Barley Crusher waits?

[DubBrew]

Sorry to hear your saga continues. My experience was great and I am very satisfied. While their email response generally took a few days I always got one.

 

[TopRowSeat]

I agree I think my experience is not typical from what I've seen elsewhere. I don't post here to blast them but rather just give an honest account of my experience.

I think it was just bad luck / bad timing that caused me to get lost in the shuffle.

While the lack of response is annoying I hold no ill will towards them. I just want to get my money back and move on.

 

[Yooper]

Sorry to hear your saga continues. My experience was great and I am very satisfied. While their email response generally took a few days I always got one.

I still haven't heard back from them. I have the same problems I had in November when I contacted them the first time.

 

[Malticulous]

I emailed about mine. I got an email back telling me to break it down, wire brush it and flip the slave roller. I had done all that before but I did it again. Mine still would not work. I emailed back and he replied to just send it to him. I'm afraid if I send it to him I'll be with out it for over a month.

I took a tire off a miniature bicycle one of my sons had broke and put it around one of the rollers. It works now but I can only get the gap to .040. The tire is too fat. It's stronger than a o-ring. It should last longer. I'm still getting my normal 85% anyway.

 

[Yooper]

I emailed about mine. I got an email back telling me to break it down, wire brush it and flip the slave roller. I had done all that before but I did it again. Mine still would not work. I emailed back and he replied to just send it to him. I'm afraid if I send it to him I'll be with out it for over a month.

I took a tire off a miniature bicycle one of my sons had broke and put it around one of the rollers. It works now but I can only get the gap to .040. The tire is too fat. It's stronger than a o-ring. It should last longer. I'm still getting my normal 85% anyway.

I broke it down and cleaned it (it's clean as a whistle, even before I did that) but I didn't think to flip over the slave roller. Maybe I'll do that before the next time I brew and maybe it'll save me some aggravation. I know they say you don't need that rubber o-ring to have the mill work, and it's just there for shipping. But ever since it broke, I've had issues. I've taken it apart at least 3-4 times, sent it in to them when the roller suddenly bent, and then taken it apart again twice more. I'm very disappointed, that's for sure!

At least when the roller was bent, they were quick to email me back and it was a fairly quick turnaround. But that was a long time ago- more than two years I think.

 

[Runyanka]

This thread made me jump on the Rebel Brewer grain crusher bandwagon. I am on the list for pre-orders, which will hopefully start sometime soon. The rebel brewer folks are great! They took the call from my wife a couple of months before Christmas and walked her through my brewstand purchase. She said that they were awesome, walked her through all the steps as to what I wanted. What do you know, on Christmas morning, I woke up to the best Christmas present I could ever ask for. Not only that, but the owner answers the phone when you call, and is a hell of a nice guy!

 

[beninan]

I acquired mine used from a local home brew store for $50. They were having the issue with the secondary roller binding up as well. So I tried it after I bought it without cleaning it just to see what it was doing, and obviously it did it to me as well.

I took it apart and cleaned everything. There was a very thick black "goo" packed into the bearings of the rollers, so I cleaned that all out and applied some olive oil to the bearings. I also heard about flipping over the secondary roller, so I decided to investigate it. It felt like the roller became worn only in one direction, so when you rub your fingers down the roller, it was more smooth in one direction compared to the other. So then I decided to check out the primary roller, and that too showed the same roughness in one direction and less-rough in the other. When I put it back together, I made sure everything was cleaned and lubricated, and flipped BOTH rollers, so both rollers were rough on the side pulling in the grain. The issue that I see, is now the primary roller has to be turned in the opposite direction as before. With a power drill it should work fine, but if the mill has been modified to be motorized, this may be difficult to do.

Take this with a grain of salt, because I have yet to test it out, but this may work better for some people.

I have also been thinking about getting some good-quality o-rings to put around the secondary roller, and modifying/building my own hopper to help to prevent the grain from getting sucked between the o-ring and ripping it apart.

 

[beninan]

^^ Just updating my previous post ^^

I tried out the barley crusher again after cleaning, lubricating, and flipping both rollers as I stated above.

It worked out MUCH better this time.

 

[TopRowSeat]

While the lack of response is annoying I hold no ill will towards them. I just want to get my money back and move on.

Another couple of weeks have passed with no response of any type from the Barley Crusher folks.

Does anyone have an alternate method of contacting them? Email is not proving to be effective.

 

[Malticulous]

BC Products Enterprises Inc.
P.O. Box 110
Allenton, MI 48002

 

[TopRowSeat]

Well, it's March... They still have $132 of mine and I've received no response from anyone since November 1st when they confirmed receipt of my money order.

I've now filed with the Michigan Attorney General's office for their assistance in getting this issue resolved.

Admittedly frustrated with this whole deal....