My Mini Malt Mill

Mmmm Malt...
After my last experience with crushing my malt with a rolling pin (see this page), hammer and whatever else I could find, I finally splurged a whole P650 ($13.80 US) and bought a blender. A blender you ask! For milling? Yes a friend of mine in Canada suggested that members of his homebrew club have been using blenders for milling malt for years. He suggested "only in short bursts," as the idea is to keep the husks mostly intact and to avoid making flour.

Well I am not a big fan of product reviewing as it usually sounds biased, but I will review this blender for sake of homebrewers who may want a very cheap mill for busting up their malt.


The brand is Home Tech (actually like this: homEtech) , model HTB-1.5L and it has two speeds and pulse button. It's heavy duty glass is about 10mm thick and feels quite robust. It states a "50 ounce capacity", I guess that is fluid ounces.



This blender has what the manufacturer calls a "grinder attachment" (see photo) and it is apparently suitable for "coffee beans". The instructions explain the usage of the "dry & wetmill attachment." Note that the blades on the mill attachment are stainless steel like the blender attachment, but not sharped.

Pretty good grind.
As a test and to get the technique right, I used the mill attachment to chew up about 1kg of malt. By pulsing the unit for short bursts was able to get a decent grind, not too fine and not too coarse. With a little practice and observation I was off and running.

All in all, I like the milling attachment. OK, it's kind of small and only holds about 100g at time, but it saves much labor and rolling pin action. If you are considering a cheap mill for your malt, I will suggest this model. The price is certainly right for me. Oh, and it comes with a 1 year warranty, so if you fry the motor making a barley wine, you're covered.

Now go have a beer and save the rolling pin for making pastry.

Best wishes.