Grain Mill or Plate Stirrer???

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Fastmetal

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2011
Messages
268
Reaction score
11
Location
Lee Summit
I got a little bonus at work and after I put some in the 401K and the kids college fund I am going to treat myself to a new brewing toy and have it narrowed down to a grain mill or a plate stirrer.

What say you fellow brew geeks?
 
the grain mill will allow you to go all-grain - it'll save you money, among other benefits.

stirrer will result in better starters, achieving fermentation faster, ability to use older yeasts with more confidence, etc.

if your fermentation has been doing OK up until now, i'd say go for the grain mill.
 
A grain mill is the way to go. With a grain mill you can buy grain in bulk and mill it when needed. And buying grain in bulk can save you a lot of money. Thus the grain mill sort of pays for itself. I have a Barley Crusher and it works great. I hooked up a motor to it, and milling grain is so easy now. You can build your own stir plate for $20-$30 and it will work just as well as a store bought one.
 
A grain mill is the way to go. With a grain mill you can buy grain in bulk and mill it when needed. And buying grain in bulk can save you a lot of money. Thus the grain mill sort of pays for itself. I have a Barley Crusher and it works great. I hooked up a motor to it, and milling grain is so easy now. You can build your own stir plate for $20-$30 and it will work just as well as a store bought one.

What he said^
 
The stir plate, while an easy to make DIY project, will have more impact on any type of brewing. The mill will be specific to all grain. Eventually you will need both, but I would recommend the stir plate and related equipment to step up your yeast count first. FWIW
 
Mill is more important, especially of you don't have a LHBS that does a good job grinding grain.

The Home Brewery is my LHBS, and so far I let them grind for me.

However, I think you should buy a mill and build a stir plate. If I had a sudden cash inflow, I sure would.
 
+1 for stir plate. It will improve the quality of any beer you brew. Period. You can crush the grains as spectacularly as you wish, but in the end underpitching or using unviable yeast can ruin the beer. IMO an extract beer brewed with a proper pitch of healthy yeast and a properly managed fermentation will be better than an all grain beer with a poor yeast pitch. Better yet, buy the grains pre-milled and then use your new stir plate to make an all grain beer with a healthy yeast pitch!
 
Mill as others have said. You can justify saving and later buying stuff for a starter or scrounging to make one yourself from stuff most likely already around your house or a friends.

Saving .70-1.00$/lb on grain because I can buy in bulk and crush myself is just too huge.
 
A stirplate saves a lot of money on yeast and DME.

A proper pitch for 5 gallons of 1.050 lager is 350 billion cells. Using a single 1 month old liquid yeast vial with no stirplate you would need a 10 liter yeast starter with no stirplate. Using a stirplate you would need only a 3.8 liter starter.

Yeast and DME are more expensive than grain. To obtain a large enough pitch you would either need to buy more yeast vials/packs, or more DME. Both will cost you.
 
jamest22 said:
A stirplate saves a lot of money on yeast and DME.

A proper pitch for 5 gallons of 1.050 lager is 350 billion cells. Using a single 1 month old liquid yeast vial with no stirplate you would need a 10 liter yeast starter with no stirplate. Using a stirplate you would need only a 3.8 liter starter.

Yeast and DME are more expensive than grain. To obtain a large enough pitch you would either need to buy more yeast vials/packs, or more DME. Both will cost you.

+1 I'm blown away by the grain mill recommendations. I'm stir plate all the way.

I agree with this post. either make or buy a stir plate, yeast health is light years more important than a few points of grain efficiency. You will save money either way.

On a side note I've made my own stir plate and have a nice industrial one. The homemade version cannot compete, if you can find a used industrial one or even a nice one from northern brewer I recommend buying. One mans opinion.
 
I think many people are saying Mill because it will cost more while saving money initially whereas a stir plate is fairly easily put together by many items that are sometimes considered "junk". I highly doubt most people can find stuff around their house relatively easy to build a grain mill.

Edit: Also I have done very successful starters using a growler and agitating whenever I was around it.
 
I get that you can make a stir plate, but if I had to pick one over the other it would be the stir plate.I made one my self but I certainly did not have the parts lying around, just hard drive magnets. The rest I spent about40 bucks at radio shack buying.

From a stand point if making better beer I'd go stater/plate.

I save maybe fifty cents a pound on grain buying in bulk with my mill. I'll have to make nearly 20 five gallon batches just to pay it off. The mill is more of a control thing for me, if you can't get in on a group buy the cost savings are not that great.

Edit: what the prior poster is saying is with a stir plate you can make smaller starters than with agitating therefore also saving money on dme and yeast. See mrmalty.com
 
I'd choose the stir plate first, but would'nt buy it. I did the DIY using computer parts (do search here) and any 6th grader could do it. Easy save on money for the grain mill. Do it and you'll have both!
 
+1 I'm blown away by the grain mill recommendations. I'm stir plate all the way.

I agree with this post. either make or buy a stir plate, yeast health is light years more important than a few points of grain efficiency. You will save money either way.

On a side note I've made my own stir plate and have a nice industrial one. The homemade version cannot compete, if you can find a used industrial one or even a nice one from northern brewer I recommend buying. One mans opinion.


Agreed, I'd much rather spend my money on something that will improve the quality of my beer. It's all about making the yeast happy, pitch rate, temp control, good yeast starters, and oxygen. If you do those things the beer will take care of itself. I have a mill and it's nice but if I had to pick one the stirplate would win out every time.
 
Buy both...stir plate from stirstarters.com with lifetime warranty for 42 dollars...barley crusher for 135. Under 200 hundred shipped to the door for both.
i personally cant suggest one over the other because they both have made a impact on my beer.
either one will be a great investment. Just choose the one that fits your budget the best or you think will make the biggest difference in your brew day.
 
You can make starters without stir plates but crushing 20lbs of grain with a rolling pin doesn't sound as fun. Grain Mill.
 
Buy both...stir plate from stirstarters.com with lifetime warranty for 42 dollars...barley crusher for 135. Under 200 hundred shipped to the door for both.
i personally cant suggest one over the other because they both have made a impact on my beer.
either one will be a great investment. Just choose the one that fits your budget the best or you think will make the biggest difference in your brew day.

We have a winner!!! I just am not a DIY guy (no time/interest/I suck at it) and didn't want to spend $100 on a stir plate and buy $150 on a barley crusher. But I think SWMBO will approve this.
 
I get that you can make a stir plate, but if I had to pick one over the other it would be the stir plate.I made one my self but I certainly did not have the parts lying around, just hard drive magnets. The rest I spent about40 bucks at radio shack buying.

From a stand point if making better beer I'd go stater/plate.

I save maybe fifty cents a pound on grain buying in bulk with my mill. I'll have to make nearly 20 five gallon batches just to pay it off. The mill is more of a control thing for me, if you can't get in on a group buy the cost savings are not that great.

Edit: what the prior poster is saying is with a stir plate you can make smaller starters than with agitating therefore also saving money on dme and yeast. See mrmalty.com

I know you need a big starter if it is not aerated. Lets not act like the amount of dme needed for a starter is really even noticeable though.

Lets say you save only 50 cents per pound on bulk grain. Say an average batch is 10# of grain for 5 gallons, that is a savings of 5$ per batch. Without type of savings you can put together a stir plate very easily in a short amount of time.
 
A grain mill is the way to go. With a grain mill you can buy grain in bulk and mill it when needed. And buying grain in bulk can save you a lot of money. Thus the grain mill sort of pays for itself. I have a Barley Crusher and it works great. I hooked up a motor to it, and milling grain is so easy now. You can build your own stir plate for $20-$30 and it will work just as well as a store bought one.

You can but a stir plate for 42 bucks. I just bought this one and it works great.

http://www.stirstarters.com/
 
I got my str plates for $15 shipped from ebay. It might take a while but if you watch you can get them cheap.
 
Dan at stirstarters is the man. Great communication and service. And if 42 dollars for something with a lifetime warranty is super cheap.
And had it in less than a week.
 
Dan at stirstarters is the man. Great communication and service. And if 42 dollars for something with a lifetime warranty is super cheap.
And had it in less than a week.

I had a home built unit that I finally scrapped. It was finicky and often threw the stir bar off. I bought one of Dan's units shipping was fast, and I really like the unit. and as you say life time warranty.
 
I was in the same dilemma and chose the MM2. It does a great job. Crushed grain has been $1.80 lb and bulk buy is $ .85 ib. so the savings should add up quickly.
 
$157 bucks will get you a Barley Crusher Mill ($115) AND a StirStarter Plate ($42).

Short money for good products.

If you can't afford both, pick the one you can afford.
 
I would have to vote both. I got a corona mill for $20 with free shipping, as long as I added $5 to my order, from amazon a few months ago and as said above you can pick up a stir plate for $42.
 
My vote for grain mill. Yes, the initial costs will be higher than that of a stir plate. But consider the cost savings of buying grain in bulk and milling it yourself...

You definitely don't need a stir plate and they are significantly easier to DIY than a mill.
 
My LHBS charges 1.00/lb for base grains. It doesn't make as much sense for me to own a mill. I'd buy a stir plate.
 
hoghead said:
I would have to vote both. I got a corona mill for $20 with free shipping, as long as I added $5 to my order, from amazon a few months ago and as said above you can pick up a stir plate for $42.

How big is your bonus? Above is your answer! I got a corona a couple months ago. Changed brewing for me I simply don't get the $150 mills. $25 corona is great for me. $42 at stir starter.com. Your get both at $67. I don't understand the debate.
 
Build a stir plate >$15. Then buy a Corona style grain mill ~$20-$25. A couple of washers the fine tune the mill then SPEND THE REST ON INGREDIENTS!:D
 
Good choice. Most people invest too much on fancy stuff to improve hot side of brewing but most important process by far is the cold side. All things equal, stir plate much more likely to contribute to making better beer. Kind of like golfers spending $400 on a driver and wasting all there time at the driving range when a few minutes with a good putter will improve your game unparalleled.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top