Grainfather!!

Yakima 728
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aghenender said:
So you completely ignore water usage in beersmith but use the grain/hop amounts? And then you just sub in the Grainfather water amounts?
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I don't completely ignore it. I am a .5 gallon off on sparge water and trying to figure out why with BS. This is only my 5th beer with BS and only the 2nd on the GF. I used Promash previously before taking a 6 year hiatus from brewing. New learning curve on both sides.
 
I am brewing styles that will ferment with wyeast 2112 yeast. The basement in my new house is a lot cooler. It is fun coming up with pseudo styles to deal with the temps. Next up is a red hoppy lager.
 
gotbeer74 said:
How quick is everyone cooling their wort? It took 12 gallons to cool 5 gallons to 68 degrees tonight.
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I cooled, after a 15 min hop whirlpool and ran the recirc the whole time to sanitize the chiller, in about 20 min to about 60 with 57 tap water. I had the red valve only open about 1/3 of the way and tap open about 2/3. Next time I will open red valve about 1/2 way and lower tap a bit. Likely used similar amount of water- after my bucket overflowed on the kitchen floor (6.5g?) :mad:, I ran the rest down the sink.
 
seabrew8 said:
What are you guys doing to aerate your wort?
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I use O2 from a Lowes Oxygen tank. Depending on OG, <58 none, 58-75 or so, about 30-40 sec, and if I were to do a high gravity +80 probably a min. Not scientific, but I did read here on HBT that you can over oxygenate, so I add just a bit to help out the cause of good beer!
 
That sucks. I always have three empty buckets by my side when chilling indoors.
 
aghenender said:
So you completely ignore water usage in beersmith but use the grain/hop amounts? And then you just sub in the Grainfather water amounts?
Click to expand...

I use BS too, and yes, I ignore the water amounts and plug in my own, though I don't recall BS creating water amounts, but were inputs? Prior to GF (all of 1 brew complete!) I would go to Brew 365, they have a great water calculator, though for now I will use GF. http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

Wish I knew how to multi-quote, esp from different pages....
 
gotbeer74 said:
That sucks. I always have three empty buckets by my side when chilling indoors.
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Yeah it did suck! Plus I put the hose in the sink, started cleaning up my mess and heard more water on the floor, the damn hose came out of the sink!!

What though I really found interesting was that the outlet water was also cool- measured in the 70s-80s depending on tap and valve adjustments. Anyone else notice that? First time for me with a counter flow chiller.
 
Kampenken said:
Yeah it did suck! Plus I put the hose in the sink, started cleaning up my mess and heard more water on the floor, the damn hose came out of the sink!!

What though I really found interesting was that the outlet water was also cool- measured in the 70s-80s depending on tap and valve adjustments. Anyone else notice that? First time for me with a counter flow chiller.
Click to expand...

Same here tonight. Weird. I was using ice water in a cooler with a pond pump recirculating back into the cooler.

Water coming out of the hot side was 100°. Wort into fermenter 58°. Red valve open all the way. Then wort dropped to 53° so I added some warmer water to the ice water to level it out.

With my immersion chiller and same ice water bath, I can't hold my hand under the hot out hose it's so hot.
 
Yup. So it takes away a bit of the save for cleaning idea. I guess at least I can save a little bit but rest will go down the sink, until I go outside and water the landscaping and garden again.

Glad to hear someone else had the same experience with the cool out line. I've used an ice bath too and submersible pump with my I/C so when tap warm warms up here (PA) I will pre chill again.
 
My two sessions have been different. EFF for my first 60 minute mash was 78%. My latest 90 minute mash with one tsp of gypsum added was 90%. I added a little more hops to balance out the beer for this increase.
 
Well i got my GF today, its nice. I done a test run with water that was a light boil.

Can you guys explain to me why a 20a breaker will work better then a 15a breaker? My father is a part time electrician and says it nonsense.

It will only draw what it can (1600w) and if it doesn't trip a 15a breaker you don't need a 20a breaker....
 
seabrew8 said:
Well i got my GF today, its nice. I done a test run with water that was a light boil.

Can you guys explain to me why a 20a breaker will work better then a 15a breaker? My father is a part time electrician and says it nonsense.

It will only draw what it can (1600w) and if it doesn't trip a 15a breaker you don't need a 20a breaker....
Click to expand...

Your old man is right.
 
Another boil test - it takes around 45min to reach boil after 75C - mashout temp. Again this is just a little over 7 gallons of water.

Sparging takes 30min or so from what i read so this seems fine!

Note: I don't particularly like the silicone "taps" coming off the pump myself. But hey it works. :)
 
PapaO said:
Is 1600w close to max on a 15a breaker?
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Yea, at full bore it'll pull 14.5 amps. That's why you should use it on isolated circuits or a 20 amp breaker. Mine runs on a circuit shared with the laundry room which is 20 amp.
 
dude3516 said:
Yea, at full bore it'll pull 14.5 amps. That's why you should use it on isolated circuits or a 20 amp breaker. Mine runs on a circuit shared with the laundry room which is 20 amp.
Click to expand...

That 1600w is just for the element. So if you run the pump and control box you could be over. I guess that's why the recommend 20a.
 
seabrew8 said:
Well i got my GF today, its nice. I done a test run with water that was a light boil.

Can you guys explain to me why a 20a breaker will work better then a 15a breaker? My father is a part time electrician and says it nonsense.

It will only draw what it can (1600w) and if it doesn't trip a 15a breaker you don't need a 20a breaker....
Click to expand...

The possible advantage of a 20a ckt over a 15a ckt is larger wire size and slightly less voltage drop over the length of the ckt (a little more juice for your heating element).
For 15a ckt, it is permissible to run either 14ga or 12ga wire. For 20a ckt, they have to ran 12ga.
Check your wire size. If you have 12ga wire, there would be no advantage to run a 20a ckt. Assuming it's not kicking off your 15a breaker...
 
PapaO said:
That 1600w is just for the element. So if you run the pump and control box you could be over. I guess that's why the recommend 20a.
Click to expand...

Pump is 6w, STC-1000 which is basically that controller is 3w. Total power from that would be ~.08 amps.
 
Every electrical contractor I know runs 14g on 15a due to cost factor. There is a lot of cost savings when running whole houses between 14 and 12. If they ran 12 or 10g wire then they would just throw a bunch of 20a breakers in.
 
My first brew didn't have a good ending. The temperature started to drop after reaching 204F. I watched for a while, and it drop slowly to 192F. I had to use my kettle for boiling. The Grainfather seemed fine after the reset switch was pressed, which cannot be done when there is wort in it.
I am not sure if it is a defect, or for some reason the protection mechanism was triggered. I am losing my faith on it, though.
 
Kampenken said:
Yeah it did suck! Plus I put the hose in the sink, started cleaning up my mess and heard more water on the floor, the damn hose came out of the sink!!

What though I really found interesting was that the outlet water was also cool- measured in the 70s-80s depending on tap and valve adjustments. Anyone else notice that? First time for me with a counter flow chiller.
Click to expand...

I had the hose come out of the sink on me as well this past wknd,using my GF for the first time. I ran the hose through the handle of a coffee cup after that.I will run the hose into my washing machine next time,I dont like wasting all that water.
 
blkandrust said:
I had the hose come out of the sink on me as well this past wknd,using my GF for the first time. I ran the hose through the handle of a coffee cup after that.I will run the hose into my washing machine next time,I dont like wasting all that water.
Click to expand...

It's a defect- the outlet house is alive!

I pushed mine down into the disposal, was using the coffee cup for a counter weight to hold the hop basket from tipping into the boil! &#128516;

I like the idea of using it in the washer, need to see how much my front loader takes and if it doesn't begin with a purge- though for now I brew in the kitchen.
 
pocketmon said:
My first brew didn't have a good ending. The temperature started to drop after reaching 204F. I watched for a while, and it drop slowly to 192F. I had to use my kettle for boiling. The Grainfather seemed fine after the reset switch was pressed, which cannot be done when there is wort in it.
I am not sure if it is a defect, or for some reason the protection mechanism was triggered. I am losing my faith on it, though.
Click to expand...

Odd, that doesn't seem right. On a 20a line? If not was plug hot?(that's my concern on 15). Was the reset pushed after this problem arose, or from a previous need to reset? (I recall someone needing to hit the reset). Was GF naked or covered? Also I cover the lid on rising to a boil with dish towels, though I had strong and steady results I doubt this improved results much. If you try again and have issues I'd consider a return, as there's many success stories here.
 
Kampenken said:
Odd, that doesn't seem right. On a 20a line? If not was plug hot?(that's my concern on 15). Was the reset pushed after this problem arose, or from a previous need to reset? (I recall someone needing to hit the reset). Was GF naked or covered? Also I cover the lid on rising to a boil with dish towels, though I had strong and steady results I doubt this improved results much. If you try again and have issues I'd consider a return, as there's many success stories here.
Click to expand...
GF was naked, and the the lid was on.
The plug was not too hot. Everything was fine except the temperature fell before boiling. After pumping the wort into a kettle (the pump worked while the heating elements didn't), I tried to find the reset switch at the bottom of GF, indicated in the GF FAQ video. I shouldn't have pushed it before I test it again.
Surely I would return if it fails again.
 
Cutterman said:
Every electrical contractor I know runs 14g on 15a due to cost factor. There is a lot of cost savings when running whole houses between 14 and 12. If they ran 12 or 10g wire then they would just throw a bunch of 20a breakers in.
Click to expand...

I agree with your statement concerning contractors. But some home owners, if given the option during the build, do opt for 12ga wire throughout. Especially for longer runs. All I'm saying is; Before running a new dedicated 20a ckt, check the wire size of the existing ckt. If it's already 12ga wire, it's not going to do any good to run a new ckt. Unless the existing ckt is under a load that would cause a tripped breaker when using the GF.
 
jbb3 said:
I agree with your statement concerning contractors. But some home owners, if given the option during the build, do opt for 12ga wire throughout. Especially for longer runs. All I'm saying is; Before running a new dedicated 20a ckt, check the wire size of the existing ckt. If it's already 12ga wire, it's not going to do any good to run a new ckt. Unless the existing ckt is under a load that would cause a tripped breaker when using the GF.
Click to expand...

I agree.
Another thing people need to check is their voltage. Voltage in U.S. can run 100-120 volts depending on various things. Remember the higher you voltage the less amps your using. If your house and wiring is older or you are in a condo/apartment and you are sharing a feed your voltage can be low which can push your amps over 15. If your voltage is less than 110 in you bkr panel your feed is low and the power company can turn your feed power up.
 
BrunDog said:
That is not accurate for a resistive load. The higher the voltage, the higher the current.
Click to expand...

It was a simple explanation. Yes if you want to get technical your Amp can stay the with voltage increase in a resistive load which would increase you kW, thus giving you more power in your element.
 

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