Grainfather controller fried on 4th use

[Harry482]

I was brewing a Czech pils yesterday with the grainfather. When I attempted to pump wort through the chiller, I discovered the pump would not turn on. Upon inspecting the controller, I learned that the heating element cord had melted where it plugs in to the controller. I am now unable to remove the controller from the unit without cutting the cord, which means I need a new unit. I’m extremely disappointed given how much it cost.

I emailed the company yesterday and am waiting to hear back. Has anyone on here had a similar issue? I’m wondering if this is a known problem and if it has been fixed. I’ll keep the forum posted on what I hear back.

 

[IslandLizard]

Oh dear, I hope you were able to chill the wort, pitch the yeast and save the beer.

As to the Grainfather's malfunction, that should not happen.
Have you checked their forum on this issue? That sounds pretty severe!

 

[Harry482]

I had to use my immersion chiller and had to lift entire unit to dump into the fermentor, but I saved it!

I have seen some overheating issues mentioned by ppl online so it seems this in an issue for the US units. Day 2 and still waiting to hear back from grainfather.

 

[Harry482]

After no response from Grainfather, I contacted the retailer (morebeer). They were more than happy to help. Apparently, a third party co. deals with these issues and will be contacting me. If I cannot get confirmation that this won’t happen again (would still be skeptical), then I’d prefer to get my $ back. It seems pretty obvious that the unit needs a fan or an external heat sink. There is a heat sink, but it is mounted on the inside of the controller box. Will keep updated. I know lots of ppl have purchased these things and want to inform of the process.

Anyone have experience with the Braumeister?

 

[Rev2010]

Anyone have experience with the Braumeister?

Why not save some money and get a Robobrew v3? I'm only two batches in with it so far but it works very well. I'm not as much of a fan mashing in these type of systems due to the amount of bottom space where the wort isn't touching the grains, but for my recent brew I was going to go back to a cooler and was having an issue with leaking so I decided to use the Robobrew again for mashing and had realized something that fixed the issue of the bottom deadspace - and that is to turn on the pump immediately when mashing in. This way, the 1.25 gallons of strike water that are under the malt pipe get run into the grains and keeps circulating which leaves less wort under the pipe and more wort in the grains. When I did my first beer with it I didn't even think about the deadspace under the malt pipe and was wondering why the mash in was so thick and dry. A simple stupid oversight on my part.

Anyhoo, I fixed the issue with the cooler and am still going to go back to using the cooler but that is simply because I find it much easier to clean a cooler than the inside and outside of the maltpipe plus the screens and metal tubes and I also prefer double batch sparging. But with the Robobrew I've been getting 81% efficiency (fly sparging) and with the cooler I was getting a consistent 86%.


Rev.

 

[VVbrewery]

That's the one thing that's kept me from getting one of those all in one systems. If something like that happens in a couple years then what do you do toss it and buy another? I also don't like the mix of water, heat and electronics. I will admit though there's been several days that I wish I'd gone that route. I hope you get it all straightened out.