Keg King Malt Muncher 3 Frustrations

[augiedoggy]

This was done via the Chinese business called AMCO Technologies which is a PO Box in Hong Kong. They were using our letterhead and even our business number with invoices coming out of Hong Kong and China. The real Keg King in Australia only found this was being done after October 2017. American businesses were advised that they were not dealing with us but these setups in Hong Kong and China that were using our names and more without our permission or agreement. Keg King has never sold anything through Ali Baba or any other on-line business than its own.

What about the story I first heard from you blaming this on a rouge employee? And im not suggesting YOU sold stuff on alibaba... only that your in some cases, buying generic products that are already being sold there like your new mill which is why why I provided the link to the distributor.

 

[augiedoggy]

We have and have had products manufactured in China. They were at the time for sales in Australia. They were not to be sold elsewhere without our agreement or permission. However the Chinese business there which was sourcing our products then started to sell some product without our knowledge and used our names, letterheads, business numbers to basically pretend they were us.

again the story I heard in the intertap thread was that this was because of a kegking employee that did this behind your back?

 

[AJinJacksonville]

These days we have much tighter arrangements but I find that a lot of distributors in western countries are very eager to get equipment and not give a fig about the origin. So its not just the Chinese entities doing the wrong thing I am sad to say.

I totally get the out-sourcing arrangements and what-not, but are you telling me that you have absolutely no recourse in the USA because your company is HQ'd in Australia? I am not a huge NB fan and prefer to support smaller business, but I do like morebeer and find it hard to believe that they would continue to support counterfeit products. What legal avenues have you pursued (cease and desist orders, etc)?

 

[augiedoggy]

I totally get the out-sourcing arrangements and what-not, but are you telling me that you have absolutely no recourse in the USA because your company is HQ'd in Australia? I am not a huge NB fan and prefer to support smaller business, but I do like morebeer and find it hard to believe that they would continue to support counterfeit products. What legal avenues have you pursued (cease and desist orders, etc)?

Again, It would seem theres more to this story than whats been told in this thread.. Especially since its not the same story I heard in the intertap thread which made me question it in the first place.

 

[augiedoggy]

We have and have had products manufactured in China. They were at the time for sales in Australia. They were not to be sold elsewhere without our agreement or permission. However the Chinese business there which was sourcing our products then started to sell some product without our knowledge and used our names, letterheads, business numbers to basically pretend they were us.

This has been done many times before... Back when vizio was still v inc and before they sourced bigger companies like sharp and LG to make thier products for them with cheaper shortcuts designed into the components than their own. I bought a bravo D1 dvd player on newegg that normally sold for about 300 dollars back in the day for under $100. I didnt know I bought it direct from the manufacturer... In that case it seems they caught on that what they were making supporting and packaging and for pennies on the dollar was worth way more than they were getting so they apparently said hell with the middle man and sold direct stealing the companies branding in the process... It wasnt right ethically but neither was what the middleman marketing company was doing. In that case V inc ended up not supporting anyone who bought them and left thier own legit customers hanging in the wind.. I can only hope this kind of thing will someday convince companies to develop and make their own products again like it used to be. In this case though all the products in question I mentioned like the mill, taps and beergun were all knockoff clones already of someone elses design work and products like monster mill, and blichmann so... In fact the intertap taps werent allowed to be sold in the US for a while until the patent holder in the states got royalties if I remember right.
Now days I am a lot more knowledgeable on the electronics since I repair them for a hobby and let me tell you, if you shop by branding the jokes on you because most of the time its all a shell game unless its a really unique product.

In this case though, with SO many kegking product being sold by so many vendors and it going on for so long, there has to be more involved to the story than companies like williams brewing and morebeer just deciding to pick up "counterfiet" product through a third party and not the reseller whos name is on them. I think whomever it was that you blamed the intertap mess on that went to kegland had signed some sort of legal agreement to do or allow this and therefore its not the same scenerio as being implied in this thread.

 

[augiedoggy]

These days we have much tighter arrangements but I find that a lot of distributors in western countries are very eager to get equipment and not give a fig about the origin. So its not just the Chinese entities doing the wrong thing I am sad to say.

This I also agree with 100% again the only way around such games is to buy a unique product from the company who designed and built it proudly. unfortunately the consumer also has to be in a finacial postion to be more picky and knowlegeable about what they are buying and it doesnt help when thier so many cases with so many items where they are generic and rebranded and marketed by different companies at different prices... it makes one Jaded to the real thing. if you buy a cheaper "Sharp" tv for example, there isnt any Sharp components in it and it could very well be some cheap chinese Hisense or the like tv that you just paid extra for the false branding.

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

I totally get the out-sourcing arrangements and what-not, but are you telling me that you have absolutely no recourse in the USA because your company is HQ'd in Australia? I am not a huge NB fan and prefer to support smaller business, but I do like morebeer and find it hard to believe that they would continue to support counterfeit products. What legal avenues have you pursued (cease and desist orders, etc)?

NB is no longer owned by InBev.

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

We need a decent, dependable, adjustable, geared malt mill for the homebrewers without it costing $899 or more.

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

Anyone having a recent reply from MoreBeer? I realize CA is in lock down again. I emailed MoreBeer on Saturday and haven't received any reply.

 

[augiedoggy]

We need a decent, dependable, adjustable, geared malt mill for the homebrewers without it costing $899 or more.

Do we though? I myself have no issues with the 2 non geared chinese mills including the kegco 3 roller that I own. I mill enough grain to brew 112 gallons of beer with it every week for over a year and a half and its never given me ANY issues. I think you might just have a defective mill. There are many people using this mill with no issues.

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

Our Malt King 3 roller geared mill sells in Australia for US$120.

Yes, I realize. When I attempted to order only country in dropdown is Australia.

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

Would be happy to supply but the freight will kill it. Just hope we can get a distributor with some national clout willing to stock our stuff and then we could make a lot of home brewers happy with our kit and our service. In Europe its been easy but in in the US it seems that the bigger distributors just want cheap out of China and they seem to have a stranglehold.

Have all major homebrew suppliers in the US been contacted about carrying? If so, what about 2nd tier of homebrew suppliers?

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

Do we though? I myself have no issues with the 2 non geared chinese mills including the kegco 3 roller that I own. I mill enough grain to brew 112 gallons of beer with it every week for over a year and a half and its never given me ANY issues. I think you might just have a defective mill. There are many people using this mill with no issues.

Yes we do!. Great for you having no issues. Doesn't apply to others. If available, I'd purchase a geared mill straight away.

 

[augiedoggy]

Yes we do!. Great for you having no issues. Doesn't apply to others. If available, I'd purchase a geared mill straight away.

I think everyone else who commented here is not having this issue so what "others"... The others including myself who commented here seem to be content with thier non geared mills is what I was getting at.
Seriously though,
My point was there are thousands of homebrewers using the mills that have already been avaliable for years without issues not just myself which means any fault preventing one of these from would have to be defective mill or mill setup or application related not design.

I had a wheelbarrow that the tire would not hold air this spring... kept going flat on me. Tried fix a flat tire slime ect... My solution,- rather than going to a solid tire, was to replace the leaking tire and rim and no issues so far for the rest of the summer and no tradeoffs of a solid tire.

 

[Stand]

This thread reminded me why I love HBT.

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

I realize, probably, nearly all our brewing equipment is made in Chinese prison factories. However, I do know from other hobbies, there are different quality control measures required/contracted by different sellers of the Chinese "junk".

Just about any brewing item, based on what I've searched, are available at Alibaba.

 

[Brewer_Dad]

You are right there is plenty of enthusiasm from home brewers and for our party we would be delighted to be able to do more for them. Hardly a day goes by when we don’t get enquiries about our high quality PET fermenters and more. However until we can find US businesses who are willing to take on the distribution its a bit hard especially in the current situation. From what we see home brewers in the US are paying quite high prices for often rather poor quality goods. The companies who dominate your home brewing market are doing well for themselves so they don’t feel the need to change or add anything new. This might change as the trade war between the US and China keeps ramping up. We would love to hear from brewers in the US who might know of more companies willing to offer our products. Maybe someone out there could start a home brewers co-op to do bulk buys of our gear and we would certainly help with that. In the meantime the Beverage People in California have started to offer some of our products and we will support them strongly wherever we can.

Hi, I’m re opening this thread since I just read it and I’m concerned. I just bought the Malt Muncher 3 from Amazon, sold by Amazon. Is it the real one? I mean, if it’s going to mean problems, I might just cancel the order...

 

[Snuffy]

I have a guy that does all my milling.

 

[smata67]

Hi, I’m re opening this thread since I just read it and I’m concerned. I just bought the Malt Muncher 3 from Amazon, sold by Amazon. Is it the real one? I mean, if it’s going to mean problems, I might just cancel the order...

If it is the Malt Muncher 3 sold by Homebrewer's Outpost, it should be the same as the ones sold by MoreBeer, as HO is MB in disguise. I have that one and has performed well for me for the last year and a half.

 

[Brewer_Dad]

Hi all,

The nice people from US Customs might have thought that the MM3 was a threat, so they took it out of my luggage and stripped it. Besides de terrible aesthetic damage, now I need to set it up from scratch.

Any tutorials or pointers on how to put it together? Thanks everyone.

 

[smcinco]

@Brewer dad: I don't see the bronze bushings amongst your pics. Did it come with those? Without them it will be useless IMO.

 

[smata67]

This mill is the Malt Muncher 3 sold by MoreBeer (also the Kegco brand) and has ball bearings, the bearing housing is mounted on the interior, so you won't see the bronze sleeves on the outside. Assembly should be intuitive, look up images of assembled units, all the same.

Here is a tutorial on how to set the gap:

 

[smata67]

I observe that on my mill the upper rollers, when both rotating inward as they should (to draw in the grain), the motor driven roller's knurling appears to be moving away from the driven (motor) side and the other roller's knurling, when spinned the proper way (or when there is grain to get it driven), appears to have the knurling moving in the opposite direction, towards the motor. If the non-driven roller does not appear this way, then flip it and install it the other way. This could also just be an optical illusion and not relevant, but worth looking at, since you have the thing disassembled. Same would apply to the bottom roller, you would want the knurling to appear to also be moving in the motor direction when seen from the bottom and spinned in the direction it would with grain driving it. Of course, NEVER GET YOUR FINGERS ANYWHERE NEAR THE ROLLERS WHEN MOTOR DRIVEN, as if I had to say that...

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

Perhaps, this is helpful in regard to which way the rollers turn?

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/3-roller-mill.670358/post-8682208

 

[bwible]

I’m one of the least mechanically inclined people you’ll ever meet, but you can see a couple things right away. Looking at the 3 rolllers, one has the long shaft. That has to be the “driver” - the one the crank gets attached to. Out of the other 2, one has bolts coming out the end, the other does not. So it’s a matter of looking at an assembled one and figuring out which roller goes where. They are all different, not interchangeable. There must be only one way they can go. I’m guessing the one with no bolts sticking out is the bottom one.

Far as gapping or any of that, I’m not the guy.

 

[Brewer_Dad]

@Brewer dad: I don't see the bronze bushings amongst your pics. Did it come with those? Without them it will be useless IMO.

It's all there. I put it together and will test it tomorrow...

 

[Sky Pilot]

Keg King’s name is being used by an entity in China and we do not supply Morebeer.

I don't like China products.
My biggest fear was to get counterfit stuff. Counterfit mill.

 

[Sky Pilot]

Chinese and buy from www.kegking.cn where they can get the lowest prices. In Europe we found it much easier to get distributors who valued quality and want to be sure they were getting the right thing.

How did a Chinese company get your specks. Did they revers engineer your product or did Keg-King use a Chinese company to manufacture it's mill?

 

[Sky Pilot]

Thats where your mistaken, They are ALL THE SAME CHINESE MILL keg king just resold that same chinese mill along with everyone else!

That's why I bought a mill made in USA. I looked and looked for more buying options but did not see many. Monster or Crankinstine.