barley crusher

I just recieved my malt mill barley crusher in the mail. So this weekend I am going to crush some grain!! and brew some more beer. I was reading about using a cordless drill with the mill but I am lost when it comes to figuring out RPM's. I have a Black and Decker cdc1800 18v cordless drill and I know it has either 5 or 6 speeds. Can I get some help on what level I will want to this be on when I use it to crush. From what I read you don't want to go too slow or too fast...so I want to do it the correct way the from the start....that is why I need help!! Thanks guys

I would just say do it by hand the first time. That way you can get a feel for how the mill works. It really doesn't take that long to crush grain for a 5 gallon batch by hand.

i can handle that...do you need to keep a pretty quick pace? or just do a natural pace?

THEDIETZ said:

i can handle that...do you need to keep a pretty quick pace? or just do a natural pace?

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Normal pace is what you want. Around 200 - 300 RPM seems to be optimal. Also, when I used a drill I had to have the rollers moving before I started adding any grain.

My first crush I did by hand for about 1/2lb and then said WTF are you doing?

I use a DeWalt 18v cordless on about 3/4 speed. It will become obvious how fast you should run it.

I usually run my mill as slow as I can get it to go without it binding.

I used my crusher for the first time today. I ended up just hooking up the cordless drill...it worked great. Even better my efficiency went from 60-65% (from the homebrew store mill) to 75% using the new mill. I am hoping I get this result everytime!!

I find that many cordless (and corded) drills have a hard time turning the mill without going really fast. I bought a geared down corded drill, it chews through at low speeds beautifully.

I did the same, high torque, low speed drill.

I have a low speed drill from Harbor Freight. I think I got it $20 cheaper in the store than what they have online though.

Edcculus said:

I have a low speed drill from Harbor Freight. I think I got it $20 cheaper in the store than what they have online though.

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Those were on sale last month for (I think) about $30.00 with a coupon.

what is the benefit of going slow?

jaginger said:

what is the benefit of going slow?

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Longer pleasure?

brewbeemer said:

longer pleasure?

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zing!

jaginger said:

what is the benefit of going slow?

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Running a mill at lower rpm's generates a lot less dust and it will be substantially quieter as well. The consistency of the grist will be different when milling at high speed vs. low speed for a given gap, but this can be adjusted out with a different gap setting. Generally, a faster speed requires a wider gap in order to produce the same crush as a mill running at lower speed.

I seem to have a hard time getting my drill to properly grip the bar.

Gave up last night, and just cranked by hand.

Since were on the topic anyway, what mill are you all using? Getting sick of driving down to the LHBS twice as much since I went all grain.

i have a 7 lb barley crusher

AZ_IPA said:

I seem to have a hard time getting my drill to properly grip the bar.

Gave up last night, and just cranked by hand.

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SWMBO needs to work on that!

I can attest that the speed of the drill will affect efficiency. I can get 80-83% when i crank by hand or go slowly with the drill. If i just open the drill up and let it fly through my efficiency drops close to 10%!

No issue getting my 18v cordless DeWalt (model DCD950KX) to grab the shaft to spin it... Not sure if it matters that the drill has a 1/2" chuck or not. Grabs it right every time I've used it so far. I set the drill to the lowest speed range (maxes out at 500rpm) to mill the grain... Works really, really well there. I've used it to go through 35# of grain so far, and still on the same battery charge. I suspect I could mill more than a few sacks of grain on a single battery charge. Good tools make a big difference...

Golddiggie said:

I suspect I could mill more than a few sacks of grain on a single battery charge. Good tools make a big difference...

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Aint that the truth! I have a little 14.4 Volt craftsman, if I forget to charge the battery the night before brewing, I will be grinding by hand! Luckily I do smaller batches so Im only working with 5 -10lbs of grain. 35 would be quite the workout!

Didn't care for the 16.8v Craftsman cordless I had before the DeWalt... Even when the old drill was brand new, it couldn't hold the door open for the DeWalt model... :rockin: Of course, having TWO batteries in my new kit (I make sure the spare is fully charged) means I won't need to worry about the issue you can face. Believe me, I was there plenty of times with the Craftsman drill... Charged up the spare, but after just a year, or two, it couldn't hold enough charge to run for very long...

Personally, I wouldn't even think about getting a cordless drill, or major tool, that wasn't 18V these days... Maybe something that would get real light use could have a lower rating... It looks like most of what DeWalt offers is either 18V or higher (for battery sizes)... They do offer some tools with lower voltage batteries, but those are in addition to the main ones.

When you've had enough of the Craftsman drill, get a DeWalt... :rockin: