KitchenAid grain mill?

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PilotBMP

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I saw everyone's posts about grain mills and now want to get one. My wife however has a KitchenAid stand alone mixer. I see that they make a grain mill attachement, any major posts against this?

"With the Kitchenaid Accessory Grain Mill Attachment, you can get the most fiber and protein for your homemade multi-grain and wheat breads, cereals or tortillas. Grind your own using this Grain Mill attachment with your Kitchenaid mixer. Use with low-moisture grains, such as wheat, corn, rice and select the desired consistency - fine to coarse. This stainless steel Kitchenaid accessory safely secures to front of mixer and detaches easily for convenient storage. Refrigerate ground grains for lasting freshness."
 
That would be a lot of work for the kitchen aid and the grinder attachment, I don't think it is designed for that much grain. I also have seen this discussed before and the people who tried it seemed to think it basically turned it into flour.
 
The BarleyCrusher works pretty close to perfectly for our purposes. I can't speak highly enough of it. Unless they're a really compelling reason to go for the KitchAid mill (like, that's the only purchase you can get SWMBO's approval of because she's going to use it for something else as well), go with the BC.
 
I've often wondered about using the Kitchenaid mixer as a motor for a Barley Crusher or similar. Has anyone ever done this before? It seems like this would be a good motor since its very powerful and can go as slow or fast as you want... Any thoughts?

It would super cool if they made a BC that hooked right up to a kitchenaid mixer! ;)
 
It was a question on basic brewing and someone wrote in and said he uses it and it works well. If you already have the standalone mixer and the attachment isn't that much then give it a shot, if it doesn't work well you can always take it back. If it is anything more that $50 then I'd get one meant for brewing for $115. At least you know it will last and won't wear out the KitchenAid.
 
If you've got the flip up model KitchenAid I'd avoid the mill, as well as the grinder attachments. From everything I've read the internals for the PTO include nylon gearing that will strip under heavy loads. If you've got the Pro model, with the bowl that raises and lowers to the mixing head, you should be OK.

I've got a flip up KA. I bought a Barley Crusher. I love them both and would trade neither for their intended purposes.
 
If you've got the Pro model, with the bowl that raises and lowers to the mixing head, you should be OK.

I've got the Pro Model with a steel transmission and 450 watt motor. It's easily the strongest motor in my house and I would love to use it when I get a BC rather than rigging some cheap drill.
 
I've got the Pro Model with a steel transmission and 450 watt motor. It's easily the strongest motor in my house and I would love to use it when I get a BC rather than rigging some cheap drill.

I didn't mean to say you could use the KitchenAid to power the BC mill. While I'm quite sure there's a way to do that, and it just needs an enterprising mind to figure it out, the use of an electric powered hand drill is still the preferred way to spin the rollers on the BC. I happen to like being able to hook up an inexpensive drill to the BC and then easily remove it when I'm done crushing the grain. Storage of the drill is a bit easier than the KA mixer as well.
 
True, but I already have the KA and have to store it. Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like it would be super easy to make/modify a BC to work. This pasta attachment looks just like what I imagine it would look like.
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I looked into this option when we first got a KA standmixer. Ours is only the artisan series, but I read somewhere that the grain mill puts more load on the mixers than any other attachment they make and the instructions tell you to limit run time to 3 minutes or something. I might be different for the pro-model with it's metal gearbox, but also remember that this thing is designed to make flour, not grist for brewing. For the money, the crush will likely always be inferior to a purpose-built grain crusher for the same money.

I know where your coming from though. Like I said once before, this stand mixer is the closest I'll ever come to owning a tractor, so I want to make use of that prop shaft! However, I think you're better off getting the pasta maker or meat grinder attachment.
 
This has been a bit of a discussion over the last couple weeks in the listener letters section of Basic Brewing Radio...evidently some people have them and love them...IIRC the biggest issue was rigging up a hopper so you could grind more that a few ounces at a time.
 
I have the kitchenaid grain mill. do not buy it unless you plan on making flour. my mixer runs significantly slower than it did when it was new two years ago. and it takes at least a 1/2 hour to grind the grain for even a 5 gallon batch.
it worked fine for specialty grains in extract batches, but all grain requires at least a roller mill. and I don't have stuck sparges now that I"m running a 3 roller Monster Mill. 10 gallon all grain batches require a lot of grain, don't buy the KA mill.
 
I've got the Pro Model with a steel transmission and 450 watt motor. It's easily the strongest motor in my house and I would love to use it when I get a BC rather than rigging some cheap drill.

If you aren't 100% certain about the metal transmission, you might want to check it before using the mixer to power a BC. At some point, Kitchenaid made the gearbox out of plastic and that caused problems. It was just the gearbox, not the gears, but the design was bad. The box would eventually crack and have to be replaced. There were complaints and apparently they've switched back to all metal (at least in the Pro line, I'm not sure about the rest). But the plastic gearbox was even in the Pro line for a while.

If somebody out there is looking for a mixer, try to find an old Kitchenaid from when they were manufactured by Hobart. Those are the ones that have seen daily, heavy use for more than ten years and still run like new.
 
I've got the pro model with the large motor, etc. Had it about a year. I've used the grain mill attachment for up to 5lbs of grain and it worked fine. The motor itself didn't get hot at all, judging by the air being discharged by the cooling fan, and i processed the 5lbs of grain in say 8-10 minutes on the next-to-coarsest setting.

Only issue I've had is that on the most-coarse setting, the output grill gets clogged b/c the openings in it are too small. Going to use the ol' Dremel to fix that soon enough though.
 
My wife does a lot of baking and has a Pro Series KA that I bought her as a present maybe 5 years ago. When I was trying to figure out why some of them cost twice as much I had a salesman tell me that the drive trains are plastic and are not as easy to repair on the cheaper models. These things are designed to run for hours and not over heat, so I wouldn't be surprised if they could grind grain for years.

Would I buy the grinding attachment? He!! no! You burn up her mixer and you'll hear about it for 20 years. If you burn up a $20 Black and Pecker drill she won't even notice.
 
Would I buy the grinding attachment? He!! no! You burn up her mixer and you'll hear about it for 20 years. If you burn up a $20 Black and Pecker drill she won't even notice.

Yeah, I have a BC now and I'm rethinking my previous idea of trying to add a pulley system to it. I think I'll use the drill.. for the same reason as you.
 
They are not even good for grinding flour, we burned up two of the industrial metal motor ones, and had to send them back. I went with the BC, even though I only paid $20.00 for the KA grain mill.
Stay away from grinding grain on the KA!
 
I would just like to add, for anyone thinking of this...If you read the User Guide, this is clearly not designed for large grain bills. A few pounds of specialty grains for the extract brewer and this might be a good idea, but much more than that, even with all metal gearing and your mixer will likely break down. Crisis averted.

http://www.fantes.com/manuals/kitchen-aid-grain-mill-manual.pdf


"BARLEY — For best results, barley should be hulled before grinding."

"NOTE: Do not grind more than 10 cups of flour at one time; damage to mixer may result. After grinding 10 cups of flour, allow the mixer to cool at least 45 minutes before using it again."
 
You know what? I’ve used my KA grain mill for years, cracking grain for bread, milling flour, and yes, milling malted barley. Milling barley is easy on the motor, makes a decent enough crush—I’ve never had a stuck mash— and my beer taste great. While I would like a roller mill,as I believe the crush is better and more consistent, I’ll keep using the KA for 5 gallon batches. 15 minutes for a high gravity beer; I can do that.
 
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