Best inexpensive grain mill

Could I get a few commercial grain mills to compare from the homebrewtalk community? I just started brewing all grain and I think buying one big bag of non crushed grain would last longer and save me some cash. I'm not looking for farm equipment, just an inexpensive grain mill more or less around 100 dollar mark.

Thanks!

The industrial farm units go for $10.00 in Canada because people just buy them for scrap value. Thimnk about it!! Go to a farm auction and you might get it for less!!

Lots of people hate on them but I have had great luck with my $20 corona mill with maybe $10 in modifications

I also use a $20 Corona mill with a few modifications to make it drill powered and a good catcher for the grain. It works so well that I don't plan on upgrading to a better one any time soon.

Not sure what you mean by "Commercial". What we homebrewers are using are industrial grade and will last many 10's of thousands of pounds of malt going through them.

the best inexpensive mill I know if is what I bought, the Barley Crusher Malt Mill. It was around $120 with the hopper attached and I've run over 1,000 lbs through it with no issues whatsoever.
http://www.homebrewing.org/product....m=ProductAds&gclid=CPie4-bmj8UCFWoV7AodNwQAOA

I drive mine with a low speed drill and I can mill 25 lbs in about 10 minutes.

Not sure if having a bag of bulk grain will last any longer, sort of works the opposite for me.

I have a cereal killer mill, the cost was $100 with free shipping. Had it for about a year and it seems to work just fine. I attach a portable drill to the shaft and it cranks through the grain pretty quick. A larger hopper would be nice, but I just put the extra grain in 1gal ziplock bags and fill as the level drops. I got a 5 to 10% boost in efficiency when I started milling my own grain so I am glad I bought it.

The Cereal Killer from Adventures in Homebrewing is $100 shipped. I have one, and I've probably run 400-500 lbs of grain through it and I'm pleased with the quality.

I really like my Monster Mill. The no-frills model can be had for $139. A little bit of time and scrap wood can make a nice hopper for it.

I have a Cereal Killer grain mill as well. At Christmas time it was $89 with free shipping. It works great and my efficiency went up 10% as compared to LHBS or buying grain online.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm looking at models that will go over a bucket. The Corona mill may work but I wouldn't have a table to attach it to. I wanted to get opinions before buying one from NB. All my brewing is done in a small kitchen so I may have to find a solution that doesn't involve clamps and messy dust everywhere.

JSP malt mill made here in America. I bought mine used from my LHBS and its a hell of a machine. I started out with a corona mill and still use it for smaller malts like wheat because my JSP is non adjustable.
http://schmidling.com/maltmill.htm

this thread's full of great ideas for corona style mills https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=90849

ANother vote for the Cereal Killer for Aventures in Homebrewing. I got it from day 1 of my brewing career 20 months ago and its made it through over 120 batches!

jplowe said:

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm looking at models that will go over a bucket. The Corona mill may work but I wouldn't have a table to attach it to. I wanted to get opinions before buying one from NB. All my brewing is done in a small kitchen so I may have to find a solution that doesn't involve clamps and messy dust everywhere.

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You can mount a corona mill in many ways. Messy dust will be the same with almost any mill. How you make your milling station is what will determine the degree of dust.

i just bought this barley crusher a few weeks ago. comes with a base that fits over a 5 gallon bucket, i attached a drill to it and worked great http://www.ritebrew.com/product-p/840425.htm

Corona mill user here, 3 years almost 2000lbs of grain, mounted it in a bucket and later added a motor works great.

jplowe said:

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm looking at models that will go over a bucket. The Corona mill may work but I wouldn't have a table to attach it to. I wanted to get opinions before buying one from NB. All my brewing is done in a small kitchen so I may have to find a solution that doesn't involve clamps and messy dust everywhere.

Click to expand...

Rather than attach it to a table or mount it over a bucket, I built a small simple wooden frame and attached it to that, and then mounted a tupperware container onto the frame. This way it's completely portable. I use a cordless drill to power it and mill several pounds per minute, with virtually no dust or mess. When it comes time to adding the grain to the mash tun, I just remove my hopper (diy larger hopper, not shown in picture), and dump it in straight from the tupperware container. The whole thing is light and solid enough that it is no problem to move around like that. So far, the largest grain bill I've milled with this was 26 lbs, and the tupperware container held it all.





This was worked well for me for hundreds of pounds of grain, and cost me $20 for the corona mill, wood was leftover and free, and about $5 for the tupperware container.