is this grain mill any good? got it free

Another brew guy gave this to me when I went to pick up some other stuff i bought from him, since he was getting out of the brew game.

curious what you guys think? would love to start buying my base malts in bulk

That looks exactly like the same mill used by the natural food store here, which doubles as a small LHBS. The mill they have worked great for steeping grains, but never had the chance to use it for base malts to check the mash efficiency. The only issue I had with it was the hand crank. It's pretty slow just milling 1-2 lbs of malt, so I can't imagine doing 10+ lbs. I would suggest to cut the weld off of the handle and remove/replace it with a power drill, to make things a lot faster.

Get yourself a pound of base malt and run it though there, see how well the crush looks.

I believe the picture us actually upside-down, so you actually have the bottom of the mill pictured. there should be a hole on the opposite side that you feed the grain through, and the whole assembly gets clamped to the side of a table with those "L" shaped bolts.

It is a Phil Mill. I had one that I used when I first started doing partial mash batches. There is a set screw on the side that lets you adjust the crush. The top side has a small hole. You can make a grain hopper by cutting the bottom off of a 2 litre soda bottle. It takes a long time to crush the grain, but it was effective.

it is a phil mill.

most of my batches are 12+ lbs of grain... so maybe not the most efficient method. Ii have no problem adding power to it, would that speed it up a lot, or is the mill design the biggest limiting factor?

The limiting factor is the handle. I'm sure it would be a pretty decent mill (especially for the price) if you could spin it faster than hand speed.

I recognize that! I picked one of them up a couple years ago on Craigslist.

Like other people said, do yourself a favor and attach a drill to it. I did a couple 5 gallon batches of 1.050-ish beers hand cranking and it wasn't fun. Now, with the drill attached, I've done up to about 25 lbs for a barley wine or RIS without a problem. I use a cutoff 2 liter soda bottle as a hopper. The only improvement I'd make right now is to get a bigger hopper. The one I have holds about 2 lbs per fill. If I had the space, I'd be buying grain in bulk for sure.

On another note, I have the adjustment plate cranked WAY down. I batch sparge and I've never had a problem with a stuck or slow sparge. That and my efficiency jumped way up after I started crushing my own. I go a little finer than the homebrew shop would.

I had one of those, I regret selling it. It gave me a beautiful crush. If you do a bit of on the fly carpentry you can set one up to havea 5 gallon hopper- about 25 pounds of grain
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-ugly-junk-corona-mill-station-90849/index66.html#post3118507

a pic of mine in its glory. it really is a great little mill. You can buy the drill attachment online somewhere - don't remember where.

Awesome! Got it for free, and the guy claimed it wasn't good for much other than specialty grains. I have no problem modifying it to be powered, so it looks like I got a great little mill!

KIAKillerXJ said:

Awesome! Got it for free, and the guy claimed it wasn't good for much other than specialty grains. I have no problem modifying it to be powered, so it looks like I got a great little mill!

Click to expand...

That you did, I thought I needed a bigger mill, I have a two roller schmidling malt mill, its very nice but the phil mill does the same thing in a smaller package.

Congrats.

I've used my philmil for a number of years now and still love it. I do use the shaft they sold as an extra to attach to a drill though. Free!? Great find!! I think I paid around $100 for mine new. I believe Dan Listermann made the Philmill. You might be able to contact him for info on the drill shaft attachment if you don't want to cut the handle off. I kept my handle/shaft in case my drill failed me which has happened. A strong 1/2" slow speed drill will hold up and do a great job as I've finally learned though.