Malt Mill Homebrew Grain Crusher Manual Metal Grain Mill Stainless Steel Grinder Mill with Adjustable 2 Bearing Roller & Crank Handle, Fit Low Speed Electric Drill for Wheat Barley Beer Brewing

[edit Nov 12 2024]Having now run roughly 200 pounds of malted grains through this mill – in reverse – I’m feeling more confident that using RED Loctite with their “primer” (basically, acetone) will hold up at least until the roller knurling wears out in that direction. It has held its gap setting reliably and done its job well to date.In 20 years of home brewing I have used a Barley Crusher grain mill and then a Cereal Killer mill, running thousands of pounds of malt through each, until the roller knurling wore out. I needed a new mill and came across this one. The inexpensive price was a red flag but given it’s Amazon and return would be free I took a shot.The mill and hopper require assembly, not a big deal. I quickly discovered the aluminum base does not fit any standard (5, 6 or 7 gallon) plastic bucket out of the box. I had to trim the longer of the two downward locating tabs with a hack saw, then it was fine. No idea what this was supposed to fit but it had to be pretty big.Next was the drive shaft: it is threaded into the drive roller with a right-hand thread, and there was no attempt to thread-lock the shaft to the roller. So you cannot reverse the mill direction or the shaft will unthread. This means if the mill stalls you can’t back it up and try again; or when the knurling wears out in one direction, you cannot readily reverse the rollers and then drive them in the opposite rotation and get another couple/few years of use out of the mill, because again the drive shaft will unthread.Finally the included basic hopper uses a different geometry from the mills I’ve owned before, so if one has bought or fabricated a hopper extension it is unlikely to work. On the up side, I was able to re-use the entire hopper (base plus extension) from my Cereal Killer – which was the hopper and extension for my original Barley Crusher, so that was a win.All in all I’d say the price of this mill is about right for what it provides. The stainless steel rollers will wear out quicker than a mill with carbon steel rollers and especially one with hardened rollers, but those sell for at least another $25-30 and a lot more, and the issue with the base is easily resolved in 10 minutes with a hack saw.Cheers!