Grain Mill, which one?

Getting ready to be fully functional on the all grain front. Would like to keep the price under $200. Suggestions, pros ,cons?

The barley crusher seems to have the best reputation, and I think you can get it for $119. The one with the larger hopper is $139.

go with the barley crusher

I love my Barley Crusher, but don't rely on the hash marks on the adjustment dials. If you get any one of the adjustable mills be sure you have a set of feeler gauges to check and set the roller gap.

I believed the instructions for the BC, and I went from ~70% efficiency to ~59% on the last batch because I trusted what I read. I'm keeping a set of gauges with my BC now.

Other than that it's an awesome mill for the $$, but then again it's the only mill I've ever owned. I have used the Corona type mill from my LHBS to grind steeping grains, back before I went AG, and it worked OK, but if you've got the money I'd suggest getting a roller type mill.

I went with a crankandstein since it is about half the price of a barley crusher. Also I was able to make the hopper the way I wanted it.

sause said:

I went with a crankandstein since it is about half the price of a barley crusher. Also I was able to make the hopper the way I wanted it.

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You got a Crankandstein for $60! Holy cow, I missed that special.

Buy a barley crusher through BeerSmith.com and save yourself $10.

I've never heard of anybody who had a roller mill, and wasn't satisfied with it.
I have a non-adjustable Schmidling mill, and it works great.

-a.

ma2brew said:

You got a Crankandstein for $60! Holy cow, I missed that special.

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I did spend about that actually. You could get one right now for $67. Here.

sause said:

I went with a crankandstein since it is about half the price of a barley crusher.

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That's a little misleading, since the BC is ready to go out of the box with a hopper, base and handcrank. Those will set you back another $55 from Crankandstein.

I also don't like the sound of "removing, turning and locking eccentric bearings" to adjust the gap.

It does look like a nice product though, if I were custom building a milling station (rather than a small, portable/stowable mill) I'd give them a good look.

I love my barley crusher. Ready to go out of the box. Lifetime waranty. Just a solid peice of equipment.

I have a Monster mill and love it as most people do theirs
I dont think you can really split them all so go with the one that meets the $$$ for quality.

Another vote for the Barley Crusher, this thing is awesome and ready to go out of the box and fits perfect on a 5 gallon bucket.

I have the Crankandstein two roller mill with base, hopper, and handle. It was a package deal they were offering when I bought it about a year and a half ago. I don't recall what it cost, but I believe it was about the same as the Barley Crusher, maybe a few bucks more. My Crankandstein is a great mill.

I think all the major grain mills are excellent, and you can't really go wrong with any of them.

My Vote goes here.........

http://www.monsterbrewinghardware.com/productsnew.htm

Barley crusher, love it!

I am one of the only people I know who has a barley crusher and is not thrilled about it. Using the LHBS mill I was in the high 70's efficiency wise and after getting the BC I am down to around 73%. I am going to adjust the gap and see where I get, but so far that was a dissapointment. I expected to go up. Also, I had a weird problem last Saturday where it kept messing up. I was grinding and grinding and then something would happen. It was like a gear would come loose or something. The handle would turn but there was no resistance, so I dont think the rollers were turning. I never found out because after I dumped the grain out it was working fine again. This happened probably 20 times on Saturday, it was a very frustrating experience.

However, I have to imagine that I am just unlucky. So many people have used it successfully that I would imagine that more times than not it is a very good product.

FWIW, the best mill I personally have ever used is the Schmidling.