Review: “The Blue Bolix” Malt Mill

There are couple of big leaps a number of brewers go through as they delve deeper into home brewing. Going all grain, fermentation temperature control and crushing your own malt. The last was something I had put on the long finger for years. I was always very happy with the crushed malt I bought from the homebrew company since I started all grain brewing.  Thank you to Shane at The Homebrew Company for the chance to review the infamous “The Blue Bolix” malt mill.

With only a small bit of assembly required that of the hopper. It can be a little fiddly works but it is no huge effort. A couple of minutes invested and it’s completed. Therefore, with that done, the first job was to calibrate the two rollers for optimal crush. The consensus is the distance between the rollers should be enough to all a credit card to pass through. This turned out to be an easy process to set and lock in with the clamps at the back of the mill.

A view down the hopper, the design allows the grain to funnel down on to the mill rollers.

The hopper holds around 2kg of malt comfortable; I opted to use the hand crack to crush this malt. However, you can also use a drill for a less strenuous malt crush.  

Nice crush on the lines of what I got from me brew buying pre-crushed malt from the home brew company. The grist by the way as 2kg Pilsner and 2kg Munich malt.

Mash in under way at 66c

Wort happily boiling away, as the gist was 50% pilsner malt I went with a 90-minute boil, to avoid a possible DMS issues. Mash efficiency was 70% bang on what I was working, well done to the Blue Bolix on perfect crush.

Here is the fermentation temperature profile that I went with. It starts with the classic Narziss method, pitching WLP820 two or so degrees below your preferred fermentation temperature and then allowing it to free rise or slowly be heated. Fermentation temperature is maintained for 5-7 days or until 50 %, attenuation is reached. After this period, the fermenter is slowly heated around 2 degrees every 12 hour until 18-20c is reached. Hold this for four or so day 

 and slowly ramp down by 6 degrees every 12 hours to 1c.

A quick check of the FG at kegging, 1.010 right on the number I was hoping for and no stalling fermentation that can be associated with this yeast. Force carbonation and let it sit for a few weeks to lager.

So all in all a very successful début of the "The Blue Bolix" malt mill, easy to use and assemble. A big thank you again to Shane at The Homebrew Company for a use of the mill.