Barley Crusher Modification

The biggest complaint that I’ve heard about the Barley Crusher is the passive roller not catching causing the grain to not get pulled through. Here’s an attempt at a fix.

The mills come with an o-ring that drives the passive roller, but the first time you run grain through it gets chewed up and spit out by the combination of grain and the knurled roller. What I did was to turn both end of the rollers enough so that a 1/8” thick quad shaped o-ring would slip over one roller and contact the other. This way the rubber o-ring never comes in contact with the knurl. I stuck some aluminum tape on the inside of the hopper to deflect the grain away from the o-rings. If these things hold up, this idea would be easy for the manufacture to incorporate into production. Can’t wait to start getting my royalty checks. :cross:

A while back I purchased a gear motor off eBay for $20. Not the best specs to drive a mill. 58 in/lbs start up torque, 90 in/lbs running torque but only 30 RPM. I had the mill apart so took the opportunity to motorize. Crushed about a pound of grain and it worked fine. The speed is pretty slow, but it sure beats hand cranking and the battery on my cordless drill won’t make it through a big grain bill.

That's really good. What size O-Ring did you use?

bleak said:

What size O-Ring did you use?

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1/8" width X 1-1/8" ID X 1-3/8 OD, but stretched it over. 1-3/16" ID might have worked better.

This mod has no effect on the gap between the rollers? If I have this straight, that O ring placed on one roller should impact the second.

I must be missing something. Thanks for the idea. I am having that issue with my BC and am about to trash it.

Gammon N Beer said:

This mod has no effect on the gap between the rollers? If I have this straight, that O ring placed on one roller should impact the second.

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That's correct. The shape of the o-ring allows it to compress while making contact with the passive roller. I'm still playing with finding the optimal roller diameter to accomplish this. I think I could have gone a bit bigger than what I originally calculated, but once the material is gone you can't put it back.

I thought all it took was a little vegetable oil from time to time. I had the issue of the roller not moving, but then oiled the sucker up...good as new.

Kilted Brewer said:

I thought all it took was a little vegetable oil from time to time.

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Damn! Wasted another Sunday.


Do I get points for effort?

More points than I would get for just being lazy and looking for the easy way out

So, far I've got about 30lbs of grain through the modified mill. The o-rings a not showing any sign of wear and there's been no problem with the passive roller stopping.

As I thought, the 30RPM gearmotor goes through grain slowly, but it doesn’t have any power issues so the torque rating is fine. The rate of crush came out to a little better than 2½ minutes per pound. Ten pounds taking over 20 minutes to crush sounds bad, but with a little time management it shouldn’t be a problem. I can fill the hopper and walk away to do something else. And it takes time to heat the mash water, so as long as everything is done around the same time there’s nothing lost.

And to me the crush looks better. More intact husks than when using the higher speed of the cordless drill.

AnOldUR said:

So, far I've got about 30lbs of grain through the modified mill. The o-rings a not showing any sign of wear and there's been no problem with the passive roller stopping.

As I thought, the 30RPM gearmotor goes through grain slowly, but it doesn’t have any power issues so the torque rating is fine. The rate of crush came out to a little better than 2½ minutes per pound. Ten pounds taking over 20 minutes to crush sounds bad, but with a little time management it shouldn’t be a problem. I can fill the hopper and walk away to do something else. And I takes time to heat the mash water, so as long as everything is done around the same time there’s nothing lost.

And to me the crush looks better. More intact husks than when using the higher speed of the cordless drill.

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My 'Corona' style mill is even slower than yours. I got it very cheap but it had a pulley welded on and I had the gear motor laying around. I think going slower gives the grain time to give a little instead of being burst suddenly. If it is adjustable you can probably go finer because of this. Get it wet enough and you'll have 'rolled barely'.

Hermit said:

I think going slower gives the grain time to give a little instead of being burst suddenly.

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Hoping this is true. Just about at the end of my mash. Got 1-1/2lbs of flaked grains mixed in there and ran out of rice hulls.



Edit:
Flawless lauter, 81% eff.
Life is good!