Grain mills

I have been thinking about switching to all grain instead of extracts... I have been looking at mills and I see that on morebeer.com and other sites they pretty expensive. I was looking on E bay and saw

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-HEAVY-DUTY-...pliances_US?hash=item1c0f996558#ht_2009wt_825

is this good or would I be buying a piece of crap.

 

Standard "Corona" style mill, and lots of people use them.

 

That's similar to a Corona Mill. Lots of people use the Corona (or something similar) and get OK results. I used a Corona for many years, before I switched to a roller mill. The roller mill is undoubtedly better, but it cost a lot more.
The Corona mill was slow, so it took longer to mill the grains (but the extra time was not excessive).
My Corona came with a hopper, so I could feed more grains in it that the one you showed. I think the hopper was very much worth while.
The Corona was difficult to adjust to get a good and consistent grind. This did not seem to affect the results I got with it (which were good). I never noticed any change in efficiency when I switched.
The only reason I switched was to decrease my brewday time (with it did by about 15 minutes), and to improve my efficiency. The efficeincy did improve eventually, but it was caused by changing my brewing procedures, and had nothing to do with the mill.

-a.

 

Lots of us have gotten started with a mill like that. I switched from my Corona to a Barley Crusher last year, only because it took so long to mill my grains for making 10 gal batches. Using a drill to power it and tricking it our with extra spacer washers made a big difference. The deal maker for my switch is that my LHBS offered me more in a trade value for the Corona than I paid for it!

Once you get the mill dialed in, you can make some great beer for a long time

 

Don't let the lack of a grain mill keep you from going all grain. Brewmasters Warehouse and the other vendors here I know will mill your grains for you w/o extra charge when you buy a recipe.

Didn't exactly answer your question but I don't own one and have been brewing AG for 6 months. Good luck with finding a grain mill and going AG.

 

If you can afford to buy a roller mill and you intend on staying in the hobby, then buy a roller mill.
I own a corona knockoff and am satisified with my results to not go buy anything else, but if I had to do it over, I see a difference in crushes made by roller mills that would convince me to buy one initially.

 

Either go with a roller mill (ie: moster mill or barley crusher) or just have your homebrew shop crush the grains. That $20 plus shipping could go towards a a mill that will last you a lifetime.

 

I'm really happy with my barley crusher and I've only used it once. The corona mill's work just as well but I really like the hopper on the barley crusher and how quickly it mills grain when its motorized. I wouldn't want to crank through 10lbs of grain again my hand.

 

Bought mine from monster mills website well built,works great!

 

I just bought my barley crusher from Austin Homebrew. It works GREAT. The crush looks more uniform than the Corona mill I got to use at my LHBS. I saw someone on HBT say before "Never buy the same piece of equipment twice" If you think you're going to stay with brewing and think All-Grain is the way you're going to do it, then I say go for getting the Barley Crusher or Monster. Untill then, a lot of online retailers will crush for no charge. You'll save money on each AG batch. By the time you do 10 batches, you'll have enough saved for a Barley Crusher.

my $0.02

 

F.Y.I. you could have bought that direct from barley crusher!

 

For me a barley crusher isn't even an option ($). Me and a ton more people have a corona style mill and are VERY happy with it. I hit 84% on my last batch which was with a longer mash and lower saccrification temp. I'm VERY happy with my corona style mill and at this point wouldn't purchase a roller mill if I had the $.

Reference this thread:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-ugly-junk-corona-mill-station-90849/
my setup is on page 26 of that thread.

I'll close with the fact that the father of homebrewing in America, Charlie Papazian, always has used a corona mill. Nuff said!

Schlante,
Phillip

 

It was $1 cheaper at Austin Homebrew. :rockin: Guaranteed Lowest Price. Man, I love that place. Makes me want to move to Texas.

Edit: $0.50 cheaper -- shipped direct from the manufacturer and no additional shipping. Combined with a few AHS recipes

 

Austin is a beautiful place you would love it.The traffic sucks though!
where upstate do you live?

 

I am going to be purchasing a mill here soon and would like some more opinions on this.

AHS has both the Barley Crusher and the Schmidling Maltmill. Also the Monster Mill is an option...just alot to choose from there. I am looking for something that will last me a good long time. I don't mind spending more if it means better quality. With that being said, what do you guys/gals think?

 

My monster mill mill has stainless steel rollers.Check dimensons of the rollers and how the mill you are looking to buy is biult.Do they use sealed bearings?
Is the mill adjustable? Can i operate with a drill if i want to?

 

I have a Schmidling, and would happily recommend it to anybody.
However, you will find it very difficult to find anybody with a roller mill that is not very satisfied with it.

-a.

 

Crush is crush IMO. Malted barley is not that smart IMO.

 

There are several threads on the Corona (corn mill) varieties. They work OK if you play with them a bit and hook up a drill. The crush is not as even as a quality roller mill, but people get great efficiency once dialed in with batch sparging in coolers and in BIAB mashing.

My own efficiency went up from middle 60's to 75%+ efficiency compared to store crush. It makes you feel like you have a bit more control when you crush it yourself.

Whatever you do, don't crush using the crank arm unless you just want a workout.

 

Like others have said, quite a few people here use them.

While most of my AG equipment is ghetto, I did buy a Barley Crusher. I save over $.50 a pound buying base malt in bulk, so it will eventually pay for itself.

Add to that the fact that my local only sells speciality malts by the pound, it saves me from having crushed grains sitting around going stale.

 

I would have to disagree, the purpose of the crush is to crush the seed into as many pieces as possible without turning it into flour and keeping the hull intact. In order to do this you need a good mill or buy more grain to make up for the lack of efficiency

JM2C