Ask The Brewmasters

  • 1.  Sharpening Rollers from an Engl Mill

    Posted 05-15-2025 15:23

    We've had an Engl mill for about 12 years now. A few years ago we replaced it as our main service mill with an RMS 4 roller, but we've kept it inline and use it to crush a few specialty grains and as a back up in case anything happens to our RMS. We have never pulled and sharpened the rollers on our Engl throughout its life and during some recent maintenance realized they are pretty dull. (Duh right?). 

    We have reached out to the manufacturer but they haven't been very responsive or helpful sadly, and finding a part supplier for replacement rollers or finding a machine shop locally who can sharpening our existing rollers has been a challenge. I was wondering if anyone else with one of these has solved this problem in the past and has some advice on how to get our rollers back up to snuff.



    ------------------------------
    Joshua Maxson
    Confluence Brewing Company
    Des Moines IA
    (319) 400-9678
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Sharpening Rollers from an Engl Mill

    Posted 05-16-2025 19:37

    Hello Joshua,

     

    Try to get ahold of Andy Mills at RMS, he is a great guy. I hope you can get in touch with him and that they are able to help you.

     

    Cheers

     

    Victor Pech
    Mobile: +1 531-739-6142
    Email: victor.pech@dolium.eu

    DOLIUM USA
    www.doliumkegs.com

    cid109123*<a href=image001.png@01DB1631.79FDDB10">

     






  • 3.  RE: Sharpening Rollers from an Engl Mill

    Posted 05-21-2025 18:12

    Hey Joshua, you probably already know this but in servicing these rollers the corrugations or grooves just needs to be recut or "deepened." As a malt house that pre-mills an alarming amount of grain, I feel your pain.  Victor's approach is a good one, but here are two more potential options if the RMS route doesn't pan out. 

    1) If you can engineer a safe method, you can do this yourself with a dremel or grinder (ideally one that you can throttle down the RPM). The grinding tool would be stationary with the roller on a slide so you can make 1-2 very light passes over each corrugation. Since the grooves already exist, you would just be tracing them to remove a bit  (like fraction of a millimeter) more core material. 

    2) Apollo Mills may be a second option to RMS.  They offer this service for their existing mills and are delightful to work with so they may be willing to service an off-brand considering your situation.  They are located in Canada so there would be a shipping cost to consider here but it sounds like you might be able to afford the downtime given it is now a secondary mill. 

    Jeff



    ------------------------------
    Jeff Bloem
    Founder/Maltster
    Murphy & Rude Malting Co.
    Charlottesville VA
    (616) 283-0162
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Sharpening Rollers from an Engl Mill

    Posted 05-21-2025 07:52

    Hello Joshua,

     

    Have you performed a sieve test to see how the Engl Mill performs like?

     

    If I were you try to keep it as a spare mill or use it for specialty grains, depending on the amount of specialty grains in each grain bill, I would consider a few things to make the decision whether to sharpen the rollers, or not:

     

    1.      How reliable the RMS 4 roller is?

    2.      How busy your operations is?

    3.      What the cost of sharpening or replacing the rollers on the Engl Mill?

     

    If the RMS is fairly reliable, your operations allows for some downtime, or you can afford/get pre-ground grains quickly -> I may not consider to service the Engl Mill since it may not be used often, add additional cost to maintenance, etc...

     

    If I were making beer or beverage with a lot of/different grains, it would be nice to crash by a separate mill to save on adjustments. Then I would focus on the cost-benefit analysis on the Engl Mill.

     

    I hope you will be able to get in touch with Engl Mill soon.

     

    Best Regards,

     

    Yii-Jen Tien

     

     

     






Related Content