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

My Oxidized Beer Experiment

 I couldn't get my siphon restarted last time I racked off my beer so I decided to just pour the remaining beer into a 2-liter Diet Pepsi bottle. A plain soda water bottle would have been better, but you go with what you have. There was plenty of air space. I usually keg my beer but I have some carbonation drops on hand. I added 3 drops. For the volume, I should have used 4, but I don't need any bottle bombs. Will the airspace ruin the beer?

Two months later, the answer is yes. My kegged IPA version of the same beer was very nice. This beer was still drinkable, but it was dull with some slight sherry-like flavors. I didn't taste any Pepsi flavor. People talk about cardboard flavors from oxidized beer but I didn't get any of that, maybe it's just me. Next time, if there is a next time, I'll squeeze all the air out and add the four carbonation drops. If the pressure gets too high, I'll just release a little by loosening the cap temporarily. I think the 2-liter bottles hold quite a bit of pressure.