Crankandstein mill

SWMBO got me a 3 roller Crankandstein for Christmas this year. I built a base and hopper for it but hadn't tried it out until tonight.....Holy Crap, is this thing impressive!

The only problem I found is that my drill doesn't quite have the the cajones needed to run the mill. I had to widen the gap somewhat from the factory setting in order to get it to turn. Eventually I plan on adding a dedicated motor to it.

The crush is fantastic - very consistent, with not too much flour. I had to crush a little too fast because my drill wouldn't turn it at slower speeds. I'm sure if I went a little slower it would pretty much eliminate the flour.

What's really impressive is how it can crush the grain so fine but still leave the husks relatively intact. I should be able to get really good efficiency without worrying about a stuck sparge.

The only other mill (other than my old Corona) that I've ever used is a JSP. It's a fine mill, but IMHO there is no comparison to the Crankandstein. It would be interesting to see how the 2 roller compares to the triple, but I think what I have is awesome.

I got the 3 roller with detents a couple of years ago. I was lucky enough to find a 3/8 hp gear motor turning at 90 rpm. Have a lovejoy connection between the two shafts.
I sent different crush samples to a professional brewer, and his comments were "basically, the mill does a kick ass job". The best crush was with the detent on the second from largest setting (maris otter malt).
I got as my once a year large purchase and am very happy with it. Being somewhat of a DIY, if I could get my hands on some solid 6" steel bar, I have a friend who has a lathe............
Maybe just stick with what I have unless I open a brewpub or micro.

alemonkey said:

The crush is fantastic - very consistent, with not too much flour. I had to crush a little too fast because my drill wouldn't turn it at slower speeds. I'm sure if I went a little slower it would pretty much eliminate the flour.

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I am under the impression that you want some flour in your grist. The husks need to remain intact but if you can get a bit of flour doesn't it increase the mash efficiency?

Other part of the pro brewer's quote: "with very little flour". I think if you could get all grits and no flour, it would be a perfect grind. I think only the 6 roller BMC mills do that, but there will still be a little flour.
I've read about a mash filter, where you remove all of the husks (no astringency?) and filter the flour and grits. A little beyone homebrew costs...........but maybe not ?

Actually, large brewers like BMC use a much finer crush (almost all flour) with a much more sophisticated sparge system, resulting in very high efficency. The average homebrewer or microbrewer doesn't have the capability to mash that way, so a coarser crush with intact hulls is required to keep the sparge from sticking. A little flour is good, because it does increase mash efficiency, but a lot of flour will likely result in a stuck sparge. Filtering the husks out of your mash is not desirable unless you plan on using a lot of rice hulls as your filter bed - even then, the crush required will likely result in a lot of flour, and the sparge will be difficult.

alemonkey said:

The only problem I found is that my drill doesn't quite have the the cajones needed to run the mill. I had to widen the gap somewhat from the factory setting in order to get it to turn. Eventually I plan on adding a dedicated motor to it.

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Get a DeWalt........

Bernie Brewer said:

Get a DeWalt........

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...or the cheaperst plug in one you can find. They typically have much more power than an average battery powered model.

Ale-

come on over for some bevys and we can inspect the crush of a two roller crankandstein mill. I just got it for christmas and i use a 19.5 volt craftsman cordless. It works like a charm, but my sisters boyfriend have some gears, pulleys and belts from a robot he built when he was in school for mech engineering and he is going to give those to me so i do not have to use the drill.

Here's what you need to motorize your mill all from Grainger:

V Belt, Nominal Outside Length 44 Inches, Top Width 3/8 Inch, Belt 3L, 7/32 Inch Thick, Smooth DAYTON
3L440-G

Die Cast One Groove Sheave, OD 1 1/2 Inches, 3L Belt Pitch Diameter 1.05 Inches, 4L or A Belt Pitch Diameter 1.35 Inches, 1/2 Inch Bore Size CONGRESS
CA150 1-1/2A X 1/2

Die Cast One Groove Sheave, OD 10 Inches, 3L Belt Pitch Diameter 9.55 Inches, 4L or A Belt Pitch Diameter 9.85 Inches, 1/2 Inch Bore Size CONGRESS
CA1000 10A X 1/2

Belt Drive Motor, Split-Phase, Open Dripproof, 1/3 HP, 1725 RPM, Number of Speeds 1, 115 Volts, 6.6 Full Load Amps, 48Y NEMA Frame, Service Factor 1.35 DAYTON
6K778G
Adapter Bushing, 3/8 Inch ID x 1/2 Inch OD, 1 1/8 Inches Length, For Adapting 3/8 to 1/2 Inch Diameter Shaft DAYTON
6X452


This is what I used to make mine:

Brewiz, god damn that looks sexy!!!!!

I half assed a stand and hopper for mine so i could use it right away, can you post the dimensions of that thing please!

Nice work.

Reverend JC said:

Brewiz, god damn that looks sexy!!!!!

I half assed a stand and hopper for mine so i could use it right away, can you post the dimensions of that thing please!

Nice work.

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I will get it for you tonight, am at work right now. But I will tell you that if I did it again I would make the table a little bigger.

Reverend JC said:

Brewiz, god damn that looks sexy!!!!!

I half assed a stand and hopper for mine so i could use it right away, can you post the dimensions of that thing please!

Nice work.

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Reverend, The top is 20"x24" and it is 24" tall minus the casters. I wish I had made it about 6" bigger all around, it would be easier to put a bucket under the mill. And the frame is 2x4's.



I made some brackets for the hopper and put some inserts in the top with bolts coming thru the top and wing nuts to secure. I did this so I can put it under one of my shelf's



There are a few more picures in my gallery.

Does anyone have any comments on this mill? WWW.barleycrusher.com. It looks pretty nice for the price. What do ya think?

Reverend JC said:

Ale-

come on over for some bevys and we can inspect the crush of a two roller crankandstein mill. I just got it for christmas and i use a 19.5 volt craftsman cordless. It works like a charm, but my sisters boyfriend have some gears, pulleys and belts from a robot he built when he was in school for mech engineering and he is going to give those to me so i do not have to use the drill.

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Yeah, one of these days we need to get together for some brews. Things are finally leveling off at work so I'm not ridiculously busy anymore.

I have a plug-in 1/2 drive Skil. It's a little underpowered, but it gets the job done for now. My base and hopper are pretty ghetto looking - I used an old shelf that I had built for something else.

Brewiz- Awesome, thank you for the project idea.

Alemonkey- for sure. let me know when, i am out of brew right now but i have a dopplebock in the primary and i am getting ready to brew up 10 gallons of what i hope will become my house pale ale. I suppose i could always head over to meiers cork and bottle and pick up something real tastey!

Brewiz said:

Here's what you need to motorize your mill all from Grainger:

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Sweet! I went out there to check it out. It totals $101.08 without shipping.

Be carful if you use this mill with the base and hopper they sell. in the instructions they recomend making a cover to keep the milled graim from escaping out the side. i was in a hurry and figured my hand would work just as well. it did'nt. i got my hand too close and it pulled my thumb in. after a trip to the ER and some recovery time i put the recommended covers on.
awsome mill just learn from my pain and put the covers on! i would post pictures but there too disturbing

Reviving an old thread here in hopes that I can get some help.

I have the C&S 320D. When it crushes, it does a fantastic job. The problem I am having is that grain will not feed consistently from the hopper. Too much in the hopper and the mill locks up. I have tried cordless drill, corded drill and have now motorized with suitable sheaves to run at about 315rpm. The best solution was to run the corded drill at stupid high speed but even that locked up and required reversing to clear the mill. Hand cranking with a full hopper works but is not a solution for me.

I am doing approximately 30 pounds per brew (half capacity) and it means I have to drizzle grain into the mill which is taking me nearly 30 minutes and is a PITA.

There were no instructions included with my mill. The website has no information that I can find. I emailed the manufacturer and he sent me a copy of the instructions which are useless at this point. I can't find any decent youtube videos of setting up and adjusting this mill to work well.

Does anyone here have any pointers to getting this mill to run smoothly with a full hopper. It is the manufacturers hopper and mill combination but I will likely change to a larger hopper to help with my larger brews.

I can provide photos of the setup if that helps.

Thanks for any info y'all can provide.

I have the same mill, I power it with my trusty Shopsmith. The slowest spindle speed on the main drive of that beast is 700RPM, way too fast, so I added a couple of pulleys and a belt to get the speed down around 110RPM. While researching my mill most of the recommendations I found for mill roller speeds were for 100-200RPM. So I chose my pulley set to reduce the roller speed to 100RPM, I can increase the speed of the Shopsmith if ever think I need more speed.

While getting everything tweaked out I found matching the belt and pulleys to be critical, on my first go I chose a belt that was too narrow and would slip if I had more than a handful of grain in the hopper... no matter how tight I had the belt. I'm wondering if you have a similar problem going on with your setup? Does the drive motor stall, or does something start to slip?

I've been using my setup for about a year now and I'm really happy with it, getting 80+ efficiency on a consistent basis. Once you get the bugs worked out of your system I'll bet you'll be happy with it also.

I'll look into the belt sizing to be sure. I purchased the pulley wheels and belts as a single order from a shop and assumed that the sizing would be correct. I should also correct from my original post that the setup is running at 215rpm, not 315rpm.

Thanks for the pointer.

When you've got everything set and ready to run, make sure the belt is not bottoming out on either pulley. I assume you're running with a standard 'V' belt, they need to ride on the sides of the groove in the pulley. If the belt is too narrow it will settle down against the bottom of the v and slip, that was my problem. Got a wider belt and it works great, it did speed up my system a little as that changes the working diameter of the pulleys.

I have my Cereal Killer set up with single speed reduction with an old 1750RPM motor, and so I ended up with a 1.5" to a 14" sheave setup to get the speed down far enough. Having such a small pulley can be a problem, so I ended up getting a cogged belt at Fastenal (Stronghold AX50). I tried a link belt, but that didn't bend as well as the cogged one.

Did my first brew grind just the other day, and was wondering if the motor would stall if I started it up with a full hopper. But there was no problem with the old 1940's 1/4 or 1/3 horse motor I restored. Between having enough motor power and all that power from it being geared down so far, it ground it right through without slowing down.

Seeing that thread with mburnett earlier is a great reminder to make sure to keep our fingers clear of the grinder wheels, and any open pulley sheaves, too. I want to get a guard on my pulleys soon. That message was from 2010, and I hope he's doing alright.

Scott

Hi there! old thread but i try anyway.

I have seen a lot of these motorized belt mills, but nobody have ever addressed any problems with the roller(ball bearings) getting to much pressure. I would assume that it would be better to get the engine directly attached to the shaft and use some frequency changer to adjust the RPM.

im planing on buying a C&S 328D, but not really sure how i want it built.

Cheers

fooofleman said:

Hi there! old thread but i try anyway.

I have seen a lot of these motorized belt mills, but nobody have ever addressed any problems with the roller(ball bearings) getting to much pressure. I would assume that it would be better to get the engine directly attached to the shaft and use some frequency changer to adjust the RPM.

im planing on buying a C&S 328D, but not really sure how i want it built.

Cheers

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problem with that is torque. unless you get a 2hp+ motor it wont turn the mill directly. With using pulleys and a belt you are multiplying the torque the motor has.

Scottie61 said:

I have my Cereal Killer set up with single speed reduction with an old 1750RPM motor, and so I ended up with a 1.5" to a 14" sheave setup to get the speed down far enough. Having such a small pulley can be a problem, so I ended up getting a cogged belt at Fastenal (Stronghold AX50). I tried a link belt, but that didn't bend as well as the cogged one.

Did my first brew grind just the other day, and was wondering if the motor would stall if I started it up with a full hopper. But there was no problem with the old 1940's 1/4 or 1/3 horse motor I restored. Between having enough motor power and all that power from it being geared down so far, it ground it right through without slowing down.

Seeing that thread with mburnett earlier is a great reminder to make sure to keep our fingers clear of the grinder wheels, and any open pulley sheaves, too. I want to get a guard on my pulleys soon. That message was from 2010, and I hope he's doing alright.

Scott

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Can you tell me how you got a pulley with a 1/2" bore on the Cereal Killer's 10mm shaft? I'm guessing some sort of bushing? Part #? Thanks for the help.

Sorry -- haven't logged on in a while!

The 14" sheave from ebay has a 5/8" bore, and is used with a 5/8" OD-3/8" ID bronze bushing (McMaster 6381K606). The ID then had to be filed a bit to fit onto the 10mm shaft of the Cereal Killer.

I've used the grinder on several brews and it's still working well.

Scott

Double post -- not sure how it happened

Scottie61 said:

Sorry -- haven't logged on in a while!

The 14" sheave from ebay has a 5/8" bore, and is used with a 5/8" OD-3/8" ID bronze bushing (McMaster 6381K606). The ID then had to be filed a bit to fit onto the 10mm shaft of the Cereal Killer.

I've used the grinder on several brews and it's still working well.

Scott

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Awesome, thank you. Thats what I needed.