My Ugly Junk- Corona Mill Station...

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Hey guys got a Corona for Xmas. Not sure how/if I should proceed or if I should go with a barley crusher for $100. Tips? Any maintenance needed? Convince me to keep the corona!

Have ~24 hours to decide as I'm in another state and am leaving soon to go back.
 
I wouldn't trade my corona for a brand new BC for free. Plenty of bad press on the BC from unsatisfied owners. Corona mill owners satisfaction much higher IMO.
 
I wouldn't trade mine for a $100 mill no way. This thing is a hog, crushed thousands of pounds by now, and just keeps on going. The few improvements were cheap, and super easy.
 
pricelessbrewing said:
Hey guys got a Corona for Xmas. Not sure how/if I should proceed or if I should go with a barley crusher for $100. Tips? Any maintenance needed? Convince me to keep the corona!

Have ~24 hours to decide as I'm in another state and am leaving soon to go back.
Click to expand...

Corona mill + bucket + utility knife + scrap of wood + a little spare time = a very effective, long-lasting, adjustable, and lovable grain mill.

Keep the corona.
 
Plus another to keeping it. Keep some rice hulls on hand while dialing it in. I only had to use them 1 time. I get 72-76% efficiency using a breweasy no sparge system.
 
Did a quick setup of my ugly junk. I'm tempted to do the in bucket setup, but that will take up more storage space.

I may still go that route if I decommission, or get free buckets.

For now I'm using a bread bag to prevent grain going all directions, and direct it down into a salad bowl resting on top of a five gallon bucket. I either need a longer bag or a taller bucket.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1451844901.176909.jpg
 
Because of you I now have ugly junk too. Although, I didn't listen to you and made it out of a Homer bucket anyway... It did take longer to hand crank 10 l s than I thought it would. A drill mod may be in my future. Anyway, first brew with the Victoria mill and I got 80% efficiency. Thanks for keeping this thread alive this long.

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I went back and taped my jug to the hopper and then dented the shoulder so that I wouldn't hit it on every rotation of the crabk
 
Revvy said:
Okay guys...how scared is scared?? 90% flour with rice hulls? Or 30% percent flour, 30% shredded/torn and 30% crushed a bit (ignore the other 10 percent I suck at math) I have seen pics..but to my eyes the pics and real crushed grain look different.
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Low Tech advice from me.

Well, mine isn't modded. the plate is out of square with the auger. I have it cranked own so I hear the nubs grinding pretty hard against each other. Not scientific. There is a 'tidge of flour. It's mostly fine ground. I use rice hulls in most of my mashes. I do a mash with two batch sparges in a 74 Qt Coleman Extreme.

Someone here gave advice tighten it till your scared. I went past that just to see.

I have lost track of how many 55lb bags of grain have gone through it, quite a few.
 
I immediately was unhappy with my workbench mount. I didn't want to take it apart to put it away and it meant I had to take out buckets to rest the bowl on and it still made dust despite everything I had done.

So I went to a local grocery store bakery and they gave me two buckets. Looks to be about 3 gallons.

So I went ahead with my build.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1452525771.862267.jpg
My mill, Weston brand from Amazon.ca
Did not want to clamp onto a single thickness of 1x6. It also did not have any holes or notches for screw attachment. So I had to drill through the foot myself. This allowed me to remove the clamp screw which is key later, and besides the clamp screw had popped off the round disc that presses against the wood.

I found that my grind adjustment screw was too long to fit inside the bucket, and too short to fit outside the bucket. But the counter clamp screw was longer and the same thread as the find adjustment screw. I clamped it in my bench and used a hacksaw to cut the screw flat at the end. This allowed me to cut a hole in the bucket and put the head of that bolt outside the bucket.

Unfortunately, my measurements were of and my hole had to be stretched into a slot. So I wanted to close that off. So I drilled out the washer from the foot clamp to fit over the adjustment screw and used hot glue to fill the void and if you lube the threads first you can get a clean thread channel for the bolt.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1452525809.707579.jpg
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1452526270.157098.jpg

The hopper was from a recyclable 17 litre bottle of water left over from a wine kit batch much earlier. It was very easy to cut (like butter) and was thin enough that I was able to dent in the side to provide clearance for the handle when hand cranking.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1452526401.127825.jpg

I'll be hand cranking for now, but have the necessary M8x** bolt for drill powering using a socket adapter.

My goal was to have the mill be able to go both ways. The bakery also gave me a second bucket, that I'll hold in reserve for if I want to cut out the bottom and go bucket in a bucket for more grain volume. But I'm only doing 2.5 gallon at the moment.

For what it's worth. This mill was pretty square and didn't need any modding to deal with wobble or uneven crush. And didn't require any other spacers to allow for crush spacing adjustment.

Also, the crush adjuster, and the foot clamp, and the handle bolt are ALL the same M8 thread, so if you don't want to fiddle with washers you can replace with a longer screw for greater adjustment range.
 
It is interesting to me that some of you hand crank and feel the need to shroud the mill. I hand crank (it is part of my therapy called home brewing) and I get very little dust and debris. I tried the drill thing once and it spewed particles everywhere, so once I bagged that idea, I just kept hand cranking a bare naked mill. Works fine.
 
soccerdad said:
It is interesting to me that some of you hand crank and feel the need to shroud the mill. I hand crank (it is part of my therapy called home brewing) and I get very little dust and debris. I tried the drill thing once and it spewed particles everywhere, so once I bagged that idea, I just kept hand cranking a bare naked mill. Works fine.
Click to expand...

The shroud on some are integrated with the adjustment (mine is) all in a single casting.
 
Same here, it's an integral part, but even with it one and had cranking some comes out the top of the plates, and when you move the mill or try to tip it to get it to feed the last bit through if you're re-crushing I find it gets messy real quick. It wasn't a huge mess, but I prefer no mess.
 
Sorry. Me big dumb. I meant mounting in a bucket when I said 'shroud'. Yes, I have the shroud over the two plates, but I feel no need to do the bucket mount.
 
soccerdad said:
Sorry. Me big dumb. I meant mounting in a bucket when I said 'shroud'. Yes, I have the shroud over the two plates, but I feel no need to do the bucket mount.
Click to expand...

Not dumb just wrong word from home brew enjoyment over the weekend.

I do agree with you, I too never felt the need to get the mill fully sealed in a bucket. IMO being able to take it apart to dust off the internals is not a bad thing.
 
Finally got my mill together using the @wilserbrewer "2.0" model. Thanks for the great idea! Now just have to test this thing and get the mill set. I managed to get the pin out and replaced with the 8/32 bolt. It feels real sturdy. Its loud when the drill starts with the periodic clanking of plates. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1452553709.967666.jpg
 
Alright so I assembled it, placed two washers along the bolt, and I'm getting a rather substantial amount of wobble when running dry (no grains). About 20% of each rotation slightly rubs against the stationary plate. Is this normal? Will that go away once there's grains in between the two plates, or do I need to do an additional modification to ensure the auger remains straight?
 
pricelessbrewing said:
Alright so I assembled it, placed two washers along the bolt, and I'm getting a rather substantial amount of wobble when running dry (no grains). About 20% of each rotation slightly rubs against the stationary plate. Is this normal? Will that go away once there's grains in between the two plates, or do I need to do an additional modification to ensure the auger remains straight?
Click to expand...

I shimmed mine to get the plates to run parallel. It was a PITA, but I thought it was worth it. It looks to me like if they're not parallel, you would get a lot of variation in the crush as you crank.
 
IMO, you want the grinding plate mill shaft connection to be free enough to align itself on when crushing. If it is so crooked that it is unable to move to a proper alignment, try to straighten the cotter pin, or change to a smaller cotter pin or bolt that will allow the grinding plate to float and self align under pressure from the feeding grain.

You won't know much until you run some grain thru, and when you're satisfied, crank down tight on the wing nuts with a pair of pliers.
 
Gotcha, thanks again. I'll run a bit through soon and give it a test run. I'll grab a 8/32 by 1.5" bolt just in case I want to swap out the cotter pin as I believe that's one of the mods several people have done to help with the alignment?

Am I correct to assume I should be adjusting the screw opposite the handle in order to adjust the crush?
 
Okay I got it now. Pretty straight forward, ran about two cups of grain through, got basically no crush at all at first, adjusted down until I was scared the burr plates were going to grind each other flat, got a very fine grind.

Is there anyway to know when it's adjusted down too fine aside from visual inspection? Does it make a different sound, or does it catch at all when hitting the other burr?
 
Thanks Wilser. If it catches occasionally, is that an indication of it being too tight as well, or just an ingress of grains causing it to have increased friction briefly?
 
pricelessbrewing said:
adjusted down until I was scared the burr plates were going to grind each other flat, got a very fine grind.
?
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I took my mill apart after about 20 sacks expecting to find a little wear on the burr plates as they do clack a bit when the mill runs empty, and there was none whatsoever. Cast iron is hard, burr plate wear not a concern.
 
i just brewed my first batch crushed from scratch with my ugly junk. extraction efficiency seems pretty good. but please check my math. i pulled out 11.5 litres of 1.049 wort (i pour it all direct into the fermenter trub and all so brewhouse eff will go down when i rack off that. grain bill was .87kg 6 row, .87kg vienna, .29kg crystal 60, and .22kg flaked corn. my volumes should be pretty accurate. I calibrated my fermenter by weight.

end result is 87% sugars collected in the fermenter. I'm not going to fiddle with it other than to run it off my drill next time. I filled my kettle with 105F water and was barely able to finish milling by hand before i hit strike temp on my 3 gallon stovetop batch. full volume mash, no sparging, just 16.3 litres of strike water.

actually I lied, I might still crush finer so that I can shorten my mash times. I'm not sure, I'm torn.
 
You're right, but I might be able to get my complete extraction and conversion faster, say 30-45 minute mash times? I wouldn't mind shortening my brew day, though it's about 4 hours right now including the bulk of the cleanup
 
4 hours all-in for all grain is pretty good. I wouldn't skimp where it counts, but most malts are pretty good and will convert by the 45 minute mark.
 
ballsy said:
Finally got my mill together using the @wilserbrewer "2.0" model. Thanks for the great idea! Now just have to test this thing and get the mill set. I managed to get the pin out and replaced with the 8/32 bolt. It feels real sturdy. Its loud when the drill starts with the periodic clanking of plates. View attachment 329422
Click to expand...


First time trying the mill today, I would say first run through turned out pretty nice. The first pic is my run and the second pic is a pre-crush from NB kit. Will see how my efficiency is w/o any DME use like I typically had to do with BIAB! View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1453479507.249178.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1453479517.530791.jpg
 
wilserbrewer said:
I think the corona crush looks much better...

Funny in that NB likely uses a pretty expensive mill...
Click to expand...


Definitely a ton of whole grains in NB one. I tightened my corona down a smudge after that grind there and it's friggin pulverized it! I can't believe the different feel of stirring it in to the water, will see if I hit target. Mashing as we speak, I might have to back off a tiny bit next time bc I really don't want tannins.
 

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