Will my drill be ok for attaching to a mill?

I have one of these. Will it be sufficient for running a mill like the Cereal Killer, Barley Crusher, or Crankandstein?

I have a cheap $40 Harbor Freight that runs my Monster Mill 2 just fine and the specs look the same. Should work.

Just don't run it on the hammer setting

Yes that would be fine, but to repeat, don't use the hammer setting

Just my two cents. I had a lower amp drill and I smoked it this weekend on my 3-roll crankenstein.

I ordered a 10amp drill instead that is a beast.

It is amazing how much torque is required to run a Barley Crusher on a fine setting...none of my drills will turn it at a low RPM so I just use the hand crank...it's a nice arm workout!

Would the torque requirement be less for a mill with shorter rollers, like the Crankenstein?

metasyntactic said:

Would the torque requirement be less for a mill with shorter rollers, like the Crankenstein?

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Yes, the torque required is related directly to how much barley is being fed through at a given moment.

jchawk said:

Just my two cents. I had a lower amp drill and I smoked it this weekend on my 3-roll crankenstein.

I ordered a 10amp drill instead that is a beast.

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I use a 7.8 amp DeWalt on a 3 roller Crankenstein which is what I recall the manufacturer recommended. It is hot after milling a batch of grain (I mill very slowly with a lot of torque).

I use a Porter cable 18V drill with the trigger half way in on my cereal killer gapped at ~.032. get 75-80%

i use a 14.4v cordless dewalt on a 2 roll cranknstein. Been using this set up for years. I do use an entire battery charge though for a 10 gallon high gravity batch.

Montanaandy said:

I use a 7.8 amp DeWalt on a 3 roller Crankenstein which is what I recall the manufacturer recommended. It is hot after milling a batch of grain (I mill very slowly with a lot of torque).

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Montanaandy makes a great point. You need a ton of torque at low speeds. The slower you can go the better crush you get, the better efficiency you'll see later.

Having a well constructed mill that you can use will make a world of difference compared to what you were use to seeing from you LHBS.