Ss Grain Mill from Ss brewtech preorder

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Sparger

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Got an email from Ss Brewtech regarding their upcoming grain mill. Okay, so I was thinking it might be in the $300 range. Clicked the preorder button and found out it's only $799.
 
Did you actually look at the prototype? I think it's obvious that at $300 they would probably be selling below production cost.
 
But $800? Geared for the homebrew market? I mean let’s be honest, we find ways to spend our money, but sheesh.


Meh, I’ll probably end up with one.
 
If you want to spend the money or not is certainly a personal decision, but the OP was actually expecting to pay $300 for this piece of equipment. One needs only to compare this to other mills available on the HB market to see that such an expectation is beyond unrealistic.

I paid $300 just for a motor that attaches to my MattMill.
 
There was another thread when they first announced it was coming out this fall with the price estimate and it seems like the mill is more directed at the nano brewery market. Pro brewery mills start around 5k and once you add the auger and such it can be a 10-15k investment depending on exactly what you are getting. If you are doing 1-3bbls this would be a great alternative when you are getting started and are a bit cash strapped.

For a homebrewer it is definitely on the high end of things, but it definitely has its uses depending on what you brew. I use a lot of wheat and malted oats which are smaller so I would love to be able to change the mill gap quickly to get a better crush. I have other things higher on my priority list for upgrades but it is something i will think about in the future
 
I preordered it. I have a well used barley crusher that basically gave out on my last brew day. I know this thing is overkill for what I do but I typically brew 10-20 gallon batches and brew a couple of times a month. When I brew it is also usually back to back batches. I do a lot of Belgians and Sours so lots of wheat and unmalted grains. (Spelt has become a favorite).

Totally justifying the purchase but crushing is the biggest PITA of my brew day. Hopefully this will be the last mill I ever have to buy. Well until I win the lottery and open my own brewery.
 
Don't like the belt drive. Already bent the barley crusher mill shaft from it jamming.
 
I have several items from Ss they stand behind their stuff so I’ll take the chance.

That is what finally brought down my barley crusher. I am so tired of fiddling with it. The hopper would fall off spilling grain or it would luck up and I’d have to dump it to free it. It served me well and for the price was great. I am planning and addition and a free standing brew building/man cave that could be a garage or an in law apartment if I ever move so after 20 something years of brewing I think I’m all in on the hobby
 
jready said:
I preordered it. I have a well used barley crusher that basically gave out on my last brew day. I know this thing is overkill for what I do but I typically brew 10-20 gallon batches and brew a couple of times a month. When I brew it is also usually back to back batches. I do a lot of Belgians and Sours so lots of wheat and unmalted grains. (Spelt has become a favorite).

Totally justifying the purchase but crushing is the biggest PITA of my brew day. Hopefully this will be the last mill I ever have to buy. Well until I win the lottery and open my own brewery.
Click to expand...
Never ever use a steel roller mill to crush unmalted grains. Unmalted grains are tens of times harder than their malted counterpart and will destroy any malt mill, including the $799 SSB one, in a very short time. This is most likely what caused the premature demise of your Barley Crusher.
Also don't ever try and chew unmalted grains unless you want to make your dentist even richer than he probably already is... :)
 
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Vale71 said:
Never ever use a steel roller mill to crush unmalted grains. Unmalted grains are tens of times harder than their malted counterpart and will destroy any malt mill, including the $799 SSB one, in a very short time. This is most likely what caused the premature demise of your Barley Crusher.
Also don't ever try and chew unmalted grains unless you want to make your dentist even richer than he probably already is... :)
Click to expand...

Ha! My dentist doesn’t need any more of my money. Thank you for the comment on unmalted grains. Looking back that isn’t much of my grist mainly malted wheat and spelt.

That barley crusher was a champ though. Served me well for many years. The SS is totally overkill.
 
Second round to be delivered in Jan. Any first-rounders get theirs yet?
 
Someone just put up a review on youtube. This mill looks amazing. Never thought I'd say that about a mill. Already put my order in.
 
IMG_5683.JPG


Mine came today box is super heavy. Won’t get to unbox it tonight but hopefully by the weekend
 
Beardless said:
But $800? Geared for the homebrew market? I mean let’s be honest, we find ways to spend our money, but sheesh.


Meh, I’ll probably end up with one.
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careful... I said the same thing and got quite an earful about how an overengineered $800 grain crusher is completely worth it... because of all the performance advantages... o_O maybe some of those guys should read the other grain mill thread where folks are chiming in thinking the $99 CK mills are a waste of money because they are getting great results with thier corona mills... I guess like anything its all about what we want to tell ourselves is worth it.
 
augiedoggy said:
careful... I said the same thing and got quite an earful about how an overengineered $800 grain crusher is completely worth it... because of all the performance advantages... o_O maybe some of those guys should read the other grain mill thread where folks are chiming in thinking the $99 CK mills are a waste of money because they are getting great results with thier corona mills... I guess like anything its all about what we want to tell ourselves is worth it.
Click to expand...

Perhaps you should reserve judgement until you've used it. BTW, do those $99 CK mills come with motors? If not, you're deceptively comparing apples and oranges.
 
I lived with a corona mill for 10 years till I upgraded to a CK 5ish years ago. Just like the corona it served me well except the hopper was a POS. I totally don’t need the Ss model but I have a very stressful job, I paid more than a house over the past 4 years for my daughters college and dang it I wanted it. It won’t make great beer by itself but it makes things a little more fun. I don’t belong to a country club. I don’t have any other hobbies and my wife is fine with it so why not?
 
passedpawn said:
Perhaps you should reserve judgement until you've used it. BTW, do those $99 CK mills come with motors? If not, you're deceptively comparing apples and oranges.
Click to expand...
true.. I had to add the motor...and a drum switch for reverse.. cost me an extra $100.. and then a wheeled cart and hopper extention.. all together the mill we use at the brewery and crush about 100-150lbs of grain each week with cost me about $400-450. I know its like comparing a blichman kettle to a concord here but at the end of the day they really both do their job just as well so its tough for some of use to justify 9x the cost difference..(taxes and shipping put this about $900) for home brewing as a hobby.

I will admit the ss mill is much quicker to adjust. thats a solid plus if that something you need to do often... Honestly the pratical side of me still thinks it make more sense to buy a $99 mill for each gap you use and control them all with the same drill.. this way you have a backup if you run into an issue somehow.
 
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Vale71 said:
If you want to spend the money or not is certainly a personal decision, but the OP was actually expecting to pay $300 for this piece of equipment. One needs only to compare this to other mills available on the HB market to see that such an expectation is beyond unrealistic.

I paid $300 just for a motor that attaches to my MattMill.
Click to expand...
was it this motor by chance?
https://www.amazon.com/Electric-Wal...TYGGK2CRPBT&psc=1&refRID=A3Q6MACE2TYGGK2CRPBT
We already know there are cheaper designed/built mills with bronze bushings and softer rollers from more well known/marketed brand names selling for as much as twice as many chinese made counterparts which are superior engineered mills with real bearings and hardened rollers. Most of those mills average under $200 shipped though. I may have missed it but I believe this mill IS chinese made and if so we know the costs are much less we would otherwise expect from the "american mill" companies.

Just to be realistic, I doubt ss pays more than around $200-300 a unit for these and thats on the high end.. The smaller industrial gear reduction motors they use are not that pricey. The tooling for the rollers and aluminum body was the biggest cost here. and thats if those are not repurposed designs from something else (the rollers look like heaver machinery rollers to me).
Larger markups for more unique homebrewing supplies are more common so it wouldnt doubt me. Look at the tri clamp ripple elements that were $75 each everyone went on to say how pricey the manufacturing and design costs were but if you contact either one of the manufacturers on alibaba you can see the real supplier costs to order these are under $20 each.. at a certain point the engineering dept is paid and the profit jumps considerably.
I also dont doubt we might see these drop to the $500 range when the hype is done.. Then again who knows... Maybe well have to wait for others to clone it and compete before the price drops like the grainfather scenerio..
 
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19% VAT, is that on everything? I see you have to pay that for malt too, from that supplier anyway.
 
That's an advantage from me as I live in another EU-member country where VAT is even higher (22%). Thanks to the EU free market agreemements I get to pay the lower German VAT and that's it, no customs or any additional fees. Now importing from the US is where it can get really expensive, especially as of late... :(

Incidentally, I believe VAT on yeast is much lower as yeast was used historically to make bread and bread is a staple food for the masses...
 
Has anyone else seen the uneven gap issue with their new mill? I saw THIS thread in the SS user group today. One person has the mill gap vary by over .050" from one side to the other! Definitely not acceptable for a $800 premium mill.
 
BarleyPopBrewer said:
Has anyone else seen the uneven gap issue with their new mill? I saw THIS thread in the SS user group today. One person has the mill gap vary by over .050" from one side to the other! Definitely not acceptable for a $800 premium mill.
Click to expand...

"Beta buyers beware" often holds true, probably even more so with overseas contracted production. I learned this the hard way with a much more expensive piece of machinery a couple of decades ago, but in that case the company was even obscuring the fact main components were made in China, with American flags pasted all over the thing. (thanks caterpillar).

On a positive note, as someone who frequently uses rye and wheat malt, the durable non knurled rollers and gap adjustable on the fly are nice features.
 
Dland said:
"Beta buyers beware" often holds true, probably even more so with overseas contracted production. I learned this the hard way with a much more expensive piece of machinery a couple of decades ago, but in that case the company was even obscuring the fact main components were made in China, with American flags pasted all over the thing. (thanks caterpillar).

On a positive note, as someone who frequently uses rye and wheat malt, the durable non knurled rollers and gap adjustable on the fly are nice features.
Click to expand...
Off topic but the owner of blichman came from the company Caterpillar.. which is where he got the idea of using non standard sized components that customers couldn't find replacement parts for easily without going through them. At least thats what I read somewhere..
 
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Dland said:
"Beta buyers beware" often holds true, probably even more so with overseas contracted production. I learned this the hard way with a much more expensive piece of machinery a couple of decades ago, but in that case the company was even obscuring the fact main components were made in China, with American flags pasted all over the thing. (thanks caterpillar).

On a positive note, as someone who frequently uses rye and wheat malt, the durable non knurled rollers and gap adjustable on the fly are nice features.
Click to expand...
It's the made in china curse. Like so many things made there the consistency isn't there. Like the other chinese mills or the brewie. Some people have great experience and others don't. It's so hit and miss. Cheers
 
BarleyPopBrewer said:
Has anyone else seen the uneven gap issue with their new mill? I saw THIS thread in the SS user group today. One person has the mill gap vary by over .050" from one side to the other! Definitely not acceptable for a $800 premium mill.
Click to expand...

That user got the units wrong: it was millimeters, not inches.

Tolerance in manufacturing is a thing regardless of the price, and one should ask whether 0.05 mm is within an acceptable tolerance for the price. To be honest, that is a pretty small length...

augiedoggy said:
Your link was removed from facebook it seems.
Click to expand...

I still see it, as a member of the group.
 
effeffe said:
That user got the units wrong: it was millimeters, not inches.

Tolerance in manufacturing is a thing regardless of the price, and one should ask whether 0.05 mm is within an acceptable tolerance for the price. To be honest, that is a pretty small length...



I still see it, as a member of the group.
Click to expand...
Doesnt sound like barleypopbrewer was a member... If I had to guess id say they made the group private to try to prevent the situation that occurred with the brewie.. I could see not allowing people to post comments unless they were a member but they had no reason to hide the user community discussion... Unless they feel they do and that wouldnt be good..

On all the other mills being sold the owners have the capability to adjust the gap to be equal on the left and right sides independently so if this really isnt adjusting evenly it can be considered a negative here... Honestly for $800 the units shouldnt be going out the door with broken power switches/ soft start circuit boards either but I can see from the color of the cardboard that the packaging and quality control is happening in china on this product. I'm suree ss will take care of the early adopters who may be dealing with these issues but again for the very high cost here for what it is, if the mills arent very high quality and getting proper quality control before going out the door what actually justifies this cost?
 
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Blazinlow86 said:
Doesn't it come with a base of some sort to keep the dust down?
Click to expand...
Want to take bets on how much that tables going to cost?

On a serious note I was surprised to see it runs off a dc motor .. The huge dell micros pc style power brick hanging on the cord isnt all that appealing so I see why I hadn't seen it in any ads until the review..
 
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