cheapest, and arguably produces the best crush." I think it used to be about $70 when the Valley Mill was about $120.
As for the Valley Mill, it was the best I could find in 1995 or '96. I'm glad I bought the ball bearing upgrade before they went out of business.
Back to the original topic, down here in NC, if you don't clean flour off stuff, especially sweet malt flour, you're begging for cockroaches or worse.
As I said, the brass one had no bushings. Great crush, lot's of labor to earn it. I found this quote just now on the Bodensatz static pages: "The Phil Mill 1 requires by far the most cranking, but in exchange it is the cheapest, and arguably produces the best crush." I think it used to be about $70 when the Valley Mill was about $120.
As for the Valley Mill, it was the best I could find in 1995 or '96. I'm glad I bought the ball bearing upgrade before they went out of business.
Back to the original topic, down here in NC, if you don't clean flour off stuff, especially sweet malt flour, you're begging for cockroaches or worse.
Gwitz, my set-up is similar, except my motor is mounted on the "JT" device, named after my brewing buddy who invented it.
The motor's mounted on a small piece of wood, which is in turn, mounted to the base via a door hinge. The weight of the motor acts as the tensioner, and JT figured if there as a stone in the grain, the motor would bounce loose and not bugger up the rollers. (it's happened a couple of times and he was right)
The mill pulley I have is slightly bigger, I think it's 12" diameter. It gears down to about 300 rpm.
The motor's mounted on a small piece of wood, which is in turn, mounted to the base via a door hinge. The weight of the motor acts as the tensioner, and JT figured if there as a stone in the grain, the motor would bounce loose and not bugger up the rollers. (it's happened a couple of times and he was right)
The mill pulley I have is slightly bigger, I think it's 12" diameter. It gears down to about 300 rpm.
Csuho
Well-Known Member
I hit mine with a paint brush after every use as it sits in the spare bedroom and i dont want to have to worry about anything gettin in the house.
I bought stainless rollers so I don't have to worry about rust.
That would be rust from letting grain dust live on the rollers, because I don't clean mine.
B
That would be rust from letting grain dust live on the rollers, because I don't clean mine.
B
rico567
Well-Known Member
{snip} The good news is that generally everyone loves whatever mill they happen to buy. That means that you can't really go wrong, or at least one will never know the difference.
THIS. I read several long threads arguing the merits of this or that mill, until I realized this: everyone was passionately attached to their mill, and that would hardly be the case if one or another was producing an inferior crush.
Conclusion: any mill can produce good grist. So I immediately ordered out a bargain-basement "Corona" type mill off eBay, and have been happy ever since. I don't clean it; it's mounted in a 5-gallon bucket, and I just shake & tap out all the flour & dust that I can, and put it away in the garage until next time. So far, after a dozen or so batches, no signs of any vermin.
Yep, it seems that mills are much like wives, children, dogs, motorcycles and new cars in that respect. The trend also seems to hold true for almost all home brew equipment. I think it's a human nature thing.
I have cheap (dollar store) new paintbrush that I use to brush off the dust on my Barley Crusher. I never cleaned it until recently, though. The slave roller stopped turning, so I looked at the instructions and it said to oil the bushings occasionally. Since I don't know what a bushing is, I asked here on the forum. I ended up taking it a apart and cleaning it and oiling it a bit with some mineral oil, and put it back together.
So, to answer the question, I've cleaned my mill once. Only because it really needed it, I guess!
So, to answer the question, I've cleaned my mill once. Only because it really needed it, I guess!
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