Monster Mill

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BigB

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I'm thinking about buying the 3 roller Monster Mill. Those who have it and have used it, what are your thoughts on it, pros and cons... be brutally honest please!
 
i have the 3 roller, the only thing i would change would be to make the flats that are milled onto the shaft larger. i like that you could just buy the mechanism and save $ by building your own base and hopper.
 
I just got one for christmas, so this is a very early review, but I've used it 3 times now. The crush at 0.039 is amazing, and I don't condition my malt. It's got me over 90% eff on all 3 of my batches. I had to go buy a new drill to drive it, as my variable speed 1/2" was not the heavy duty low speed variety, but you can get one with the gear reduction at Harbor Freight for about $30 that works well enough. If you do get the mill make sure to follow the recommended speed, as mine shot flour out when I ran it too fast with my old drill.

It appears to be a quality product. The bushings on mine were very tight when I got it, but I expect them to wear in. Also, the thumb screws for gap adjustment have to be as tight as I could make them by hand to avoid slipping.

I was considering purchasing a barley crusher, but am very glad that I got the MM-3 instead. I really have no complaints so far.
 
I have the MM-3 with stainless 1.5" rollers. It rocks. I have it mounted with a 1/3 HP motor and gear reducer. I personally don't see the what the benefit of getting the 2.0 rollers over these would be if you power the mill properly. This thing would grind me up to my neck if I stuck my hand in. But stainless, I can see a reason.

The hopper is very high quality and sturdy with little to no dust escaping.
 
Thanks for the input guys. You helped make up my mind. I also appreciate the input on the hopper as I was considering getting that option.
 
I'm thinking about buying the 3 roller Monster Mill. Those who have it and have used it, what are your thoughts on it, pros and cons... be brutally honest please!

I have the 3-roller and love the hell out of it. I wish the adjustment/alignment was a little more user friendly, but with some feeler gauges and nimble fingers, You can tweak it. I like that with my conditioned malt I can crank that thing down very tight and still get pretty good throughput on a 30# grainbill.

I agree with the previous poster that I wish the "drill grippers" on the drive shaft were a bit more substantial. If I had to do it over I would have ordered with the larger drive shaft.
 
I use the 3 roller one. I mounted mine on a bucket lid and grind into a 7 gal bucket. I power it with a 1/2" drive drill. I thought of doing a nice stand and motor, but for 10g batches, it takes less than 5 minutes to mill 20-30 lbs of grain using the drill. The mill & hopper then easily stores up on a shelf.
 
I don't regret my 3 roller monster at all. It's been awesome. I've had it for 8 months now and used it countless times for myself and friends. One of my friends even has his own mill...yet my crush is better so he uses mine if possible, this should tell you something. I find the adjustment screws do fine for me, no slippage.

Notes:
- You need a high torque drill to power the thing. I started with a black and decker low rpm drill...it did the job. I got a Milwaukee drill for xmas and noticed a HUGE difference, the mill works far better with the Milwuakee. A wimpy little drill won't tame this mill.
- Make your own hopper if you can. You can customize it however you like.
 
I don't regret my 3 roller monster at all. It's been awesome. I've had it for 8 months now and used it countless times for myself and friends. One of my friends even has his own mill...yet my crush is better so he uses mine if possible, this should tell you something. I find the adjustment screws do fine for me, no slippage.

Notes:
- You need a high torque drill to power the thing. I started with a black and decker low rpm drill...it did the job. I got a Milwaukee drill for xmas and noticed a HUGE difference, the mill works far better with the Milwuakee. A wimpy little drill won't tame this mill.
- Make your own hopper if you can. You can customize it however you like.

Even my high power drill would bind if I did not have it started when I began dumping grains or had too much grain int he hopper causing some clogging.. I got around this by restricting the inlet a bit with a plate of metal with a narrower opening and some feed shoots angled directly to the gap between the top 2 rollers. Not I can load it up and start, so no "one hand on drill and one hand on scooping grains" silliness and I don't think I lost and real throughput speed on the mill itself in the process.
 
I've got more praise for the MM three roller with the 1.5" rollers. I've been using it since late spring and I love it. Having a mill at home is awesome and I love this thing. I get great efficiency and ordered it with the hopper and base option. That allows me to stick it on a shelf where it's not in the way. I drive it with a Porter cable 18v drill set on the low rpm hi torque setting. I can fill the hopper and then start the drill going. I think I have mine set at .035 and when I condition my malt it makes for one beautiful crush.
 
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