Monster Mill Stand

Here's my new Monster Mill stand made from 2X4's and stuff I found in my garage. The mill is powered by a 1/2"low-speed drill from Harbor Freight. That bad boy hardly gets warm from crushing 10 lbs of 2-row.

Small Batch Temperature Controlled Fermentation

Shown is a 3 gallon Better Bottle with blow-off tube inside a mini-fridge for 2 1/2 gallon batches, the mini-fridge will hold two 3gallon Better Bottles side-by-side for a 5 gallon fermentation. This would be great for comparing the effects of yeast strains. On top is my temperature controller, an Elitech Stc-1000 from Amazon for $16.69 shipped. It needs a housing and wiring which adds another $15 or so, lots of wiring instructions on YouTube.

Aquarium Heater for Temperature Control

As soon as the active fermentation phase starts to slow, I use a $10 aquarium heater to maintain temperature and then let the bath water slowly rise to 70 F or so. The heater was too tall for my bathtub, so I put it in a bucket. I installed a GFCI outlet in my bathroom per the heater instructions.

My New Hop Spider in Action

I built a hop spider based on the instructions in Brew Your Own Magazine:
http://www.byo.com/component/resource/article/2494-build-a-hop-spider-projects

Not following the directions, I removed of the bottom of the PVC coupling with a hack saw. I didn't like the idea of the extra PVC in my boil. I also used only three legs, that way it will always fit (you know, 3 points define a plane in geometry).  I forgot to measure the brew pot diameter, these carriage bolts just barely fit, I'll get some longer bolts next time I go to Home Depot. That will keep the whole thing from falling in the wort.

When the boil is done and the wort has cooled, I'll use some sanitized latex gloves and squeeze out as much wort as I can out of the nylon hop bag. I used to just leave the trub in the fermenter, but getting rid of most of it with the hop spider allows me to put more wort into the fermenter, and hopefully a full 5 gallons racked to the corny.

Poor Man's Fermentation Temperature Control

Here's my bucket fermenter in the bathtub. I usually use my keezer to control the temperature but, happily, it is full of beer at the moment. The large volume of water helps keep the wort temperature stable. I had to plug up the drain with some plastic wrap to keep it from leaking. In the fermenter is a mostly Cascade hops pale ale, I plan to dry hop with three ounces of Cascade when the active fermentation slows down.

Additional Comments on the Monster Mill

One quick observation on grinding grain with the Monster Mill, or any mill driven with a drill. Yeah, it's fun to watch the grain as it falls into the rollers. Don't watch that, keep you eye on the drill connection to the grind shaft. Mine started slipping, slightly stripping the shaft. As it turns out, I needed to tighten the connection with the drill chuck key after every minute or so of grain crushing. Make sure that connection doesn't come loose and save yourself a lot of potential trouble. Carefully follow the mill's directions about alining the fingers of the drill chuck to the three flats machined onto the shaft.

My New Monster Brewing Hardware Grain Mill

Here is my new Monster Mill MM-2 Standard 2-Roller Grain Mill. I might have gone for the 2-inch rollers version but I don't have a 1/2" drill. You have to draw the line somewhere, I guess.

Per the recommendations in the instructions, I set the shaft towards the center of the base. That way, the mill will counterbalance the weight of the drill and balance on the grain container. You can also mount the mill under the base.

I don't usually read instructions, but I really recommend reading them in this case before you touch anything. I messed with the thumb screw and changed the preset gap on at least one side without realizing it. I guessed which side I had changed and set the other side by eye. I confirmed this with a spark plug gapper to .045". The instructions recommend marking this pre-set setting with a Sharpie magic marker, or a center punch for a more permanent mark. More on this below.

Here is my new mill all assembled.

The bird's eye view.

I did my first grind yesterday, brew day. Perhaps I had the gap all wrong. Nothing was going through. I know this isn't very scientific, but I just kept opening the gap a little bit at a time until the grain started going through. Above is the resulting crush. I had to stop milling about four times because the drill started smoking. But it only took five to ten minutes or so to crush 14 lbs of grain. I got about 77% efficiency from my mash.

Conclusions

This is a REALLY nice grain mill. There is nothing cheap or make-shift about it. The hopper is a heavy gauge steel. This is perfectly adequate for my needs and should last at least as long as I do. About the only thing I hoped for that wasn't included was a sticker or decal with their cool Monster Brewing Hardware logo. Now that I have a grain mill, I can buy uncrushed grain in bulk, save some money, and crush it only when needed resulting (hopefully) in fresher tasting beer.

Additional Comments