Grainfather!!

[jaymosbeershack]

I used to use a bag, till someone on this forum convinced me to go straight into the kettel with my hops. Never had a clog since. The more hops i use, the clearer the wort.

 

[Rickdude]

What kind of water hardness do you have? Scaling issues are exacerbated significantly in heat exchangers.

Can you pump anything at all through the CFC now? I would dissolve 8oz citric acid in 2 gallons of water, set the heat for 140 F, then recirculate through the CFC for 15 minutes. There are two ways to check if it's working-- hopefully you'll get a release of particulates (white for scale or brown for beerstone). If you don't see that you may still have heavy scale crystallization, in which case your pH will start coming up until it hits 5.5 - 6.0. (If your pH does come up like that, you'll need to add more citric to keep dissolving.)

Alkaline cleaners won't touch scale and will only take off the outer edges of beerstone, and acid sanitizers don't work on an established scale/beerstone problem. And even if you don't have hard water, you'll still have calcium being released from your mash (long story), so long usage without an acid rinse may still have developed that.

Keep us posted!

Rick

 

[jlinz]

Well, just got a replacement grainfather for my melted plug issue. Good customer service and happy the warranty was honored. Now let’s hope this one doesn’t melt, haha.

 

[Jag75]

Well, just got a replacement grainfather for my melted plug issue. Good customer service and happy the warranty was honored. Now let’s hope this one doesn’t melt, haha.

Nice man ! Glad they made it right

 

[jlinz]

Nice man ! Glad they made it right

Me too! Everything looks exactly the same though on the controller. This one is from 5/18. Old one was from 8/17. I wonder if the problem has been addressed.

 

[shortyz]

well good luck, i hope they changed the plastic that the receptacle is made out of(thermoset vs thermoplastic), or added another contact point.

 

[jlinz]

well good luck, i hope they changed the plastic that the receptacle is made out of(thermoset vs thermoplastic), or added another contact point.

Maybe, but like I said it doesn’t look any different than my old one.

 

[PCL]

Hi @PCL . You may want to inspect the pin/port on the inflow side of the CFC where it connects to the discharge pipe. Even though you removed the ball check valve and spring from the pipe, the connector itself may be clogged, or not making a good, tight connection. If your recirc arm is running fine, then it's definitely a problem with the CFC. I recommend you DO NOT blow through the CFC with your mouth, there's all kinds of little cooties living there. Use compressed air or CO2, or you can force a water flow from the wort output side just to make sure it is flowing freely. You are correct in the CFC is really a great, efficient way to cool down your hot wort. It would be a shame to stop using it. Hope this helps. Ed

View attachment 601657

Thanks for advice. The pin port is clean but I have had to clean that before. I did notice some air bubbles in the line starting at the connector to the CFC, maybe seal is an issue. Will dig into that further. Greatly appreciate your response and all who have answered.

I used to use my keg washer pump to blast out my CFC, until it died. I may look for a new cheap pump to accomplish the same. Not being able to inspect its cleanliness has bothered me about the CFC.

 

[PCL]

What kind of water hardness do you have? Scaling issues are exacerbated significantly in heat exchangers.

Can you pump anything at all through the CFC now? I would dissolve 8oz citric acid in 2 gallons of water, set the heat for 140 F, then recirculate through the CFC for 15 minutes. There are two ways to check if it's working-- hopefully you'll get a release of particulates (white for scale or brown for beerstone). If you don't see that you may still have heavy scale crystallization, in which case your pH will start coming up until it hits 5.5 - 6.0. (If your pH does come up like that, you'll need to add more citric to keep dissolving.)

Alkaline cleaners won't touch scale and will only take off the outer edges of beerstone, and acid sanitizers don't work on an established scale/beerstone problem. And even if you don't have hard water, you'll still have calcium being released from your mash (long story), so long usage without an acid rinse may still have developed that.

Keep us posted!

Rick

Also great advice. I will get working on this and get back to you.

Seriously, this is a great forum and have learned so much over the years from you all. Thanks

 

[WBB]

So I jumped on the recent sale on the grainfather. I cleaned everything, ran pbw and the clean water through everything and ready to go for the maiden voyage. Been watching videos and envisioning the process, trying to avoid any, oh craps.

One question I had was about mashing. Are you supposed to run the pump for the whole hour plus mashout, so 70 minutes, 60 min mash, 10 min mash out? Probably a dumb question, but it’s only dumb if you don’t ask.

 

[Pkrd]

One question I had was about mashing. Are you supposed to run the pump for the whole hour plus mashout, so 70 minutes, 60 min mash, 10 min mash out?

Yes you need to run the pump so the mash gets heated, not just the wort in the dead space under it.

 

[WBB]

Yes you need to run the pump so the mash gets heated, not just the wort in the dead space under it.

Thanks. I thought I read something about not running the pump for long periods with the heater on. Something about it not being good for the controller, could overheat?

 

[thehaze]

If you do not run the pump while the heater is on, you cannot perform the mash and the mash out. It kinda defeats the purpose. I have the Grainfather and I never stumbled upon a thread where some one with a Grainfather recommended the pump to be turned off, while mashing. It does not make sense, as the whole purpose is to recirculate while the heater maintains the temperature.

 

[murphyslaw]

I recall reading somewhere that you shouldn't have the pump on when the heater is full blast. But that's not the case during the mash.

 

[Oleary]

Just picked up a GF and getting ready for my first brew tomorrow or Monday.
Does this look ok? Fine enough?


I'm using a Barley Crusher at about .045 (the factory setting).
Thanks in advance for any help or advice.

 

[jlinz]

Just picked up a GF and getting ready for my first brew tomorrow or Monday.
Does this look ok? Fine enough?
View attachment 603573

I'm using a Barley Crusher at about .045 (the factory setting).
Thanks in advance for any help or advice.

A lower setting is better. Just enough for a credit card to slide through, but I’m not sure of the exact number, maybe .036. Can anyone chime in on that? Anyway, I get in the 90’s consistently with a fine crush.

 

[jaymosbeershack]

I condition my barley, and then crush to .028 .036 sounds good for unconditioned grain.

 

[RedlegEd]

Just picked up a GF and getting ready for my first brew tomorrow or Monday.
Does this look ok? Fine enough?
View attachment 603573

I'm using a Barley Crusher at about .045 (the factory setting).
Thanks in advance for any help or advice.

A lower setting is better. Just enough for a credit card to slide through, but I’m not sure of the exact number, maybe .036. Can anyone chime in on that? Anyway, I get in the 90’s consistently with a fine crush.

Hi. As long as all the husks are broken open and the grain bran is exposed, you should be good. The broken husks act like rice hulls and help with the mash and sparge. I'm using a JSP Maltmill that's set at a default of 0.040-0.045 and I get very high efficiency. I think the secret is to condition your grain before brewing. Here's a really good link that explains how it's done. I usually use 2-3% water (by weight) the day before, and give the malt plenty of time to get right, then mill right before doughing in. You'll know it when your grain has a "leathery" feel, and the husks will pretty much stay intact after milling. Ed

 

[hopjuice_71]

Hi. As long as all the husks are broken open and the grain bran is exposed, you should be good. The broken husks act like rice hulls and help with the mash and sparge. I'm using a JSP Maltmill that's set at a default of 0.040-0.045 and I get very high efficiency. I think the secret is to condition your grain before brewing. Here's a really good link that explains how it's done. I usually use 2-3% water (by weight) the day before, and give the malt plenty of time to get right, then mill right before doughing in. You'll know it when your grain has a "leathery" feel, and the husks will pretty much stay intact after milling. Ed

100% agree. Started conditioning my grain, milling straight into the grain pipe, then mashing in by slowly lowering the grain pipe into treated water at strike temp. Dough balls are a thing of past, great recirculation rates, easy sparges, and efficiencies easily in excess of 80% (with a brief stir partway through the mash). Game changer for me.

Cheers

 

[nepatsfan1]

So just finished my 3rd batch on the Grainfather .Nothing went wrong with the process this time and I even am used to the CF chiller and was a couple points up form what my gravity was in the recipe was. I consistently hit above the gravity in my recipes now. and I was start to finish in 5 and half hours as I do 75 min boils.

 

[WBB]

Finally gave my GF it’s first run. I think I was 6 hours from start to finish, including cleaning. I took my time and methodically thought out the process, trying to envision what if’s and what my response would be to the what if’s. The only issue I ran into was that it tripped my breaker on the ramp up to the boil. No problem, turned off my lights that were in the same circuit and manually set the heat for 208, like it does auto after the mash during the sparge.

Took a bit to get it to a boil. I actually had to just bump up the temp to 212 to get a rolling boil.

One thing I noticed, is that the heat applied percentage didn’t change from 100% at 212 like it does during the mash to keep the set temp. If it was at 100% and the temp was set to 212, I would have thought it would have increased past 212. Is there some kind of safety setting, so that it doesn’t go above 212?

The CFC was extremely efficient. So efficient, I had to turn off the water supply every now and then to even out the temp of wort going into fermenter. When the water was on, the wort temp would be in the low 60s. When I turned the water supply off, the wort going into fermenter was around 120. I ended up with 80 degree wort temp.

 

[LongEZBrew]

Maybe I misunderstand the question, but unless you pressurize it, water isn't going to get hotter than 100C (212F) at one atmosphere pressure. Not with the energy a grain father puts out.

 

[alestateyall]

Finally gave my GF it’s first run. I think I was 6 hours from start to finish, including cleaning. I took my time and methodically thought out the process, trying to envision what if’s and what my response would be to the what if’s. The only issue I ran into was that it tripped my breaker on the ramp up to the boil. No problem, turned off my lights that were in the same circuit and manually set the heat for 208, like it does auto after the mash during the sparge.

Took a bit to get it to a boil. I actually had to just bump up the temp to 212 to get a rolling boil.

One thing I noticed, is that the heat applied percentage didn’t change from 100% at 212 like it does during the mash to keep the set temp. If it was at 100% and the temp was set to 212, I would have thought it would have increased past 212. Is there some kind of safety setting, so that it doesn’t go above 212?

The CFC was extremely efficient. So efficient, I had to turn off the water supply every now and then to even out the temp of wort going into fermenter. When the water was on, the wort temp would be in the low 60s. When I turned the water supply off, the wort going into fermenter was around 120. I ended up with 80 degree wort temp.

Boiling water at sea level cannot go above 212F. At higher elevations boiling water temp is even lower.

That said, there is a way to reduce power during boiling. In the Grainfather app, go to Settings and scroll down to boil power control. If you enable that setting you can use the up/down arrows on the controller to change the power output while boiling. Beware you cannot adjust in 1% increments or anything close to that. The adjustments are pretty course. I think you can just set between both elements on (100%), larger element on (small off), small element on (large off), and both off.

 

[WBB]

Yeah, me and physics didn’t do well in college. Ok, so the water is boiling in the GF at 212*, rolling boil, which is good.

I guess I’m confused as to why the heat was at 100% and didn’t throttle back to mid 50% or even lower to maintain the boil.

And I guess when it goes into heating mode after the sparge, it only goes to 208*, which on my system, in my location would never boil.

I actually decreased the temp to like 210* and the rolling boil stopped. I had to increase it back to 212* to get it to a rolling boil again.

Normal activity?

 

[Pkrd]

Yes all normal.
The sparge heating finishes just below boiling point so you can wander off without worrying about a boilover.

 

[WBB]

Yes all normal.
The sparge heating finishes just below boiling point so you can wander off without worrying about a boilover.

Cool, good to know it’s normal. So that means if you do wander off and come back to it, you do have to bump it up to 212*, so it goes into following boil phase.

 

[Pkrd]

Cool, good to know it’s normal. So that means if you do wander off and come back to it, you do have to bump it up to 212*, so it goes into following boil phase.

If it’s programmed in it will start the boil when you tell it the sparge is finished.

 

[Qbrew0516]

I've had a Grainfather for a little over a year and have done ~30 beers. I have noticed that mash efficiency (and by extension brewhouse efficiency) drops significantly for recipes exceeding 12 lbs of grain. For example, yesterday I brewed two beers, an oatmeal stout and an IPA, that used 11.5 and 13.50 pounds of grain, respectively. The ph of the mash was 5.24 for the IPA and 5.41 for the stout, and we hit expected volumes for both beers - as an aside, I generally shoot for 5.5 gallons into the brew bucket. However, the mash efficiencies were drastically different. The mash efficiency for the stout was 70.3 percent, missing the pre-boil gravity by .01 (I set the expected brewhouse efficiency to 66 percent because of prior issues with *big* beers). The stout, however, had a mash efficiency of 85 percent, slightly exceeding the expected pre-boil gravity. The grains came from the same place and were similarly milled. Asking for the wisdom of the crowd, does the Grainfather have limits to efficiency with large grain bills? If not, is there a way improve mash efficiency for large grain bills in the system?

 

[jlinz]

I've had a Grainfather for a little over a year and have done ~30 beers. I have noticed that mash efficiency (and by extension brewhouse efficiency) drops significantly for recipes exceeding 12 lbs of grain. For example, yesterday I brewed two beers, an oatmeal stout and an IPA, that used 11.5 and 13.50 pounds of grain, respectively. The ph of the mash was 5.24 for the IPA and 5.41 for the stout, and we hit expected volumes for both beers - as an aside, I generally shoot for 5.5 gallons into the brew bucket. However, the mash efficiencies were drastically different. The mash efficiency for the stout was 70.3 percent, missing the pre-boil gravity by .01 (I set the expected brewhouse efficiency to 66 percent because of prior issues with *big* beers). The stout, however, had a mash efficiency of 85 percent, slightly exceeding the expected pre-boil gravity. The grains came from the same place and were similarly milled. Asking for the wisdom of the crowd, does the Grainfather have limits to efficiency with large grain bills? If not, is there a way improve mash efficiency for large grain bills in the system?

I’m not completly sure, but based on my experience, you may be on to something regarding efficiency rising with light grain bills. Almost all my beers have been in the 10-11 pound area, and my efficiency has been very high, sometimes in the 90s. Yet, I’m not sure what will happen if I go over that amount of grain.

 

[RedlegEd]

I've had a Grainfather for a little over a year and have done ~30 beers. I have noticed that mash efficiency (and by extension brewhouse efficiency) drops significantly for recipes exceeding 12 lbs of grain. For example, yesterday I brewed two beers, an oatmeal stout and an IPA, that used 11.5 and 13.50 pounds of grain, respectively. The ph of the mash was 5.24 for the IPA and 5.41 for the stout, and we hit expected volumes for both beers - as an aside, I generally shoot for 5.5 gallons into the brew bucket. However, the mash efficiencies were drastically different. The mash efficiency for the stout was 70.3 percent, missing the pre-boil gravity by .01 (I set the expected brewhouse efficiency to 66 percent because of prior issues with *big* beers). The stout, however, had a mash efficiency of 85 percent, slightly exceeding the expected pre-boil gravity. The grains came from the same place and were similarly milled. Asking for the wisdom of the crowd, does the Grainfather have limits to efficiency with large grain bills? If not, is there a way improve mash efficiency for large grain bills in the system?

Hi. First of all, welcome to HBT! Like you, I typically shoot for 5.5 gal into the fermenter, and I'll normally get BH efficiencies in the mid to high 80s when brewing beers with a grain bills of 9-12 lbs. When I go bigger (i.e. >12 lbs,) I'll usually do a longer mash and stir the grains a couple of times during the mash to help break up any channels in the grain pipe. This seems to help, but it's a little more involved than "set and forget." Even with that, I rarely get more than about ~75% BH efficiency. I condition my grain, so I'm sure that has an impact on how well it recirculates and sparges. Hope that helps.
Ed

 

[jaymosbeershack]

I've had the same experience. The more grain, the lower the efficiancy. I have started a different sparging method,(kind of a batch sparge) and i now nail 84% reguardless of the grain weight. I recently did a stout with 15.25# of grain and still hit my numbers.

 

[RedlegEd]

I've had the same experience. The more grain, the lower the efficiancy. I have started a different sparging method,(kind of a batch sparge) and i now nail 84% reguardless of the grain weight. I recently did a stout with 15.25# of grain and still hit my numbers.

Hi. That's really impressive! Do tell, how are you sparging? Ed

 

[couchsending]

The bigger the grain bill the more stirring has an impact on efficiency. I’ve started taking refractometer readings throughout the mash on bigger beers and it’s amazing how much longer it can take. The tall and narrow mash bed is definitely not your friend.

 

[jaymosbeershack]

Hi. That's really impressive! Do tell, how are you sparging? Ed

When i finish my mashout, rather than lifting the basket out, i pump the first runnings into a second vessel(i use a keg) while pumping the first runnings out, i add the sparge water on top. I then stir the mash again, and reciculate for another 10-15 minutes. Then i lift the basket out and let it drain while i push the first running back in with co2

 

[skleice]

I do 3 gallon batches and usually can hit 85% (even up to 90% at times). Doesn't this just have to do with the depth of the grain bed when using more grain?

Also, I think having a nice free flowing recirc is key. I've moved to using a bit more water and rice hulls and have seen a positive impact.

 

[RedlegEd]

When i finish my mashout, rather than lifting the basket out, i pump the first runnings into a second vessel(i use a keg) while pumping the first runnings out, i add the sparge water on top. I then stir the mash again, and reciculate for another 10-15 minutes. Then i lift the basket out and let it drain while i push the first running back in with co2

Very cool! A little more labor intensive I'm sure as there extra items to clean up, but it seems to be working for you. When you push the "first runnings" back in, I'm assuming (yes, I know) you going straight back into the kettle and not back though the grain pipe as a second sparge, correct? Ed

 

[RedlegEd]

I do 3 gallon batches and usually can hit 85% (even up to 90% at times). Doesn't this just have to do with the depth of the grain bed when using more grain?

Also, I think having a nice free flowing recirc is key. I've moved to using a bit more water and rice hulls and have seen a positive impact.

@skleice I think you are absolutely correct. Rice hulls or conditioning grains give the recirculating wort much freer access to the entire grain column. Ed

 

[couchsending]

I get worse efficiency when conditioning my grain... the sparge water ends up flowing too freely through the grain bed so you end of leaving behind so much extract. I’ve started conditioning my grain again but I have to try to really compact the bed by pushing down on the top plate pretty hard to slow down the sparge.

 

[Qbrew0516]

Hi. First of all, welcome to HBT! Like you, I typically shoot for 5.5 gal into the fermenter, and I'll normally get BH efficiencies in the mid to high 80s when brewing beers with a grain bills of 9-12 lbs. When I go bigger (i.e. >12 lbs,) I'll usually do a longer mash and stir the grains a couple of times during the mash to help break up any channels in the grain pipe. This seems to help, but it's a little more involved than "set and forget." Even with that, I rarely get more than about ~75% BH efficiency. I condition my grain, so I'm sure that has an impact on how well it recirculates and sparges. Hope that helps.
Ed

Thank you, Ed. This is helpful and lends some credence to my experience. I will stir the mash for larger grain bills moving forward, as 75 percent efficiency is much better than what I've experienced thus far.

 

[MaCheFai]

Hey Guys, new to the grainfather and just got my first brew on it under my belt! Went pretty well, but missed my efficiency by 10 points, but it was my first brew on it and it was 18lbs of grain. Anyway, not the point of my post.

I had seen online that a number of folks have swapped out their circulation arm with quick disconnects. And likewise for their chiller. Reading online about the pipe threads, it seems they may be BSP, which has been hard to find all of the parts for here in the US. Has anyone done this successfully and have a part list they can share?