I just used my Barley Crusher for the first time. What an amazing tool! I want to make sure that it works for as long as possible. How should I go about cleaning it? I just took the Shop Vac to it. Anything further required. My old Corona mill seemed to rust over a decade of use- rinsing with water it and drying after each use (probably not wise) . This new mill is the bees knees. I cant believe I ever used anything else.
i got a stiff bristled paint brush and use that to clean the bottom and rollers after every grind. i haven’t had mine long enough yet but it’s supposed to get a little oil once a year.
I’m not sure that a mill needs to be cleaned after each use. I just leave my rollers dusty. I suppose that blowing them off with compressed air would be nice, but I haven’t seen the need yet. You definitely don’t want to get anything wet. That will foster the corrosion process.
No clean mill for me
Water will also lead to bacterial issues as i have read. keeping it dry and well aired with most of the dust out of it is all you can really hope for. Monstermills suggested oiling their mills once a year. i dont have a barley crusher, so i dont know how easy they are to take apart to oil, but the monster mills are very easy to disassemble.
Gravity and time seem to work remarkably well on my Barley Crusher. No matter how much I bang/spin it after I mill a batch of grain, there’s a mysterious pile of dust underneath the mill after a week or two. I’m not overly concerned about the last little bit of grain remnants that stick to the rollers after that.
I suppose if the last thing you milled was a whole lot of Black Patent all by itself, and you are brewing a helles as your next brew, that may be more of a concern. I tend to mix in my specialty grains with my base malt in the hopper specifically to avoid this scenario.
I don’t do much beyond vacuuming up the obvious dust. My BC is likely due to be disassembled and oiled a bit (its been about 3 years) but it is still working fine.
You don’t really need to stress over maintenance unless you are crushing huge volumes.
Paul
I condition my grain with water before I mill to get finer crush - .026. The water makes the grain a bit sticky to the roller mill. I take a wire brush and clean the rollers as needed. Occasionally need to spray the rollers with fine mist water to get a stubborn spot. Then clean and lube the bushing.
It’s not a bad idea to disassemble and clean your BC periodically. I also replace the roller o-ring each time it breaks since the knurl on my rollers have worn and reluctantly grab the grain at best of times.