virgin run on fugly corona mill bucket system

i picked up my first bag of bulk today, 55 lb of muntons pearl malt. i plan on running a few smash batches to get my efficiency and crush dialed in, so i crushed up the bill for tomorrow. the two bucket system worked great and kept all the dusk inside. i love the smell.



here are a couple shots of the crush. i ran 3 loads of about 12 oz through to get it dialed in to this. they arent the greatest (cell phone) but the crush looks comparable if not finer than the one i have been getting from AHS. i'm sure there will be some adjustment to come.


p.s the 3/8 inch drill in the first photo started to smoke after a few min, but having a 1/2 drill from the 60's makes this a piece of cake, that thing is BEASTLY

I'm right there with you with the ugly corona milling station. It works well for me....hope it does for you. My drill smokes as well but I don't give a crap. I figure when it breaks I'll get a heavy duty harbor freight deal to replace it.

Looks pretty good, not sure, but I still seem to see some whole grains...tighten er up IMO till your scared.

That water bottle looks like you employed some squirells to chew off the bottom for ya

yeah there are a few... i had the trial runs in a seperate bucket that i just dumped on top of the rest of the grist so i think the whole grains might be from that, when i started digging around the bucket i didnt see too many.
i'm sure i will tighten it up next time... but i figured i would rather start at lower efficiency and work my way up. i think next time i'm going to try conditioning as well... i feel like that might help especially with how the corona tears instead of squeezes. i'll post of some numbers later today when i finish my pearl/sterling smash.

wilserbrewer said:

Looks pretty good, not sure, but I still seem to see some whole grains...tighten er up IMO till your scared.

That water bottle looks like you employed some squirells to chew off the bottom for ya

Click to expand...

come on now. we all know a squirrel would make much nicer cuts it was my goal to not let any part of this project take more than 5 minutes... and i proudly accomplished that :cross:

Scut_Monkey said:

I'm right there with you with the ugly corona milling station. It works well for me....hope it does for you. My drill smokes as well but I don't give a crap. I figure when it breaks I'll get a heavy duty harbor freight deal to replace it.

Click to expand...

You all are likely smarter than me in this... but make sure you have enough juice going to the drill.... I was burning up drills mixing mortar (1/2" drills) and would do fine with my cordless ryobi... Then I realized I was running the corded on an extension cord... not enough amperage due to the loss in the cord.


Like I said... I doubt anyone else would make this mistake... but if so, now you know!

FWIW I use my 18v ryobi cordless to turn my grain mill. One battery will do a 10 gallon batch with no problem (when fully charged).

well, surprisingly i hit 79% with that crush. after a couple more batches i'll be positive. i've been running low 70's lately so this is good news. i undershot my sparge water so i collected just under 8 instead of 8.5. this should be pretty yummy.
[size=+2]pale ale/sterling[/size]
[size=+1]10-A American Pale Ale[/size]
Date: 1/15/10



Size: 6.0 gal
Efficiency: 79.01%
Attenuation: 80.0%
Calories: 201.82 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.061 (1.045 - 1.060)
|=========================#======|
Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (1.010 - 1.015)
|===============#================|
Color: 5.42 (5.0 - 14.0)
|========#=======================|
Alcohol: 6.41% (4.5% - 6.2%)
|=========================#======|
Bitterness: 30.3 (30.0 - 45.0)
|========#=======================|

[size=+1]Ingredients:[/size]
13 lb Pearl Pale Ale Malt
.75 oz Sterling (6.8%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1.0 oz Sterling (6.8%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1 tsp Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
1.0 oz Sterling (6.8%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min
1.0 ea Fermentis US-05 Safale US-05

[size=+1]Schedule:[/size]
Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m

00:03:00 Untitled Step - Liquor: 4.75 gal; Strike: 164.89 °F; Target: 154.0 °F
01:03:00 Untitled Step - Rest: 60 min; Final: 153.0 °F
01:03:00 sparge - FR: 0 gal sparge @ 168.0 °F, 0.0 min; 1: 2.5 gal sparge @ 175.0 °F, 0.0 min; 2: 2.5 gal sparge @ 175.0 °F, 0.0 min; Total Runoff: 8.42 gal

[size=-1]Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.1[/size]

**** man, I almost threw up when I saw that. It is significantly fugly!

But it looks like it works great! I'm envious, as I usually have to hold the bucket with one hand and crank the Corona handle with the other. So far 11lbs of grain wears me right out. A barley wine might take a few hours.

Good setup!

"Heavy Duty" and "Harbor Freight" are two phrases not seen often outside a HF catalog, made me laugh.

chefmike said:

You all are likely smarter than me in this... but make sure you have enough juice going to the drill.... I was burning up drills mixing mortar (1/2" drills) and would do fine with my cordless ryobi... Then I realized I was running the corded on an extension cord... not enough amperage due to the loss in the cord.


Like I said... I doubt anyone else would make this mistake... but if so, now you know!

FWIW I use my 18v ryobi cordless to turn my grain mill. One battery will do a 10 gallon batch with no problem (when fully charged).

Click to expand...

I definitely could have made the same mistake but luckily I don't have to use an extension cord. Thanks tough.

zanemoseley said:

"Heavy Duty" and "Harbor Freight" are two phrases not seen often outside a HF catalog, made me laugh.

Click to expand...

What can I say but many people around here use them and have proven them to work just great for corona or roller mills. My current cordless and corded drill work just fine for home projects so I have no use for an awesome DeWalt drill. I'll save my money with a HF drill and spend the remainder on making awesome beer instead.

nebben said:

**** man, I almost threw up when I saw that. It is significantly fugly!

But it looks like it works great! I'm envious, as I usually have to hold the bucket with one hand and crank the Corona handle with the other. So far 11lbs of grain wears me right out. A barley wine might take a few hours.

Good setup!

Click to expand...

yeah i might need to do something about that hopper, it really is just barely sitting on top, i would hate to see it tip. sounds like i might need to wrap it up in a judicious amount of duct tape :rockin: using the 1/2 inch drill i need some one to steady the bucket, the drill can not be used with out 2 hands. i'll have to get a picture up of that beast.