The Mill

[luk-cha]

Does anyone use the mill that comes with the Braumeister kit?

If yes, whats your opinion of it??

[BrauTim]

Yes I've got the corona mill:

• I'm sure you can buy them cheaper elsewhere.
• It's manual and hard work, takes me about an hour to process 5Kg malt for a wheat beer for example, double that for 10Kg
• Once you have got the crush dialled in it works very well and I get no stuck recirculation and 90+% efficiency recently.
• I condition my malt before crushing which means slightly more effort required cranking the handle (I might stop conditioning wheat as it has no husk, although re-reading the article this seems to help with wheat beers, I use 70% wheat and no rice hulls etc).

I now consider this aspect of brewing a ball-ache, as bad as washing/de-labelling bottles, but strangely satisfying in a masochistic kind of way. One day I will get around to buying a motorised mill (and maybe feel less satisfied)!

[niels]

Does anyone use the mill that comes with the Braumeister kit?

If yes, whats your opinion of it??

I suppose you are referring to the "Corona" type of mill. We used this type of mill with our brewing club with success on our 3 vessel system. Although I didn't like the build quality and ease of use:
1/ It is made of galvanized steel and the coating chips off, so you must run it with some grain and toss it out before first use. This always worried me at later brews as I was concerned of chippings ending up in our mash and possible oxidation of the mill.
2/ It is a pain in the cock to mill bigger quantities as you have to mount it on a table and slide a low box underneath to catch the milled grains. You have to empty the box in between. After a while we mounted it on a bar between two legs of a stool that was up-side-down and bound a bag around the "exit". This way we milled the grain in one big bag and catching all the dust too.
3/ You can motorize the mill but it takes a heavy motor.

You can find Chinese roller mills for a little more money (around 100 EUR). Build quality is good and you're able to easily adapt the gap. When mounted on a piece of wood you can put it on top of a bucket and mill right into the bucket. Using an electrical drill you can mill 6 kg of grains in a few minutes. The main difference between the Chinese models and the "real" models are the quality of the bearings. I wouldn't recommend going into the high RPMs for an extended time on the cheaper model.

My advise: consider buying a roller mill.

Niels

PS: I was called away while typing this reply. I see that BrauTim has replied too in the meantime.

[BrauTim]

PS: I was called away while typing this reply. I see that BrauTim has replied too in the meantime.

Looks like we have similar thoughts Niels

[luk-cha]

thanks for the replies guys, yes i agree milling is hard work on the corona type mill, one thing i have noticed is that it does mill the grains rather than cracking them like i have read, so this affect the efficiency in any ways, or should i just get a roller mill?

[royco]

A roller mill with power drill yields about 1Kg per minute, maybe more.
I haven't even unpacked my BM mill!
Royco

[BigT]

Why don't you lads build a roller mill, actually quite simple.
I've built about 10 for commercial use and I can't imagine it will be that difficult to scale down.
When I start brewing for myself again I will give it a go.
Terence