I’ve been using the same JSP Malt Mill since January 1993. That’s about 411 batches of beer ago.
This mill has knurled rollers that are about 10” wide, but the grain is funneled into a 1-inch section in the middle, which I realized recently was worn out. It had stopped grabbing the grain well enough to spin the idle roller and crush the malt.
It occurred to me that both of the outer ends of the rollers were almost as good as new. So I made a new insert to the bottom of the hopper that funnels the grain to the outer one inch instead of the middle.
I used it for the first time today and increased my efficiency a couple percentage points.
In 400 more batches I will switch to the other side.
Wow, how creative! I’d better look at mine.
I swapped the idler roller end for end. The knurls take on a heal anf toe wear, so that gave a fresh heal going into the grain.
I have the JSP with hardened rollers. My original without hardened rollers I had sent back to Jack a couple times for reknurling. Always better efficiency when I got them back.
I motorized the mill with hardened rollers years ago and built a large hopper for it. The grain now drops across the entire roller length. Seems to work well enough.
I wonder if there’s a life span with the hardened rollers?
I don’t know if I have hardened rollers or not on my Malt Mill but it sounds like I have several hundred batches to go before I need to be concerned.