Let's Talk About Mills

[Docdave]

Scotchpine,

I looked at the Cereal Killer at a brew supply shop in Detroit. It looked OK but the warranty (6 months) kind of spooked me. For an extra $30 I can get a Barley crusher which most people tell me is nearly impossible to kill! Besides, it comes with a lifetime warranty since you only want to buy a mill once in your life!

DocDave

[HolyFirkins]

im curious to see how this turns out as well, interested in purchasing the cereal crusher too..let us know what you think of it..

[scotchpine]

Will do. I just ordered it last night but won't be using it till the week after XMAS.

[HolyFirkins]

any word on this? have you brewed using your new christmas present?

[scotchpine]

Ok, I just used it for the first time last Sat. I filled the hopper and put my drill on it and had a VERY hard time keeping the feed going. I kept having to take the drill off and dump the grain out and just add a little bit bak as it was rolling but every time it would stop feeding after a few seconds. The passive roller would just stop turning and back and forth direction would not remedy this. I also jammed the chuck on my corldless beyond repair and will have to replace it too. That's when I went to my corded drill. I started at .039" and went to .043 then .045. I finally got it all crushed but it took over an hour for 13 lbs. Very frustrating! I emailed AIH and they replied that they were having design issues with this first run product and offered to exchage it for a Barley Crusher for the $30.00 difference or a full refund. I'm opting for the trade up and just trying to work that out now. They seem to be very responsive and fair about this, so I'm hopefull that I'll be milling my grains again soon. I did'nt look to see if they still had the Serial Crusher for sale but I would go for the Barley Crusher for sure.

[HolyFirkins]

Ok, I just used it for the first time last Sat. I filled the hopper and put my drill on it and had a VERY hard time keeping the feed going. I kept having to take the drill off and dump the grain out and just add a little bit bak as it was rolling but every time it would stop feeding after a few seconds. The passive roller would just stop turning and back and forth direction would not remedy this. I also jammed the chuck on my corldless beyond repair and will have to replace it too. That's when I went to my corded drill. I started at .039" and went to .043 then .045. I finally got it all crushed but it took over an hour for 13 lbs. Very frustrating! I emailed AIH and they replied that they were having design issues with this first run product and offered to exchage it for a Barley Crusher for the $30.00 difference or a full refund. I'm opting for the trade up and just trying to work that out now. They seem to be very responsive and fair about this, so I'm hopefull that I'll be milling my grains again soon. I did'nt look to see if they still had the Serial Crusher for sale but I would go for the Barley Crusher for sure.

thanks for the input!

[scotchpine]

Just an update on this. I used the Barley Crusher for the first time the other day and it worked great. No problems with the grain feeding at all and used my cordless drill. 18 volt and just need to start with a full fresh charge for 13 lbs malt. Gap was .038". It looks like there is some sort of band around the active roller that the CK mill did'nt have that starts the passive roller turning at the same time. Maybe that makes all the difference. If so, I hope the band doesn't break on this one.

[PSUHomebrewer]

The band doesn't last long, maybe 1 crush and that's it. It isn't really needed anyways.