Which grain mill to get?

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I’m much more into brewing than in years past, and I’d really like to get my own mill so that I can buy more grain in bulk and not have to rely on homebrew shops to do Jeebus knows what to my grains.

I dug around on here and found some threads, which, oddly enough, carry some gem posts from our buddy erway, who is now a famous brewer!

www.ratebeer.com/forums/grain-mill_81379.htm
http://www.ratebeer.com/forums/grain-mills_45974.htm

However, these threads are old. Everybody loved the Crankandstein back then... how about now?

It’ll have to be in the 200-300 dollar range, or less... which is probably plenty.

Thanks for the post Danny, I’m in the market myself. The consensus I’ve received thus far is that the two best options in the home environment are Schmidling and the Barley Crusher. Can anyone confirm/disconfirm?

You could go with The Barley Crusher or a similar variant and then replace the crank with a piece of metal that a socket head fits around so that you can burn through the milling with a drill gun instead of having to crank it by hand (which is awful).

I use this one. Works great.

The rolls are adjustable? How sturdy is the adjustment do you ever have to worry about the rolls spreading accidently making the grain come through the mill and give you an inconsistent mill of the grain? cheerstevo

Originally posted by cbkschubert
I use this one. Works great.

I’ve used the Barley Crusher for about 2 years now and haven’t had any problems. Rollers are adjustable, good grind, no complaints.

Other opinions? Lots of homebrew gurus on here aren’t speaking up yet!

I just switched to all grain brewing, and am now three batches in using my malt mill (schmidling) and so far it’s been just great. It’s the same one they use at my not so local LHBS and they have apparently been milling 100 lbs of grain a day for the past 2 years with it no problem (They run a pretty large business). I’m still cranking it out by hand, because I’m kind of a masochist about hobbies like this but theirs is hooked up to a washing machine motor and just gobbles up grain.

Originally posted by decaturstevo
The rolls are adjustable? How sturdy is the adjustment do you ever have to worry about the rolls spreading accidently making the grain come through the mill and give you an inconsistent mill of the grain? cheerstevo

Originally posted by cbkschubert
I use this one. Works great.

There is no slippage at all. The increments are pretty small. I leave it at the second largest adjustment. That setting works great for 2-row and crystal malts. You have to adjust for wheat. I’ve milled over 250 lbs. of grain with no problems.

Originally posted by b3shine
You could go with The Barley Crusher or a similar variant and then replace the crank with a piece of metal that a socket head fits around so that you can burn through the milling with a drill gun instead of having to crank it by hand (which is awful).

I have a barley crusher and it works very well, is adjustable, and I didn’t need to replace anything to attach a drill to it. You can probably get the barley crusher for $130.

A roller mill will do the trick

I have been itching to buy one of the three roller Monster mills, but I just can’t justify it, my almost 15 year old Valley Mill is still ticking along just fine.

I haven’t heard of anyone yet complain about the adjustable roller mills that they have gotten. for more than 5 gallon batches a drill or dedicated motor is certainly a must (I do 20 gallon batches generally and can’t imagine still hand-cranking).

So make sure it is adjustable, easily adapted for a drill or motor, and get as large a diameter rollers as you can afford. After that it is just opinion.

The only reason I want a three roller mill is that I am anal enough on grind that I double grind all my malt with my current mill. once to crack the husk, and the second, at a finer setting to pulverize the endosperm into powder, while leaving the husk in tact.