Gear-driven Fully Adjustable Malt Mill

Does anyone know of a fully adjustable gap, gear-driven malt mill? The Scmidlings offer either gear driven OR adjustable. But their set gap is .045, which is a bit wide. I run my Barley Crusher at .035 which gives me the crush I want.

TwoHeadsBrewing said:

Does anyone know of a fully adjustable gap, gear-driven malt mill? The Scmidlings offer either gear driven OR adjustable. But their set gap is .045, which is a bit wide. I run my Barley Crusher at .035 which gives me the crush I want.

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There is the MM3 Monster Mill.

I may be mistaken, but I don't think that is gear driven. Definitely fully adjustable, but not gear driven.

I could be wrong, but I thought that Monster doesn't offer a (homebrewing) gear driven mill. The schmidling maltmill offers a gear drive, but only one end is adjustable, the other end is pre-set to be a bit wider than we'd like. The crankandstein 3D is another 3 roller adjustable mill, but even though it's machined with gearing notches, they don't actually touch, it still relies on the grain to keep things moving along.

So far it seems like no one makes a mill that is adjustable at both ends AND gear driven.

you would need some way to adjust the gear lash, that would involve like 4 gears to make an adjustable setup and have the rollers turn the right way, it would also involve setting the lash on all the gears, certainly do-able but more things to go wrong and keep adjusted properly, I could be wrong of course!

azscoob said:

you would need some way to adjust the gear lash, that would involve like 4 gears to make an adjustable setup and have the rollers turn the right way, it would also involve setting the lash on all the gears, certainly do-able but more things to go wrong and keep adjusted properly, I could be wrong of course!

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I don't know, I can't really see it being that huge of a deal. If they just make fairly large teeth, you'd think it wouldn't have any problem dealing with a tenth of an inch or so of play.

That being said, we'd probably settle for a 3 roller mill where the top 2 rollers are gear driven and fixed, and the bottom roller is non-driven but adjustable. Problem is that no one makes one.

Sounds like a business opportunity!

and this
http://www.grainflaker.com/
$79.00 free shipping

Three Rollers all Steel

60 day satisfaction guaranteed is the extent of the warranty
The online sales geeks says the rollers have grooves cut in them
I guess he means knurling.

They talk about adjustments as Thin rolled or flaked oats and thick.
No measurements they "guess" it between half and a whole MM

The online guy is trying to measure his as he speaks. Yah it's between a millimeter and half a millimeter so 0.03125" is the thickest and 0156 is the thinnest"
The monster Mill reccomendations are between 0.037" and 0.055"

I just bought one

Cliff897 said:

I just bought one

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Well, you'll have to let us know how that works out for you. The site seems to have a lot of feel-good organic/whole food testimonial type stuff, and very little actual technical info or details. Also, it's hard to judge the scale, but unless you were a steeping grain extract brewer (and didn't want to upgrade) then this would take forever to crush a batch.

It is late in the day on friday, so I hope you didn't actually buy one and my sarcasm detector is just broken right now.

Edit: I was assuming you bought one of the hippie mills. Did you actually get a monster mill?

Our grain mill is currently set at .035. I'm not sure why monster recommends all the way up to .055. I had a small piece of gravel in my grain bag that messed up the rollers. I put another batch of grain through it before I thought to check the spacing. The spacing was right around .050 and I got terrible efficiency - something like 40%.

martinworswick said:

http://www.crankandstein.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7&products_id=14

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Yes, I have been looking at the three roller crankandstein mills. While they look quite nice, they don't offer a gear drive option (as noted above)

Cliff897, Please do post your impressions of that mill when it arrives.

caspio said:

Yes, I have been looking at the three roller crankandstein mills. While they look quite nice, they don't offer a gear drive option (as noted above)

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the first two are gear driven so i'm assuming you mean all 3 to be driven?
why is that necessary? i would have thought the friction of the grain against driven roller 1 would be more than enough to drive roller 3

martinworswick said:

the first two are gear driven so i'm assuming you mean all 3 to be driven?
why is that necessary? i would have thought the friction of the grain against driven roller 1 would be more than enough to drive roller 3

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Well, I think I might have to just email the company to get more details. Based on the description and the picture, my understanding is that the top two rollers DO have gear teeth machined into them, however the teeth don't actually touch and require grain bits getting stuck in there to keep things moving along. The specific line I'm looking at says "w/grain-engaged gear teeth at ends".

We're looking for something that's sturdy because it's a shared purchase between 3-4 people who are hardcore brewers and buy their grain in bulk. Our barley crusher was fantastic for awhile, but now it gets hung up all the time. The driven roller stops pulling in grain, the non-driven roller doesn't spin, so it just sits there with a full hopper. We've tried some troubleshooting steps suggested by the BC manufacturer, but at this point we're ready to give up and buy something else. Hence the strong desire for a real gear driven mill.

I wonder if the Micro Brew Series by Barley Crusher are gear driven? It might be more than you want to spend and the website doesn't say it is.

Involute gears are designed to mesh at their pitch circles. If you deviate from that, by changing the roller gap, you'd be putting abnormal strain on the gears resulting in premature wear. Gears just aren't designed to be adjustable. That's why they invented chain.

Thirteen said:

Involute gears are designed to mesh at their pitch circles. If you deviate from that, by changing the roller gap, you'd be putting abnormal strain on the gears resulting in premature wear. Gears just aren't designed to be adjustable. That's why they invented chain.

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That's a good point. Sooooo...any chain-driven mills out there?

caspio said:

Well, you'll have to let us know how that works out for you.

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I shall.

The site seems to have a lot of feel-good organic/whole food testimonial type stuff, and very little actual technical info or details.

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Yah they almost lost me with the crazy stupid crap about how the oither guy uses aluminum and how it'll kill you and cause alshmizers and make your unborn children into gang bangers.
I don't have a lot of love for new agers. Reiki curing cancer and all that.

Also, it's hard to judge the scale

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That was easy: Unless the handle is made for Lilliputians, it's about the same as the grain mills I've seen elsewhere. When I first started looking at grains mills I was somewhat shocked at how small they all are. When I was thinking of building my own the rollers were 4" to 6" in diameter and not anything less than 12" long. Clearly I would have over built by some order of magnitude

but unless you were a steeping grain extract brewer (and didn't want to upgrade) then this would take forever to crush a batch.

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We shall see. Remember dear fellow homebrewer: They have a 60 day 100% satisfaction guarantee and I only ONLY - - (read O-N-L-Y) use AMEX online. I can make them eat the loss and keep it if I want to. Amex has my back Plus they give me an extended warranty (no charge) no matter what the maker offers.

It is late in the day on friday, so I hope you didn't actually buy one and my sarcasm detector is just broken right now.

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Yah I bought one.

Ya see I figure that no matter what else the rollers themselves are probably worth the cost. I can put a nice set of hardened steel knurled rollers in a half inch aluminum frame with my bearings easy as pie.
And I can still make them eat the cost.

But if I like it and can rig a power drive I'll leave it as is and crush grains.


And not for nuthin' but what's $79.00???
It's less than the tip I'd leave a waiter at a restaurant for a decent meal.

Edit: I was assuming you bought one of the hippie mills. Did you actually get a monster mill?

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We shall see if the hippies have a mill worth a dam.
I shall report back.

Our grain mill is currently set at .035. I'm not sure why monster recommends all the way up to .055.

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I'm guessing because there is nothing worth doing unless you over do it by some measure.
I usually over build things too

I had a small piece of gravel in my grain bag that messed up the rollers.

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Ouch But that's life in the world of organic things like barley and wheat lentils cracked shelled peas and what not.

I put another batch of grain through it before I thought to check the spacing. The spacing was right around .050 and I got terrible efficiency - something like 40%.

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Yah I kind of think 0.050 is a tad wide. But hey~!! 40% means your beer is Refreshing right?

Blender said:

I wonder if the Micro Brew Series by Barley Crusher are gear driven? It might be more than you want to spend and the website doesn't say it is.

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The micro brew series is pulley driven. One pulley for each of the two rollers. Means you need to use two motors, or get clever with jackshafts. On the plus side, that means both rollers are driven and adjustable. On the downside, it's 1 grand.

martinworswick said:

i would have thought the friction of the grain against driven roller 1 would be more than enough to drive roller 3

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It will. I think that multiple driven rollers is unnecessary that it is more of a conceit, a flourish for which you pay more.

It would be useful for large sale crushing operations where the volume and detritus like little stones and other crap is definitely going to load the machine and having adequate power at more than one roller will definitely help it plow through the various things that might otherwise stall a mill. But to grind up a 20 pound grain bill once every few weeks it is not even remotely necessary.

It is cool though.

On the web you can puruse a whole mess of You-Tube videos of single roller driven crushers that work great. Driving the other roller/s would not make the thing go faster, would not speak to roller gap, and will not make it process more grain.

Cliff897 said:

It will. I think that multiple driven rollers is unnecessary that it is more of a conceit, a flourish for which you pay more.
.....
On the web you can puruse a whole mess of You-Tube videos of single roller driven crushers that work great. Driving the other roller/s would not make the thing go faster, would not speak to roller gap, and will not make it process more grain.

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I guess single roller mills working fine depends on your experience. I fully understand the benefits and drawbacks of a mill in which both rollers are driven. In our case, it WILL process more grain, because it will actually work.

I don't know if we just got a bad unit, or if we just use it far more than the creators anticipated. Either way, I've had enough trouble with our current (single driven roller) mill that I'm ready to try something else.

I just put a new MM2 in the store driven by a 1/2 hp 1725 rpm to a Falk 90* 7.5 to 1 gearbox. IT IS A GRAIN CRUSHING MONSTER!!! 10# a min
Why the need for gear driven?

caspio said:

The micro brew series is pulley driven. One pulley for each of the two rollers. Means you need to use two motors, or get clever with jackshafts. On the plus side, that means both rollers are driven and adjustable. On the downside, it's 1 grand.

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My LBHS has one of these, and I love it. Very fast, and the on-the-fly adjustable gap is a thing of beauty.

TwoHeadsBrewing said:

Does anyone know of a fully adjustable gap, gear-driven malt mill? The Scmidlings offer either gear driven OR adjustable. But their set gap is .045, which is a bit wide. I run my Barley Crusher at .035 which gives me the crush I want.

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I would go with 5mm pitch by 25mm wide toothed belt and sprockets with a tensioner idler long before any gear or chain drive system in this dusty dirty environment grinding itself up collecting mud off the chains lubricant. JMO on this one after working maintenance at a Weyerhauser box manufacturing plant with cardboard dust as your biggest enemy wearing away eating up chains and sprockets.
I bet grain dust and dirt will do the same wear and damage.
Seems overkill if it were so great why wouldn't Fred at MonsterMill of incorporated a gear or toothed 5mm belt driven 100% roller driven system a long time ago if it's that great of a crush improvement if any? JMO of what i've been watching and working with over the years.

BrewBeemer said:

I would go with 5mm pitch by 25mm wide toothed belt and sprockets with a tensioner idler long before any gear or chain drive system in this dusty dirty environment grinding itself up collecting mud off the chains lubricant. JMO on this one after working maintenance at a Weyerhauser box manufacturing plant with cardboard dust as your biggest enemy wearing away eating up chains and sprockets.
I bet grain dust and dirt will do the same wear and damage.
Seems overkill if it were so great why wouldn't Fred at MonsterMill of incorporated a gear or toothed 5mm belt driven 100% roller driven system a long time ago if it's that great of a crush improvement if any? JMO of what i've been watching and working with over the years.

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It doesn't seem like any other people have had the problem we have had, but our Barley Crusher binds up at least a few times for each 18# batch. It's a royal PITA to get it going again, and I usually lose a bit of grain going around the rollers each time. I emailed BC Products and they gave me some things to try, which have not worked. I emailed them again, and we may receive a replacement but that remains to be seen.

Either way, I'm ready to move on to a better mill. The MM2 looks nice, as does the MM3. I just want to be able to crush 3-4 batches back to back and not have the thing bind up on me several times.

Jaybird said:

I just put a new MM2 in the store driven by a 1/2 hp 1725 rpm to a Falk 90* 7.5 to 1 gearbox. IT IS A GRAIN CRUSHING MONSTER!!! 10# a min
Why the need for gear driven?

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Our BC has been binding up. Basically, the non-driven roller stops spinning and no grain gets through. You either have to reach underneath and move the roller by hand (yikes), or put the drill in reverse and back to forward again which wastes a handful of grain. Not acceptable!

I'm ready for either a replacement, or to melt the whole thing down for scrap. Hopefully BC Products can help out here, as their product is supposed to have a lifetime warranty.

i'll give you scrap value for it

Why don't you detail the fixes that BC suggested? Maybe someone else has a solution for you. Only trouble I have had so far with my BC is when I left the cleaning brush inside and tried to grind that with the grain.

Worries me a bit with the amount of posts that I have read with troubles on these mills which only have so few parts.

Got the Hippie Norpro Grain Flaker in today:

It is pretty.

Cliff897 said:

and this
http://www.grainflaker.com/
$79.00 free shipping

Three Rollers all Steel

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The rollers are grooved and are about 2" diameter by 4" long (approx')
All three rollers are driven.
That impressed me.

They talk about adjustments as Thin rolled or flaked oats and thick.
No measurements they "guess" it between half and a whole MM

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The range of adjustments allowed me to crank it down so that I could make flour and opened up almost to 0.100"
So there's plenty of range.

I just bought one

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And today, the same day I got it, I am sending it back.

REASON:
Yah it's all steel and it's chromed to boot and all three rollers are grooved and are all driven and it's fully adjustable - - yup all that is true.

It's simply never going to be near sturdy enough.

The elliptical on the thing is not on bearings. It's steel on steel and that just won't last. Worse there is a "nut" holding the adjustable roller in the frame. It is not really a nut. It's hex shaped but bored out-of-center to create the elliptical for adjustment and then merely epoxied in place. It's not even a press fit.

So the most critical components are merely glued together and the bearing surfaces are steel on steel.

Going cheap on brewing equipment will bite you in the butt every time especially with an item like a grain mill that's worked hard.

I've made some astonishing finds and purchases in the past. Ya gotta keep an open mind about things.

Cliff897 said:

I've made some astonishing finds and purchases in the past. Ya gotta keep an open mind about things.

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I did, I purchased a top brand name 3 roller 2" diameter mill for $229
not counting $17 shipping, I got a $246 mill with bushings out of position a usless mill. Instead of going thru returning it to get my money back as I like this mill I rebuilt it to function as it should. Scared up end plates due to the end frames twisted with alignment problems plus a bushing pushing a roller 0.089" away from the end plate didn't impress me much about their quality controlled and "pre tested before delivery" item. I needed a mill the cash would not crush my grain so I kept it and fixed its problems.

They should not have been trying to soak you for return shipping.
The only time you should ever pay return is when it's your fault you ended up with the wrong thing.

If the retailer ships junk, or your pre-sales inquiry was wrongly responded to it's their problem they own it. Whenever you rely on representations by the retailer and then you get something that is not what you were told it would be, it's their burden to pay shipping.

NEVER be shy about telling a retailer that you relied on their representative's statements in a pre-sales inquiry (assuming you made one). Once you establish reliance on their representations they own the problem.

If they refuse to send you a pre-paid label, just have your AMEX or charge card, deny the charge and don't ship it back till they make good and send you a pre-paid label.

Never E-V-E-R use a MAC card for online purchases. There's nothing you can do if the retailer refuses to make you right. The idea is to always keep the other guy's skin in the game.

This mill manufacture is a highly respected person I still respect him myself as he was willing to refund my money, this would of still left me without a mill then I would of had nothing. The same mill under a different name by his 'ex partner was another option. I posted pictures of this mill and got some flack on this forum. The mills owner told me the oillite bushings can pop out of their pressed in fittings during shipping alone. Big BS flag here as the best part it was so out of alignment you can see the scars of the rollers into the end plates due to the bushing out of alignment before it was "factory tested". I decided to just polish out the sharp machined journals as they felt like a record with the fast rate of travel those journal grooves would of ate the bushings in short order. When your finger nail sticks across the machined grooves this is not bushing contact material. I polished them then had the knurled rollers and journals case hardened. With new replaced bushings with a undersized ID then reamed to fit each journal for now a tighter smoother mill than even an replacement one if it were shipped to me. I'm happy as this was a special request not to have 3 flats for a drill chuck to drive it. I ordered the shaft as round and milled a keyway into it for the Lovejoy coupling drive. I had a different plan on driving it hence not a standard production item, I didn't want to fight with a "special ordered" item. Live and learn.

I am happy it came out well for ya.

The price you pay vs spending your own free labor milling and lathe work of a mill of ones own design. I sure as hell would use sealed ball bearings vs bushing on the journals, this is so caveman my opinion considering the dirty conditions the journals and bushing are running in. With added production machining steps eliminated by adding sealed ball bearings plus the added cost of these ball bearings vs cheaper bushings allows for faster and higher production of mills plus lower costs a win win for the mills manufactures as well what the homebrewer can afford. Money lubes the world plus the manufactures can get their product out in higher numbers at a lower cost. I can see the grain adjusting housing needing to be bored out to a larger housing to hold a larger diameter ball bearings OD vs thin wall bushings, the other fixed bushings also bored out for ball bearing replacements is my thinking then even side loading from a belt drive speed reduction system would not place an added strain on the drive bushing vs a ball bearing that can handle these loads for many trouble free years. By then the knurling anyway would be shot or worn down unless they were case hardened first.Then add the amount of pounds grain run thru a mill during the life of the average home brewer. I'll stop said enough with my opinions.

TwoHeadsBrewing said:

Does anyone know of a fully adjustable gap, gear-driven malt mill? The Scmidlings offer either gear driven OR adjustable. But their set gap is .045, which is a bit wide. I run my Barley Crusher at .035 which gives me the crush I want.

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I've been drooling over this mill.

http://www.mashmaster.com/p/563201/millmaster-stainless-steel-grain-mill-.html


But man the price, and shipping from Australia. Deal killer.

I think I'll order MM3-2.0.

http://monsterbrewinghardware.com/mm-320.html


Would love to have the Mashmaster.

RonRock said:

I've been drooling over this mill.

http://www.mashmaster.com/p/563201/millmaster-stainless-steel-grain-mill-.html


But man the price, and shipping from Australia. Deal killer.

I think I'll order MM3-2.0.

http://monsterbrewinghardware.com/mm-320.html


Would love to have the Mashmaster.

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I hear ya except the gear drive in the grain that will wear away as well make noise then add the price these items turned me off. I already have a MM3-2 which needed a little work before I was happy with it. The price of $246 delivered was plenty enough.