Mike B1190
Member
Hi All,
I acquired a grain mill a few years ago. I don't brew all that often so I've probably only made a dozen batches or so with it. It's a Millars Mill. It's a two roller mill and I operate it with a drill.
Anyway, when I first got the mill I tried setting the gap with feeler gauges as recommended by many. I want to say that I started somewhere near .030 and the crush was pretty coarse and didn't look much better than my LHBS. So after some trial and error I ended up adjusting the gap as close as possible. Not sure what it is, but I can't get a credit card through it. It's probably close to the width of a playing card. But what's weird is that the crush still seems pretty course to me and a lot of kernels are somehow making it through that small gap completely unbroken. It seems to be better if I mill by hand, but I'm lazy, so the drill is always there on standby.
I'm not sure what the issue is. Is it operator error? Is there such as thing as having the gap too tight to mill properly? Could it just be the mill itself - bad knurling, rollers not hardened enough, or maybe the chassis of the mill is flexing during operation and the gap wont stay constant?
My efficiency isn't horrible. I'm usually between 72 - 74%, but it hasn't led to huge gains in efficiency like so many seem to report when they get their own mill. The only time I've had efficiency over 75% was one time that I milled twice for a BIAB batch. I typically batch sparge in a cooler.
Anyway, I've been considering a new mill, but thought I would see if anyone might have some insight into a potential fix for this. Yeah, I guess I could just mill twice, but I'm not sure how that would effect lautering in my cooler.
I acquired a grain mill a few years ago. I don't brew all that often so I've probably only made a dozen batches or so with it. It's a Millars Mill. It's a two roller mill and I operate it with a drill.
Anyway, when I first got the mill I tried setting the gap with feeler gauges as recommended by many. I want to say that I started somewhere near .030 and the crush was pretty coarse and didn't look much better than my LHBS. So after some trial and error I ended up adjusting the gap as close as possible. Not sure what it is, but I can't get a credit card through it. It's probably close to the width of a playing card. But what's weird is that the crush still seems pretty course to me and a lot of kernels are somehow making it through that small gap completely unbroken. It seems to be better if I mill by hand, but I'm lazy, so the drill is always there on standby.
I'm not sure what the issue is. Is it operator error? Is there such as thing as having the gap too tight to mill properly? Could it just be the mill itself - bad knurling, rollers not hardened enough, or maybe the chassis of the mill is flexing during operation and the gap wont stay constant?
My efficiency isn't horrible. I'm usually between 72 - 74%, but it hasn't led to huge gains in efficiency like so many seem to report when they get their own mill. The only time I've had efficiency over 75% was one time that I milled twice for a BIAB batch. I typically batch sparge in a cooler.
Anyway, I've been considering a new mill, but thought I would see if anyone might have some insight into a potential fix for this. Yeah, I guess I could just mill twice, but I'm not sure how that would effect lautering in my cooler.