Chefcaptain Manual Cast Iron Grain Grinder, Corn Grinder, Food Mill Hand Crank For Wheat Grains Nuts Grinds 1 Lb Per Minute

I bought this mill to grind my own grains for homebrewing. It is perfect for this purpose. I did make a couple minor adjustments. I added a few washers to give extra room for adjusting the spacing of the grinding plates. That might not have been necessary, but I had seen other people do it, and it meant I could fully tighten the wing nuts on either side to stabilize things a bit. When I first tried to tighten the wing nuts without the washers in place, it seemed too tight to be able to actually adjust the grinding plates. My other adjustment was finding a bolt that fits the spot where the handle attaches. Putting a bolt in there means I can use a drill with a socket attachment to run the mill instead of having to crank it by hand. So far, I haven't actually used a drill, because I realized I didn't have a socket attachment for my drill. Doh! No problem though, because it didn't end up taking all that long to crank it by hand, and I could use the exercise. Also, I didn't mount it on a table or counter. I didn't want to mar the counter and I wanted a way to catch all of the grain easily. I cut slots big enough for a piece of scrap wood I had laying around to fit in the side of a bucket. Then I mounted the mill to the piece of wood. Works great. If you brew your own beer and want the extra level of control you get by grinding your own grains, this mill is just the thing. Having tried this one, I feel no need to upgrade to a roller mill even if I could afford it.

Regarding the choice of supplier: From a good supplier, this mill is worth every cent. I needed a simple mill for homebrewing (and didn't want to spend the ballpark $200 required for a good roller mill) and came across this, with many reviews describing it as wonderful for that purpose. However, I also noted many reviews complaining of poor quality, excess packing grease, etc (things that would surely have shown up in the five-star reviews). Then I noticed that some of the five-star reviews mentioned that they'd gotten theirs from Discount Tommy. So, I waited until Discount Tommy had them in stock, bought from them, and all's been great. Now, I have no idea what other suppliers are good/bad. Discount Tommy probably isn't the only good one, but judging by reviews there are definitely some bad ones; going with the one known good supplier seemed safest. Regarding the product I received: I washed it with soap and water, dried it, and assembled it. Everything fit fine, though there are of course rougher areas (though the surface finish is fine everywhere) due to the fact that the mill was cast rather than machined. The hopper holds perhaps a pound of brewing malt (something I intend to upgrade). The base can screw directly onto a surface or be clamped onto anything ~2" thick or less. Other reviewers had noted that the mill could be driven by a drill; it was initially unclear how they'd done so, but my solution was to use a Dremel tool to open the eye of an eyebolt, put the threaded part of the eyebolt into my drill's chuck, and then hook my eyebolt to the eyebolt on the mill (important, probably obvious note--the mill handle was not installed for this). Even operating at I'm sure much greater speed than the manufacturer intended, the mill chews through grains. I use a piece of aluminum foil, formed over the upper section of the milling plates, to keep grain from being thrown everywhere. I first used mine clamped to a tabletop, but found that milling a 5 gallon batch's worth of grains to be difficult since I had to keep emptying the relatively small bowl that could fit under the milling plates. So the second time around, I affixed a 2x2 to my table that juts out beyond the surface, allowing me to use a makeshift chute to funnel the milled grains into my full-size collection vessel.

I must agree with the person who said this is junk. After spending an hour grinding the mount smooth, replacing the ridiculous eyebolt and washer on the feed screw with a proper metric bolt, and playing around with the settings, I have to say that it's the lowest-quality most-primitive piece of kitchen gear I've ever seen -- "Premium Quality" is a fraudulent claim, but it does grind corn, sort of. Also fraudulent is the "Corona" brand name that Amazon still lists under the item name -- there's nothing in or on the box or the equipment that claims this is made by Corona. Some choice details, on the basis of hours of testing with dry flint corn: 1) There are two grinding discs, of course, one is fixed to the grinder case and the other is loosely driven by the crank. The grooves on both discs are cast, not ground, so they're very rough and inconsistent in depth, and there is no way to sharpen them. The movable disc is "floating", so it depends on the corn or wheat material to maintain its angle and spacing from the fixed disc. This almost works, but not quite -- it still lets a LOT of relatively large chunks of grain make it through, and in practice there is no way to completely avoid grinding metal against metal at times when there is very little grain going through. Fortunately, the discs are indeed ferrous (magnetic), so a few iron filings in your food probably won't hurt anyone, might even help some anemic folks. Still, fact is, "fine" grind is impossible, even after re-grinding ten times! 2) The shaft of the main feed screw attaches to the handle by a three-sided taper; both parts are cast, not machined. There are three positions you can use to attach the handle. In the first position I tried, the handle hit the hopper, as mentioned in another review, but when I moved to another position, the handle cleared the hopper and worked fine. I added a mark to the handle and the feed screw at the right position. 3) However, the eyebolt and dished washer that holds the handle on, were incredibly low quality. The hole in the shaft is tapped for an 8 mm bolt. Unfortunately the bolt was a very sloppy fit, measuring only 7.5 mm diameter, where it should really be about 7.9 mm. At least it was the right thread pitch. Anyway, I replaced the eyebolt and its flimsy washer with a decent-quality hex head bolt and thicker washer, and it now holds the handle on quite firmly. 4) On the cast-in clamp that holds the mill to a countertop or table, the top surface has a nasty seam that stuck out about a millimeter. This would put a deep groove in pretty much any countertop or table top that you might clamp onto. (The box warns about this.) So I spent a half-hour grinding off the seam with a bench grinder to make the top surface of the clamp nice and smooth. It now clamps very firmly, and holds the mill in place quite well using the enclosed rubber seat. 5) The hopper is ferrous, possibly stainless steel, but is not a good fit on the grinder input opening, so chunks of grain get stuck in the gap. Just a minor frustration, another drawback of the cheap casting. In summary, this knock-off the original Corona model 500 grinder is really pathetic, and would be a waste of time and money for almost anyone. Out of the box, it does not work acceptably, but if you are willing to spend an hour or two modifying the rough casting and replacing one of the bolts, it might work for you. Frankly, I'm sorry I bought the mill, but I think I've learned my lesson: if something on Amazon (especially one of their marketplace partners) seems impossibly cheap, don't order it!

DO NOT BUY THIS - Just look at the image this thing is a health and safety hazard, the paint kept coming off with the food, mind you it was supposed to look green…. Nothing fixes this, we tried scrubbing it. It will always keep coming off.

Je suis déçu par ce produit j'ai l'impression de mettre fait arnaquer. N'arrive même pas à écraser l'arachide sans avoir les morceaux dans la pâte. En plus, il y a les débris du métal utilisé dans la pâte. Vraiment déçu! Je sélectionne une étoile car c'est obligatoire d'en avoir sinon aucune étoile!!

The construction of this mill was to poor I had to try to force it together to get it assembled. The casting of the parts was poor and ultimately it didn't work at all. It was returned.

It does not work.