Grainfather!!

I run a 1-2 gallon of One Step through it completely, then use the Star San leftover from the sanitizing the yeast packet, scissors and paddle and run 1-2 gallons of that through it finally, let it drain out and store away.

 

Here's something I've learned:

I was using the CFC hose to fill my GF and Sparge Heater as it provided a nice hose for me to fill everything. I then started getting a really nasty plastic/vinyl flavor in all of my beers, after 12-15 successful brews with the GF, using campden in all just to be safe.

So last week I go to brew again (I took a break from brewing because I'm basically going to have to dump 4-5 more kegs, and I've already dumped 3, which is both painful and disheartening), and I use bottled water because I know our local water is hard and gets worse in the summer. At the end, when I hook up my CFC to get ready to cool, the water being discharged from the fresh side of the CFC smells HORRIBLY of plastic/vinyl. It was at this moment that I realized the problem was my water supply, per se, it was that sediment had collected over the 15 good brews in the CFC. I always pump pbw through the part of the CFC that the wort flows through, but that didn't help the fresh water part that never gets cleaned.

I supposed I could hook up a pump to clean the fresh water part of the CFC, but in reality I just will not use the CFC as a fresh water supply hose going forward. I don't think your issues are related to mine, but I wanted to throw my experience out there.

Another thing, I always dump the first pint or so of wort down the drain before I start running the boiling worth through the CFC to sterilize. In my mind, this gets any residual water that may be left from the last brew into the sink instead of my wort. This is hopefully just being overly cautious.

 

I noticed the very bad plastic/vinyl smell from the CFC from day one after unboxing and sanitizing (could smell it coming from the wort out hose, too). I have two brews done so far and neither of them have an off flavor. One in the keg and one in the fermenter. I was worried about it ruining my beers but neither of them are showing signs of it. Good to know on filling the GF with water from the CFC. I have been using RO water and love it.

I have been cleaning everything with 1-2 gals of PBW, 1-2 of clean water. I use a sponge to clean the walls of the kettle while things are re-circulating. I see no reason to fill it all the way up and use the extra PBW.

 

Man, can't you donate this to the homeless? A local fraternity should be able to drain those in a couple of days. Maybe you can work out a "work for beer" arrangement with the locals. I know how much work goes into brewing, and I know what your dumping is way better than the cheap crap most of these folks drink. There just has to be a better way.ipe:

 

I'm going to use RO for the first time tomorrow - and I'm going to add some Calcium Chloride as I'm brewing a German Hefe.

I clean with 4 gal of PBW, then 4 gal of clean water. I run both through the CFC and mash arm for 10 min each - this basically gives me enough time to get everything else cleaned while these cycles are running.

 

I just made a profile and mine reads the same. 6.8 Percent. Did anyone ever figure out the discrepancy? Or does it matter?

 

This is a screen shot of my Beer Smith, that shows the 6.8% that CPHAM was talking about. I was also confused about which temp mash profile in step three to use? I just picked a random one and entered the numbers you had on the PDF. Will my profile just add those mash numbers by default when entering a recipe?

Thanks

 

I tell you man, the ones I poured out already were flat out the most disgusting beer I've ever tasted. They made Milwaulkee's Best taste like Dom Perignon.

For the other 5 in question, I'm going to run a taste test with my family on Saturday... And rank them as either dump, keep to give away/throw a party, and good to drink. I think I will be lucky if two are worth saving. I guess that's what happens when you have a problem in your process pop up when you're brewing twice a week (I was brewing for my friends wedding when the issue first popped up, luckily I had some I had brewed for myself to replace what I brewed for the wedding so I wasn't totally up **** creek)

 

I have a buddy who has a still. I have had 2 bad batches in the years of brewing... we ran them through the still. Might give you the excuse to purchase the alembic dome distilling kit for GF.

I run a fresh rinse of water through the wort line just before brewing... drain it... and then I also pour out the first pint when sanitizing the wort line. It seems like a lot, but it is less than 30 seconds to give it that fresh water run and drain before hooking up to the GF.

I haven't used the water line to fill the GF as I learned my lesson back in the day using a water hose to fill up my HLT when I gravity brewed. I now only pour water into a container straight from the house spigot.

 

I use one of these with the matching 10 ft hose you can get with it as well. Important the type of hose as its made for drinking water and does not impart that runner/plastic smell. I fill up a couple 5 gal buckets with water through the filter and add my brew salts. Have made excellent beer with it.

A key when using a carbon filter is to let the water flow slowly, give the carbon time to absorb the chlorine. I shoot for 1/2 gal a min flow rate through the filter.

Camco 40043 TastePURE Water Filter with Flexible Hose Protector https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006IX87S/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

Maybe I'm lucky, but I just don't get this plastic taste talk. I do not fill via the CFC (no idea why one would do that??, if nothing it seems slow), but we all run our entire wort thru the CFC. So why would cold water pick up this plastic taste and yet wort after boiled (and mashed) for 1-2hrs+, would not? That assumes your plastic taste issues disappear by not filling via the CFC. What am I missing?

As for cleaning, follow the GF directions folks!! PBW & rinse cycle. It's easy and thorough.

Edit- Doh!! Ok I get it. Re-read. Issue is using the cooling water side (duh!!) that doesn't get cleaned to fill. Ok makes sense. Ignore 1st paragraph and brew on!

 

brewed my second batch yesterday.
Pros:
-a lot less grain in the wort this time. probably because i wasn't dumb and didn't dunk it a bunch like tea bag when trying to do a low temp mash step when i overshot the strike temp.
-got a higher efficiency. about 73%-ish over the 65% i got the first time. might be because i double milled about 1/2 my grain, which i what i started doing about 5-6 batches ago to help improve efficiency without getting it so fine my mash got stuck. sparge was pretty slow so will probably had a handful of rice hulls next time.
CONS:
-had issues with the pump getting clogged during chilling. recipe had 4 oz of hops while chilling, i noticed that it after a while it got really slow and only a trickle was coming out. i scraped around the filter and got it going again. instead of getting a hop spider, i might try to see if i can lengthen the hose from the top of the pump pipework so can set it somewhere other than on top of the lid. kinda hard to do when the tube is less than a foot.
-still had issues w/ getting temp below 80 degrees, even with pre-chiller. had the wort cool a few hours before pitching. might be due to the slow flow due to the filter getting blocked?
-I noticed the temp fluctuated 2 degrees either way, which i didn't really have issues with the first time (or might might not have noticed).

 

Hi all. I just chatted with Amy Paisley on the GF Forum, and she said that the micro piping and Graincoats should both be available again soon, maybe as early as next week. Just keep checking the web site.

 

Here's a video of my GF CFC output flow w/ 5 oz. of hops yesterday and how I have it setup. It makes a hug difference if I keep the output as level as I can. The height killed the flow when drooping down and then all the way back up. I think I'll change out the CFC input tubing with new thicker wall silicon like the output. Sorry about the vids I was doing it one handed.

View My Video

View My Video

 

I found adding 2 steps greatly improves GF brewing:

1- condition grains before milling 2X, ideally the night before.

2- whirlpool at the end of the boil, and let it rest for at least 10 min. Be careful when sanitizing chiller with hot wort so not to stir up trub. Slowly open valve on pump line.

Slowing down the flow of the wort going through the chiller should cool it better than blasting it through. I have never had a cooling issue other than cooling too much, which leads me to believe it must be a tap water temp issue.

 

Why so much tubing?

 

That's because I didn't want to move the fermenters originally from the GF spot but I found out last time I had them too high compared to the wort output and moved the one down in the pic. It was over to the side more. I probably could cut about 6" off though still. Thanks!

 

Ok, just looks like if you went direct to fermenter from GF you could save a few feet!
At any rate, you have a real slick looking setup there with all that SS! I have a Chronical from SS and really enjoy it. Appears you have a dedicated space, where in house?

 

How are you guys dropping temps down from a boil to 180F - 170F quickly for a hop stand? Recirculating back into the Grainfather with the CFC? Using an immersion chiller? Just waiting?

My Grainfather hasn't arrived yet but I do a lot of beers with hop stands, there doesn't seem to be a good/easy way to lower temps for them. Looking for existing owners hop stand solutions to make the wait for my unit more bearable.

 

I have done a few hop stands. I recirculate back into the GF with the cold water running and it drops really quickly.

 

Yup same here. Once I get to hop stand temp I have a funnel which I insert into the whole in the lid with the output still running and add the hops. I recirc during the hop stand always. All I do are IPA so been hop standing for a number of batches.

 

thanks!! yeah, I like my chronical and just got the 7g brew master edition. I have what the builders call a "library" in the front of my house, that I originally converted to a fish room, then got out of that hobby and converted to a brew room! much happier now. trying to share a full pic but it's not working yet.

 

so the original output line of the GF wouldn't reach to where I have the fermenters, and since I couldn't move the fermenters much, cause I use the their temperature control to cool the wort I needed a longer line. I only use the CFC to get to hop stand temp and then once that is done move it to the fermenter and let that cool it down from there, saves on water.

 

Very sweet setup there! One can always go to the library and good choice over fish- put a fish screen saver on that tv and you're set! Brew on my friend!

Oh, but ditch those cinder blocks! ;-)

 

Hahah, lol. Thank you very much! Yeah those cinder blocks aren't very becoming of the room.

 

Thanks very much for the advice above. I just ran my first brew through the GF yesterday and conditioned my grain as you suggested (~1 oz/7.75# grain bill.) What a difference! I didn't need to 2x mill since it was already beautiful. The husks were pretty much completely intact and looked almost like rice hulls. Anyway, according to Brewer's Friend, my efficiency on my 70/- Scottish Ale looked like this:

Conversion: 100.6%
Pre-Boil: 95% 34.6 ppg
Ending Kettle: 84% 30.6 ppg
Brew House: 80% 29.4 ppg (My brewhouse would have been higher, but I didn't boil off enough.)

Thanks again! I'm really liking this machine.
Ed

 

So for the first time in 12 brews I finally knocked the black filter cap off. Of course this happened on a brew that I used 7 ounces of pellet hops on. The cap didn't float because it was stuck in the trub pile (which was massive)...I was curious how i was getting such good flow rate. I'm assuming there are a ton of hops in my fermenter.

My question is: what effect will a ton of hop trub have on my beer? I don't really have a secondary big enough to transfer beer off the hop trub and I don't like using a secondary anyways. Am I cool to just leave it there or will I get "grassy" notes? Thanks guys.

 

According to Brulosopher, it pretty much shouldn't matter, even after Exbeeriment #2.

 

has anyone used the trubtrapper in a grainfather? after my last batch w/ only 4 oz in it causing a blocked/slow circulation, i'm working on figuring out the best option for reducing trub. i measured it and it would fit, but the filter would probably be pushed up and the rim would be touching the heating element. thought about buying a hop basket filter but worried utilization would suffer. any other thoughts?

 

I knocked the cap off my filter on my bells 2 Hearted brew. Not a fun brew at all as hops clogged everything. Was a pain in the arse as hops kept clogging at the counter flow connection. Ball and spring was removed but to no avail. Taste...Not liking this brew so far.

Next day I bought the hop spider from grainfather. I noticed it's 800 micron so should get good flow but filter majority of hops.

 

I've been eBIAB/BIAB brewing for a while, but I know I'm an absolute noob to using the GF. With all of one brew under my belt, I succeeded in knocking off not only the black end cap, but the whole filter as well. So, here is my solution (to be tested my next brew day.) I sewed the black cap on to the filter body using heavy-duty nylon upholstery thread and sealed it with clear RTV Silicone sealant/adhesive. Then, I "glued" the black silicone insert into the filter using the same sealant. Finally, I used a SS hose clamp on the insert where it goes onto the pump. Hopefully, that'll keep everything in it's place if I accidentally whack it when I'm scraping the bottom. Otherwise, I'm loving this GF thing and looking forward to doing more brews with it.

 

Grainfather website has the micro pipework and sparge water heaters back in stock.

 

I'd love to send an image with the micro-pipework news email delivery time and my order confirmation time. Gotta be like a 2min differential.

 

Yep, ordered my Micro Pipework once I got home from work.

 

Ordered my Graincoat - Micro Pipework is up next

 

Totally worth the cost!

 

Has anybody ever did two mashes for higher grain bills? Like say 22lbs in a recipe and throw in 4 for 30 minutes. Then dump those and mash the remaining 18lbs like normal. Would this work?

 

Debated the Graincoat myself, finally pulled the trigger...looking forward to trying it out on my next brew

 

Thought about buying one as well.

 

At a certain point, I'd expect the efficiency to drop waaaay off -- there's only so much sugar you can dissolve in a mash.