I made the switch to AG about 4 batches ago and never looked back. I like to go the homemade route like many others do, partially to save money but mostly I just like to build stuff myself.
I order most of my grains online because my LHBS is far from my house (and expensive) so I made a grain mill out of the cheap Michael's pasta mill idea. Sure, it crushed grain, but took nearly 30 minutes and a lot of hand cranking sweat to get through 10 pounds. I was plagued with low efficiency (55-58% or so) for a few batches and chalked it up to the mill. I made my next batch with grain milled from my LHBS and my efficiency went up to about 65%. Time to buy a real mill!
I just got my Crankandstein last week and brewed on Sunday and I can't believe I didn't get this thing sooner! I milled 11 pounds of grain with my electric drill in about 5 minutes and my efficiency shot up to 73%. I could probably milk another 5% out of it with a roller adjustment.
So for those of you on the fence, this was probably one of my better investment aside from kegs and a fermentation chamber.
I order most of my grains online because my LHBS is far from my house (and expensive) so I made a grain mill out of the cheap Michael's pasta mill idea. Sure, it crushed grain, but took nearly 30 minutes and a lot of hand cranking sweat to get through 10 pounds. I was plagued with low efficiency (55-58% or so) for a few batches and chalked it up to the mill. I made my next batch with grain milled from my LHBS and my efficiency went up to about 65%. Time to buy a real mill!
I just got my Crankandstein last week and brewed on Sunday and I can't believe I didn't get this thing sooner! I milled 11 pounds of grain with my electric drill in about 5 minutes and my efficiency shot up to 73%. I could probably milk another 5% out of it with a roller adjustment.
So for those of you on the fence, this was probably one of my better investment aside from kegs and a fermentation chamber.