Woo, just ordered a Barley Crusher!

I got a nice tax refund check and am going to seriously beef up my equipment. Just ordered the BC from Brewmasters Warehouse with my Kolsch ingredients!

Now I need Ohio to come around on the AHS sale so I can get the rest of my stuff!

I assure you it will arrive in pristine condition, I know mine did.

I am returning a Grain Gobbler from B3 this week to get a Barley Crusher. Just waiting for my return label from B3.

I have a pro pump and pro chiller due to be at the house on Wednesday!

Remember, hook a drill up to your BC when you do your crushing...it is so much better than hand cranking it!

Edcculus said:

I got a nice tax refund check and am going to seriously beef up my equipment. Just ordered the BC from Brewmasters Warehouse with my Kolsch ingredients!

Now I need Ohio to come around on the AHS sale so I can get the rest of my stuff!

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I ordered a BC from BMW as well, came really quickly along with my ingredients!! I'm pumped, this is going to basically start cutting my grain bills by 30% or more

Love mine! Can't go wrong with a Barley Crusher.

The BC was one of my christmas gifts, best one yet! I hear ya on the AHS sale coming around to Ohio, I need a bigger pot!

Got our BC in last week - gonna break it's cherry this weekend

You won't regret it. It's *well* worth the money.

Barley Crushers really are a very nice piece of equipment. Just have the drill ready to go. The hand crank is nice in an emergency, but I could not imagine crushing every batch using the hand crank.

Ed

Brewmasters Warehouse said:

Barley Crushers really are a very nice piece of equipment. Just have the drill ready to go. The hand crank is nice in an emergency, but I could not imagine crushing every batch using the hand crank.

Ed

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Used mine yesterday for the first time. While hand cranking about 10# of grain was a little work, it really didn't take that long.

My grain bag ripped and I lost about 1# of uncrushed grain on the floor, but in the end it still looks like I ended up with 75% efficiency with the factory setting.

Brewmasters Warehouse said:

Barley Crushers really are a very nice piece of equipment. Just have the drill ready to go. The hand crank is nice in an emergency, but I could not imagine crushing every batch using the hand crank.

Ed

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Thanks for the suggestion Ed.

I'll have to see how it goes. I'll be brewing 2 times a month at most, so likely it won't be a huge problem. I'll just remember to crush the night before so my brew day doesn't get too long!

Of all homebrewing equipment out there, I'm very confident in saying that the BC is pretty much the only one with 100% approval. Add a $3.00 feeler gauge set from an auto supply store and you're all set.

flyangler18 said:

Of all homebrewing equipment out there, I'm very confident in saying that the BC is pretty much the only one with 100% approval. Add a $3.00 feeler gauge set from an auto supply store and you're all set.

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I approve of my Monster Mill 100%

The Barly Crusher is a great thing. I used a drill with it a few times instead of hand cranking it. Then one day i realized i had a 10 gallon air compressor that had a hole in the tank. So I ended up removing the motor and hooking it up to my mill. It's a beautiful thing.

I always hand crank my BC. It's a bit of work, but it's not that hard.

Alas, my homebuilt crusher is not working. When I fix the eccentrics with a set screw, it Binds up. I'd love to have a professional unit, but then I'd miss the "fun" of making it and the money savings. Well, back to the workshop!

Remember, hook a drill up to your BC when you do your crushing...it is so much better than hand cranking it!

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My Barley Crusher let out a hearty laugh when I tried my Black & Decker drill (a corded one...NOT cordless). My drill couldn't budge it...not one bit. This is at the factory BC setting but with conditioned malt (which is a lot harder to crush than unconditioned malt).

I don't get enough exercise anyway and this will help with the skinny arms...yeah...that's it. Actually, it's holding it down with my free hand that wears me out as much as anything. I just plop it on top of a brewpot and start cranking. I should do something to make it a bit easier but a little exercise will do me good.

But def two weary thumbs up for the Barley Crusher.

Just ordered the 7LB hopper version from BMW, stoked to get my own but I have used one before, it works great. Got the ingredients for O'Flanny's Standard to run through it in the same shipment .

My only problem with my BC is that the 15 lb hopper isnt quite big enough for most of my batches, I need to rig up something better for holding grain.

I have a little Hitachi 12V drill that dosent even slow down while cracking wheat.

zac said:

My only problem with my BC is that the 15 lb hopper isnt quite big enough for most of my batches, I need to rig up something better for holding grain.

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Cut the bottom out of a small office trashcan ($2 at your local discount store) with a Dremel and set it into the stock hopper.

Used my BC for the second time today. Verified 75% efficiency with factory settings. Before that, I used PH 5.2 and tried a few other things and couldn't get above 70 if I was lucky.

Although I'm satisfied with 75%, I think I'll dial it in just a bit more and try to shoot for 80.

Every day I am getting closer and closer to buying a barley crusher. This summer most likely I will go for it.

I just ordered one, the one at the homebrew shop where I work is on the fritz. Hopefully I'll see an increase in efficiency as well.

We've used our BC twice now, at factory setting and have gotten 85% (19lb grain bill) and 87% (10lb grain bill) into the boiler - so you can definitely do it.

18v Dewalt chewed right through all that grain too which was nice!

McKBrew said:

Used my BC for the second time today. Verified 75% efficiency with factory settings. Before that, I used PH 5.2 and tried a few other things and couldn't get above 70 if I was lucky.

Although I'm satisfied with 75%, I think I'll dial it in just a bit more and try to shoot for 80.

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Got all the stuff in. The barley crusher is nice! I'm using it to crush the grain for my Kolsch this weekend.

Quick question. Do I leave on the rubber o-ring or cut it off?

I love my BC I use a 24volt Bosch commercial drill works great

usurpers26 said:

We've used our BC twice now, at factory setting and have gotten 85% (19lb grain bill) and 87% (10lb grain bill) into the boiler - so you can definitely do it.

18v Dewalt chewed right through all that grain too which was nice!

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Yep, I would say there is a good 5-10% increase if someone is coming from a less crush before.

I know I went from 75-80% to 85-90%. My last brew, I got a 1.045 out of 7.75lbs of grain (7.5 Pale 2 row and .25 of Crystal 60) with a volume of 5.75G. I just transferred it to the keg, filled up the whole keg and went past the 5G mark, filled up a 1/2G growler almost to the cap and still had a little left over that I sadly poured down the drain.

Edcculus said:

Got all the stuff in. The barley crusher is nice! I'm using it to crush the grain for my Kolsch this weekend.

Quick question. Do I leave on the rubber o-ring or cut it off?

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You can leave the O-ring on and it will eventually fall off, or cut it off in the beginning if you want.

I bought a 7.3A HD Low Speed drill to run mine at 400RPM... the drill is a perfect match for the crusher. Now that I have my "no chill" fermentor in, I will have to get around to using it.

Edcculus said:

Got all the stuff in. The barley crusher is nice! I'm using it to crush the grain for my Kolsch this weekend.

Quick question. Do I leave on the rubber o-ring or cut it off?

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I cut mine off to keep it from dropping in the grain and going through the mash.

It's for testing at the factory and doesn't serve a purpose when the mill is in use.

Thanks, I just cut it off. I see that its just so the other roller turns so the factory can fix it.

I was just thinking the other day that I wish I had a BC so that I could order all of my grains for the next 5 batches. Chances are I will be dropping the cash for one at the end of the month.