First AG batch - Grainfather - Pale Ale

[JMath]

You may have seen around the forum that I've purchased a Grainfather and a MM-2 mill. For my first AG brew I want to keep it simple, so I am going for a pale ale modeled from the glutenfreehomebrewing.org West Coast Pale Ale kit. At some point I do want to try legume's method of using unmalted millet.

I've changed the pale rice malt to pale millet malt, since the consensus on this forum seem to be to use millet as the base and rice for the roasted grains. Is there anything I should add to this? I'll figure out the hops later.

5 gal batch
10 lb Pale Millet Malt
2 lb Biscuit rice malt
2 lb Crystal rice malt
Termamyl for high temp rest
AMG-300L for mash
US-05
Yeast nutrient

 

[glutarded-chris]

Very cool. Interested how it goes with the Grainfather!
I wouldn't add fermentables beyond the grain. In later batches you can adjust the grain bill and hops to dial in to your taste.

 

[skleice]

Yes, please share your results and experience with the grainfather! I think I've decided on a 3500w induction burner to brew 5 gallon biab (with sparge), but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

What's your plan for the mash? Temps? Enzymes?

 

[JMath]

I'll take pictures and document everything. Not sure when it will be, I still have to order the grain and enzymes but I'll report back here when I get it going. Depending on shipping, maybe next weekend.

I don't have plan yet for the mash temps but I'm definitely going to do the two stage (170°F and 150°F?) since I have the precision control of the Grainfather. I have to go back and read the posts from the veterans to get the timing.

 

[skleice]

FWIW - my order from GFHB was processed and shipped across the country in 2 days. Impressive.

 

[JMath]

I've written out my mashing plan:

• Crush rice malts at 0.914mm
• Crush millet malt at 0.660mm

(The very specific gaps are what I get from my particular gauge)

I did buy rice hulls but I don't think I need them. Using glutenfreehomebrewing's calculations:
10 lb millet malt would require addition of 1.5 lbs of rice hulls (10 * 15% = 1.5)
4 lb rice malt contains exactly 1.5 lbs of hulls (4 * 37.5% = 1.5)
Does anyone disagree?

• Collect 14 qts filtered water in Grainfather (14 lbs * 1 qt/lb)
• Begin heating with a target temp of 104°F
• Dough in grain while heating?
• 30 minute rest at 104°F without circulation (since the whole point is to de-gumify the mash, we don't want a stuck circulation)
• Heat to 170°F then rest for 15 mins with circulation
• Lower temperature target to 150°F. Use Grainfather's chiller to lower temperature, or add chilled mash water saved earlier? Not sure it's wise to run the mash through the chiller.
  
• Add 2 tsp Amylase enzyme
• Rest for 120 minutes with circulation
• Heat sparge water in old kettle to 170°F. I don't know how to calculate grain absorption rate, so I will heat 3 gallons to be sure I have enough to hit my boil target of 6.4 gal.
• Turn off circulation, pull grain basket up, set temperature to boil
• Sparge, stopping at 6.4 gal in Grainfather
• Take gravity reading
  
• Boil!

Footnote: my target volume in my fermenter is only 5 gallons, as opposed to 5.25 or whatever because I'm using a 6 gallon Fermonster that I just got and I don't have a blowoff tube yet.

 

[skleice]

JMath - I just asked this exact question about using the chiller during the mash in the Grainfather thread. I was told it can be done. Rjmaille said he just uses ziplock bags with ice. Good luck with your first run. I will be jumping on the Grainfather train as well.

 

[rjmaillie]

Here are numbers I have that are dialed in for my grainfather setup. Your results will vary but they are a good start.

Grain absorption: .45qt/lb
Boil off: 2.3 qrts/hr
Kettle dead space: 1qrt (i tip the grainfather toward the pump to minimize losses)

Let us know how you make out, JMath.

 

[JMath]

Great, that gives me a starting point and I can come up with my own numbers after my first brew. I just have to figure out how I will chill the mash and I'm good to go.

 

[JMath]

I brewed it yesterday! After some trouble getting a water source for the chiller due to the weather, everything else went very smooth. Here are my notes:

• I only hit 1.040 post-boil. I'm thinking I should've been in the 1.050s with this grain bill. But it's not terrible.
  
• The millet went through the mill easily at 0.660mm. I wonder if I should go smaller next time.
  
• The rice would NOT go through the mill at 0.914mm. I tried larger and larger gaps but the rollers wouldn't budge until I got to 1.016mm!
• I don't know what the millet and rice are supposed to look like after being milled. Does the inside actually break apart, or are we just trying to remove the hull?
• I didn't use any rice hulls, had no stuck sparges.
• 1 qt/lb mash water was not adequate for the Grainfather due to the space under the basket, I had to up it to 1.5 qt/lb (should've just listened to rjmaillie on that).
• Previously I had questions about whether you should recirculate during certain mash steps. It became clear to me that you always want to recirculate if you want to hold a steady temp.
• I used the chiller to go from 170°F to 150°F during the mash. It worked out fine. You really have to watch it closely because it cools so fast.
• 3 gal of sparge water was just barely not enough to hit my 6.4 gal boil target. Topped off the boil with extra water.

Overall I am impressed with the Grainfather. It's very easy to work with and well designed. It's nice not having to baby the temps during the long mash. Any suggestions on how to improve my process would be greatly appreciated.

Here are some pics.

Milling

Collecting water

Grain in, before realizing I need more water

That's better!

Start of mash

Near the end of mash

Draining (no pictures of sparging, I only have two hands)

Getting up to boil

Boil

Chilling and transferring

Done!

 

[rjmaillie]

Looks amazing. Congrats on a successful brew day!

I'm glad a got a roller mill because your re-circulation looks great with a millet heavy grain bill (and no additional rice hulls!). I think my corona mill was causing the recirc issues i was having. To answer your question about crush, yes the grain should be broken as this will facilitate the breakdown of starch to sugars. It basically makes more of the grain available to be converted by the amylase enzymes. I'm brewing this weekend and will use the new mill for the first time. I'll let you know how I make out with my rice malt.

Here's a link to a GFHB blog post about grain crush, with a picture: https://www.glutenfreehomebrewing.org/BLOG/36/Mill-Gap-Settings.php

 

[skleice]

Looks awesome! I'm not surprised that the mash was too thick at 1/1. I had the same problem in my kettle without much deadspace.

Did you use a corded drill? I had no problem running millet and rice through the MM2 at .05mm. I ran it through together twice. Probably worked because it was mixed together.

What's the process for using the CNC during the mash? Glad to hear that worked out.

Very cool that it all went well. I'm excited to get my Grainfather in March!

 

[glutarded-chris]

Thanks for the pics and info on the Grainfather!

I have a MM3 with the larger diameter rollers. I expect it would perform almost identical to the MM2. I found the following:
0.010" to 0.020" (0.25mm to 0.05mm) for millet alone
0.045" to 0.050" (1.1mm to 1.27mm) for buckwheat and/or rice alone.
0.20" (0.05mm) for millet, rice and buckwheat, flaked corn mixture (high percentage of millet).

The mixture works well going through the smaller gap together as long as most of the grain is millet. I think as long as the rollers are getting mostly millet, when they encounter a few grains of the larger buckwheat or rice, the rollers have plenty of momentum and the larger grains go right through. My grain bills have had at least 65% millet.

I think 0.020" is about the limit for millet to insure a good crush. Sometimes I send it through twice but often I get lazy and just send through once with no significant affect on efficiency.
I did try to test the influence of once verses twice through which is documented on post #14 of the following:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=583572
I did notice an effect but realized I could just let the mash go for a few more minutes and it would eventually catch up.

 

[Silly Yak]

Wow that looks amazing JMath. Also looks like you did all of that in your kitchen. Nice one! I would've been banished to the garage with all that gear . I've been reading through a bunch of threads on this forum and it sounds like you guys have nearly dialed in the diameter for each grain. I'm hoping to purchase a MM2 soon to dip my toes into partial mash recipes after I have a few more extract brews under my belt. Cheers on the new system!

 

[skleice]

Wow that looks amazing JMath. Also looks like you did all of that in your kitchen. Nice one! I would've been banished to the garage with all that gear . I've been reading through a bunch of threads on this forum and it sounds like you guys have nearly dialed in the diameter for each grain. I'm hoping to purchase a MM2 soon to dip my toes into partial mash recipes after I have a few more extract brews under my belt. Cheers on the new system!

You can try some partial mash recipes using unmalted grains to get started. They really do add a good amount of flavor and some body too. Bob's Red Mill Hot Cereal has worked well for me (though it produces a lot of trub). The extract is still doing the heavy lifting, so it's less stress than going all grain.

 

[JMath]

I did use a corded drill, but I didn't know about mixing the grains together, that's a great tip. And thank you for the gap values Chris, you basically confirmed that the gap for my millet was too large and likely was the greatest contributor to my poor efficiency.

rjmaillie, circulation was definitely not a problem. But, I wonder if that will change when I mill the millet finer. Interested to hear how you do with your new mill.

skleice, when you say CNC, do you mean the chiller? There isn't anything special about using it during the mash, I used it the same way you'd use it post-boil. You don't have to worry about sanitization or anything, just keep on eye on the temp so you don't undershoot too much.

Silly Yak, yep the kitchen is where I have to be. That's just another reason to use the Grainfather, since it doesn't have to hog the stove. The milling was definitely messier than I expected, but easy to sweep up. I would consider doing that outside during the summer months.

Do you guys have any comment on the temperatures or timings of my mash rests? (30 mins at 104 F, 15 mins at 170 F, 2 hours at 150 F with AMG-300L)

 

[skleice]

Yeah, I meant the CFC (counter flow chiller). Glad to hear it's not complicated to use mid mash and is effective.

rjmaillie - is there a reason you use Ziploc bags of ice instead of the chiller during the mash? Do you use the micro pipework for your 3 gallon batches?

 

[rjmaillie]

Skleice, for me it's easier to just drop in a few bags of ice rather than disconnect the re-circulation pipe, attach the chiller, connect to a water source, disconnect chiller, reattach re circulation pipe ... you get the idea. And there is the possibility of some wort left in the chiller, throwing off my volume numbers. But, really, its just comes down to personal preference.

And yes, I use the micro pipe work for grain bills of less than 9-10 lbs. It makes a big difference.

JMath, it depends on your enzymes, but you may be able to cut your sacc rest down from 2 hours. I do 90 minutes. If you have a refractometer you can easily check you conversion progress and see where it slows down.

 

[JMath]

I had the same worry about leaving wort in the chiller, but it's only a tiny bit. I found that you can get the bulk of it out by blowing through the tube or creating a siphon.

I was mainly concerned about my temperatures, rather than the times, considering the AMG-300L instructions say 122F, whereas Grouse recommends 162F. I'm guessing the science is still out. I'll look into getting a refractometer.

 

[JMath]

Wanted to follow up, I just bottled my second batch. It was basically the same recipe, substituting the rice malt for some light roasted millet and roasted buckwheat (since jguthner isn't selling rice malt).

This time I used Termamyl, crushed my grains properly, and used enough sparge water that I didn't have to top off the boil. Those factors combined to give me 1.058 post-boil! I calculated 75.4% efficiency, which I think is pretty darn good.

I also decided to use Mangrove Jack's M44 since I read that it clears better than US-05. I also used Whirlfloc this time. The bottled product came out extremely clear, to the point where I wouldn't even think about cold crashing. Hard to tell how much of that was the yeast and how much was the Whirlfloc. My first batch did not clear well.