90 minutes in and 3/4 gallon boiled off.
Seems a little weak.
What is the general consensus on everyones boil off rate?
Edit: 2 hours down and not quite a gallon boiled off.
90 minutes in and 3/4 gallon boiled off.
Seems a little weak.
What is the general consensus on everyones boil off rate?
Edit: 2 hours down and not quite a gallon boiled off.
Are you accounting for cooling shrinkage? Are you measuring from water started with or from water level at start of boil? Mine boiled off about .6 per hour which is close to my gas system.
I don't understand why people are concerned the boil is weak.
The hop isomerize well before boiling and the wort is sterilized before boiling as well.. What else is there to be concerned about?
What am I missing?
Yes. Once in Fedex tracking system they shipped right away.Did you have to send yours back first? I'm still waiting to hear how AIH will handle mine.
I ordered my Grainfather last week. It'll be my first all grain experience. How are you heating your sparge water? And are you just pouring it over as suggested by the Grainfather directions or have you rigged up something else? Thanks
I ended up just doing a quick scrub with barkeepers friend which cleans and passivates.
So I'm expecting mine tomorrow but I've been all grain for 2yrs now and I will likely attempt to use gravity feed from a kettle to sparge. I will probably start with the pouring method until I see size and rig something up.
From what I've read for best performance-
1)- insulation. I will use reflectix, likely 2 or 3 wraps.
2)- dedicated 20a line. I just put in a GFCI on a run 5' from electric panel by disposal- 2' off floor, no ext cord needed. Only disposal, one outlet (coffee maker) and micro on this circuit.
3)- lid on, full power up to mash temp (more precisely strike temp I suppose).
4)- keep grain basket on after sparge while bringing up to boil. Alternatively I suppose lid on will work too.
5)- Grain crush- I will keep my slightly finer crush practice than GF suggestion.
6)- hops- I purchased a hop basket from Williams, I like the look of it and hope it works well too.
5)- RDWHAHB- maybe when I get this all dialed in I might just enjoy a brew during brew day??!
Looking forward to this!
90 minutes in and 3/4 gallon boiled off.
Seems a little weak.
What is the general consensus on everyones boil off rate?
Edit: 2 hours down and not quite a gallon boiled off.
I don't own a GF but have been following this thread and others...
Are you doing a step mash or just heating up your strike water??
If you're heating strike water, I seem to have read; Running the pump robs the heating element of power. So only run the pump once your strike water temp has been reached and the grain has been stirred in.
If you're doing a step mash, that's a different story. You'll need to run your pump so your mash is evenly heated throughout...
2)- dedicated 20a line. I just put in a GFCI on a run 5' from electric panel by disposal- 2' off floor, no ext cord needed. Only disposal, one outlet (coffee maker) and micro on this circuit.
I did a 90 min boil...and that was about my exp also.
Are you using GF recommended water volume calculator?
so I clocked the times, here's what I got below.
I had very, very poor efficiency yesterday. Kind of bummed. it's a little disappointing after 6-7 hours of brew time. I had the grain previously crushed and in the freeze for several days, could that be it? the LHBS had some issues the crusher when I was there, maybe that's it?
I've been doing 75 min mashes to help wit efficiency. I also did a 75 min boil.
from 60 degrees to 148 took 50 min
from 148 degrees to 208 took 1:10 min - stopped at 208 though I've gotten 209 on occasion (30 min of this was sparge)
no pump clogging - used 5.5oz hops in the boil.
two issues I have - wish the ramp up times were faster - guess I could use a boil stick like others. this would shave some time off.
but the other issue is cooling the wort - it doesn't cool fast enough and I'm thinking of alternatives. it's cold in Las Vegas right now so the hose water is pretty cold and I don't get why it won't cool quicker. It was late so I didn't clock the times, but when I cool from 208 to 170 for the hopstand it is quick to get down. but from 160 to 80 takes a long time. anything you guys do here?
I usually get 1g boil off.
the cord is like 5' long
I'm confused: Are you saying theres a garbage disposal, one outlet and a microwave on the same circuit has you GF? Dedicated?
Can anyone tell me the length of the power cord for the GF? I have a 20a outlet just off the panel but its probably 5 feet above the floor. Rather not have to mess with it. I guess i could just lay the GF on something higher...but then comes the sparging and lifting the basket issue...
Do you know if anyone has just extended the power plug with the proper wire gage? Duh! i guess the warranty would be void.
Regarding #4. After mash is complete, switch to boil and begin your sparge. Lift your basket to drain wort. It will take you 30 mins maybe more to sparge. It will take this amount.of time to bring to a boil...maybe longer.Right, I get that, which is what I meant by leave it on until the boil. Though was wondering if at end of sparge (30 min or so) maybe remove and cover if not at boil. Have you done that? Others? Seems quite logical, I leave my kettle cover on when I'm bringing my propane fired kettle up to boil.
When chilling the wort,are you guys running the cooled wort into fermenter after one pass,or are you recirculating it a couple of times?
Your time to strike was similar to mine at 1.76º per minute but from there to the boil was only .85º per minute whereas I was getting about 1.11º/minute.
Did you adjust the red valve during the chilling period? you can raise and lower the temp of the wort coming out of the chiller by opening up or closing off some on the red handle. I've seen several folks get the wort to the temp they want (coming out of the chiller) and then move the hose to fill the fermenter.
This practice will drastically cut down on your chill time since you are not trying to chill the entire 5-6 gallons of wort at one time.
. Awesome, now I want to brew aging and try that out. This is going to save me some time.Do not recirc the wort from the chiller back into the kettle. Complete waste of time and will end up taking longer to cool the wort. After the boil ends, recirc the wort for about 5 to 10 minutes without turning on the cooling water. This sanitizes the inside copper tubing of the chiller. Once that is done turn the cooling water on while the wort out hose is still in the pot. Restrict the red valve a 1/4 of the way. Put your hand on the wort out hose. Once it starts feeling cool to the touch it's ready to be placed into the fermenter. Close the red valve. Place the wort out hose into the fermenter and then open the valve slowly. Again, do not open it fully. This accomplishes two things. It allows the wort to cool more efficiently and also prevents the pump filter from getting a compacted hops cake which could lead to a clog.
I also do not use any form of hop filter. I just throw it all right into the kettle. And notice how clear this beer is....
View attachment 326159
Alright, this does it! I was originally intending to put together a BIAB system for all grain brewing, but now I'm leaning more towards the GrainFather after seeing all the post from people who are already using the system.
Whoo Hoo!! GF arrived finally, right before leaving for dinner party, and not damaged this time! I will stop in am at Lowes for reflectix, never left house today while waiting for delivery, then brew. A simple smash I've had thoughts of for some time now. Then onto a Vanilla Stout. No plans for a test run with water. I will post times and how things went.
Nice! I did that at first then ran into clogs. Now I wonder if it was how I was running the chiller and cooling the wort full throttle like I was. What's the most amount of hops that you've used in this practice? Thanks.
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