At the homebrew level for 5 gal (maybe up to 10 gal) batches is it worth to spend the money to go with a 3 roller grain mill vs a 2 roller or should I just go 2 roller and spend the “extra” money elsewhere?
Opinions? Just because it has an extra roller isn’t a good argument 
i have a 2 roller adjustable monster mill and i love it. wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I’ve had my 2" 2 roller for about a year.
Set at the factory gap of. 045 still. Gets me 82% no matter what I do.
Tightened it up, once…never again. Made for the stuckest, worst lautering ever. And a 1% bump.
Not about to get into conditioning, so I’ll settle for 82%.
I don’t have any experience with a 3 roller mill. I’ve had a Barley Crusher 2 roller mill for 6+ years and it’s served me well, however it’s been acting up on me lately, sometimes it won’t grab the grain and pull it through, the knurling on the rollers seems to be wearing. That said, it was the best mill for the money back then, the Monster mill wasn’t around. I have a friend who’s a machinist, I’m going to see if he can re-knurl it or have him make some new rollers.
I’ve had my 3 roller Crankenstein for going on 6 years now and it works great.
Never owned a 2 roller so I have nothing to compare it too.
Probably not help. :shock:
Barley Crusher has been good to me. It’s definitely a good mill for a first mill, I’d say. My next mill will probably be a Monster Mill if the Barley Crusher ever dies on me.
I doubt that you would regret the decision to go with a 2 roller and spend the extra money elsewhere, at least that’s been my experience. I haven’t heard many(if any) people complain about their mill regardless of make/model, seems like it is hard to go wrong whatever you choose.
I think I’d prefer the 2 roller mills, which is what I will be building first.
Looks like the 3 roller mills the first (powered) roller does double duty and would probably wear faster. With the 3 roller mills I have looked at, the grain is fed through the 2 top rollers at a set gap to mash it a bit and drops to the 3rd roller below then the grain runs between 3rd roller and the first roller to crush to your final gap setting you adjusted the 3rd roller to.
In my thinking, that first roller is doing double duty seeing the same grain 2X so might wear a bit faster than the other two rollers.
Also I am not sure about how much effort it would take to run it. Seems to me it is running 2X the grain like that. The first 2 rollers are mashing grain while the 1st and 3rd are crushing grain, so I am just thinking it may be harder to hand crank or maybe need a bit stronger drill than would be needed for a 2 roller mill.
Just my thoughts but may be something to ask about.
I’ve had a 2 roller barley crusher for 5 years with no complaints. I batch sparge, and my total brewhouse efficiency runs around 75% for most batches. Actual mash efficiency is of course higher.
I don’t think on a homebrew scale it matters much. Get whatever you can get a good deal on at the time.
