I have a question for those using the Grainfather inside. I'm in Canada and I don't have a garage, so I would most likely have to use it inside (in the kitchen) from October to May, roughly.
How do you handle the humidity during boil, since the unit is not directly beneath the hood?
Please tell me any advantages of the micropipework. None of my beers likely will be less than 10 lbs. - if anything I'd want to increase capacity and output. I guess if you wanted beer less than 5% or doing small batches perhaps? Other than that, I'm not sure why it's a great accessory.
Well, I did my very first brew with my Grainfather today..Things went rather well for the most part then all went to hell quickly at the end of the boil...I did Piney The Welder kit, clone of a beer from some west coast brewery that sounds very similar to it..
I did do one thing differently this brew, and won't do this again in the future..I had this really brilliant idea(not in hindsight) that I would put my grains in the basket and then rest the basket above the water as it warmed to mash in temperature, on the belief that doing this would warm the basket and grain and the water temperature wouldn't drop drastically when added..Well, that was true, what I didn't take into account for was that the only holes were on the bottom so the basket wanted to float until I pushed it down..Not good..Pushed the center rod 'thingy' down into the grains- damn, fish out of hot water so all those grains don't get into the mash- some did..Dang..Go on with mash..Unit kept the temperature pretty rock solid right at 152..Good..Okay, mash out, bump up to 170 for 10 and then lift basket and start sparge..Goes pretty good..Get done with sparge and now time for boil..I switched unit to boil mode while I was sparging so water was up to like 190 when I was done with the sparge..
Boil went well..As you can see in picture 1 I was able to achieve a pretty vigorous rolling boil- inside an air conditioned house at almost sea level..Cover on control panel prevents the numbers from being seen but the temp was at 213 when this pic was taken..Boil went splendid, never a threat of a boil over- which made me happy! The trouble began once I hooked up the CFC and began cooling the wort..As you can see in picture 2 I have brought the temp down to 119, and in pretty quick time..I DID get it down(according to the readout) to like 98 when things went haywire..Temp started going back up! WHAT?!?! I have the element OFF! Pull the tube up out of the wort and see I have ZERO flow..Sheesh, filter must be plugged up..Grab the plastic paddle, try to scrap at the filter assembly..No good..Gads..Unhook, unscrew check valve, and see it it is plugged at the spring with grain...Ok, remove spring and ball, re-assemble, turn on pump and still no flow..Now temp is back up to like 145! Needless to say the **** hit the fan..Okay time for plan 'B'...Unplug everything get out my kettle..Drain wort from GF into kettle through my big strainer..OMG! There is a TON of grain in there..Sheesh..To shorten this novel, when I emptied out the grain basket, I found that the damn silicon gasket had some how slipped off at about a 3" section allowing all that grain freedom into the wort- also didn't help that at the very beginning of the mash I let a bit of grain into the wort as well..Had to put the wort in my kettle, then into a ice bath in the sink and then finally into the fermenter which went into the fridge for like 2 hours to get the wort to pitching temperature...Whew!..
Brew is currently in the closet and I am doing my best of RDWHAHB..Hopefully I will see airlock activity in the morning..
with the micro pipework, I can get the top overflow pipe and top plate in the grain basket down closer to the grainbed when my grain bill is small, unlike with the normal pipework, which doesnt allow you to get everything down far enough. I have found avoiding a buildup of wort on top of the grain bed to be a key factor for me avoiding a stuck sparge, which is what happpens when using the normal pipework. I have brewed a couple beers now with the GF using small grain bills; Belgian Wit 8lbs, peach cream ale 8.5 lbs, alt beer 9.75 lbs, as well as a couple of session IPA's that range between 7.5 and 8.25. All of these had problems with stuck sparge, excpet the cream, which was the only that I brewed with the micro pipework. Anyway, I am just reporting my experience, hopefully its helpful. If you are knot brewing with small grain bills often, than it probably is kot necissary, as long as you make sure to use the small grain bill calculator.However, I brew a lot of "session" or lowish ABV beers, as I tend to host the occasional "kegger" when I run out of empty kegs and need room in my keezer.
Well, I did my very first brew with my Grainfather today..Things went rather well for the most part then all went to hell quickly at the end of the boil...I did Piney The Welder kit, clone of a beer from some west coast brewery that sounds very similar to it..
I did do one thing differently this brew, and won't do this again in the future..I had this really brilliant idea(not in hindsight) that I would put my grains in the basket and then rest the basket above the water as it warmed to mash in temperature, on the belief that doing this would warm the basket and grain and the water temperature wouldn't drop drastically when added..Well, that was true, what I didn't take into account for was that the only holes were on the bottom so the basket wanted to float until I pushed it down..Not good..Pushed the center rod 'thingy' down into the grains- damn, fish out of hot water so all those grains don't get into the mash- some did..Dang..Go on with mash..Unit kept the temperature pretty rock solid right at 152..Good..Okay, mash out, bump up to 170 for 10 and then lift basket and start sparge..Goes pretty good..Get done with sparge and now time for boil..I switched unit to boil mode while I was sparging so water was up to like 190 when I was done with the sparge..
Boil went well..As you can see in picture 1 I was able to achieve a pretty vigorous rolling boil- inside an air conditioned house at almost sea level..Cover on control panel prevents the numbers from being seen but the temp was at 213 when this pic was taken..Boil went splendid, never a threat of a boil over- which made me happy! The trouble began once I hooked up the CFC and began cooling the wort..As you can see in picture 2 I have brought the temp down to 119, and in pretty quick time..I DID get it down(according to the readout) to like 98 when things went haywire..Temp started going back up! WHAT?!?! I have the element OFF! Pull the tube up out of the wort and see I have ZERO flow..Sheesh, filter must be plugged up..Grab the plastic paddle, try to scrap at the filter assembly..No good..Gads..Unhook, unscrew check valve, and see it it is plugged at the spring with grain...Ok, remove spring and ball, re-assemble, turn on pump and still no flow..Now temp is back up to like 145! Needless to say the **** hit the fan..Okay time for plan 'B'...Unplug everything get out my kettle..Drain wort from GF into kettle through my big strainer..OMG! There is a TON of grain in there..Sheesh..To shorten this novel, when I emptied out the grain basket, I found that the damn silicon gasket had some how slipped off at about a 3" section allowing all that grain freedom into the wort- also didn't help that at the very beginning of the mash I let a bit of grain into the wort as well..Had to put the wort in my kettle, then into a ice bath in the sink and then finally into the fermenter which went into the fridge for like 2 hours to get the wort to pitching temperature...Whew!..
Brew is currently in the closet and I am doing my best of RDWHAHB..Hopefully I will see airlock activity in the morning..
it was back to 152 in 5 or less minutes and held for the full 60 minute mash.
Just curious, did your actually measure the temperature of the grain bed or were you going off the controller temp reading? I have a hunch that if you weren't independently measuring the grain bed temp your mash temps didn't recover as quickly as you might have thought.
Was what the controller was displaying.
If you have a spare thermometer laying around that you trust, next time try measuring the grain bed temp directly. Might be an eye opener!
I know there are GF owners who participate in this thread that have started mashing in at "typical" strike temps because the grain bed temps lag far behind the temp reading of the controller if you dough in at mash temp, effectively reducing the true temp at which you think you're mashing.
If you have a spare thermometer laying around that you trust, next time try measuring the grain bed temp directly. Might be an eye opener!
I know there are GF owners who participate in this thread that have started mashing in at "typical" strike temps because the grain bed temps lag far behind the temp reading of the controller if you dough in at mash temp, effectively reducing the true temp at which you think you're mashing.
Firstly, sorry to hear about the mishap. I removed the spring and ball long ago and never put it back.
Where you recirculating you wort back into the GF when chilling?
I put the basket in right after I add the water. This way the only thing affecting temp is the grains.
Good idea. I have a nice digital thermometer. Will give it a check next brew
Yeah..Probably another misguided 'brilliant idea' I had to get the wort temp down to pitching temperature by going thru the CFC and then back into the GF..I just didn't see it getting down to pitching temperature with 1 pass thru..Guess it IS possible tho...
Funny...I don't have a digital thermometer, but I had set my mash temp to 154, then when I added the basket with grains it dropped(according to the controller) to 151..I stirred the grain(after recovering the center post ) and checked with my dial thermometer..It read 150...I also went into the controller setting prior to my brew and set my 'hysterisis'(however it is spelled) to 1 so I ended up with very little temp fluctuation..A couple times I checked the grain bed against the controller and every time was within 2 degrees..
Correct..By putting it to 1 means 1 degree + or - of the set temp..I was attempting to find the link to the youtube vid I watched that showed how to do it..
Going from cryptic notes I took to set mine up :
Hold down both the up and down arrows at the same time until it says FAC1, then use the up arrow to set 231(password), then press set..Use up arrow to go to F04, up arrow to 221 - this sets the highest allowed 'SET' temperature, then press 'SET'..Up arrow to F05, down arrow to 1 then press 'SET' - temp variance..Then UP arrow to F08 and put to 'HOT', press set...Then let it sit and reset- you will know when it does as it will flash 3 dashes '---' on the display..And you're set up..
I believe this is the link you're referring to:
http://youtu.be/NTIxjCD07vU
[/http://youtu.be/NTIxjCD07vU
Correct..By putting it to 1 means 1 degree + or - of the set temp..I was attempting to find the link to the youtube vid I watched that showed how to do it..
Going from cryptic notes I took to set mine up :
Hold down both the up and down arrows at the same time until it says FAC1, then use the up arrow to set 231(password), then press set..Use up arrow to go to F04, up arrow to 221 - this sets the highest allowed 'SET' temperature, then press 'SET'..Up arrow to F05, down arrow to 1 then press 'SET' - temp variance..Then UP arrow to F08 and put to 'HOT', press set...Then let it sit and reset- you will know when it does as it will flash 3 dashes '---' on the display..And you're set up..
Correct..By putting it to 1 means 1 degree + or - of the set temp..I was attempting to find the link to the youtube vid I watched that showed how to do it..
Going from cryptic notes I took to set mine up :
Hold down both the up and down arrows at the same time until it says FAC1, then use the up arrow to set 231(password), then press set..Use up arrow to go to F04, up arrow to 221 - this sets the highest allowed 'SET' temperature, then press 'SET'..Up arrow to F05, down arrow to 1 then press 'SET' - temp variance..Then UP arrow to F08 and put to 'HOT', press set...Then let it sit and reset- you will know when it does as it will flash 3 dashes '---' on the display..And you're set up..
I believe this is the link you're referring to:
http://youtu.be/NTIxjCD07vU
[/http://youtu.be/NTIxjCD07vU
Awesome!! Thanks!
Correct..By putting it to 1 means 1 degree + or - of the set temp..I was attempting to find the link to the youtube vid I watched that showed how to do it..
Going from cryptic notes I took to set mine up :
Hold down both the up and down arrows at the same time until it says FAC1, then use the up arrow to set 231(password), then press set..Use up arrow to go to F04, up arrow to 221 - this sets the highest allowed 'SET' temperature, then press 'SET'..Up arrow to F05, down arrow to 1 then press 'SET' - temp variance..Then UP arrow to F08 and put to 'HOT', press set...Then let it sit and reset- you will know when it does as it will flash 3 dashes '---' on the display..And you're set up..
I believe this is the link you're referring to:
http://youtu.be/NTIxjCD07vU
[/http://youtu.be/NTIxjCD07vU
Yep! That's the one! Thanks!
Silly question for y'all..I am not sure this is what caused all the grain to escape and plug my filter when I brewed for the first time on my GF or not..BUT, on the Grainfather website it shows what's pictured as the TOP plate
I used it as the bottom plate as it has those 'legs' to keep the basket off the filter assembly...Does anyone else do that, or do you use it properly per the website as the top plate?? Just curious...
I use mine as designed by the mfg-as a top plate
With the 'legs' up or down? I will try it that way on my next brew, and hope the seal doesn't come dislodged and allow a **** ton of grain escape into the wort...
I would recommend not trying that.
The same thing happened to me yesterday. I think I messed up something while setting the controller to Celsius and cannot enter the menu -- holding down the two arrow buttons gives me a number, usually "0".Although I was successful for my second brew, I now run into another issue. the temperature control unit, which is a ETC-512B, shows OFF and temperature reading intermittently. It seems like to be in OFF status and doesn't control the heating element. The heating element works fine if I control it by put the switch in "Boil" position. I am looking for solution before sending it back.
Thanks in advance.
Silly question for y'all..I am not sure this is what caused all the grain to escape and plug my filter when I brewed for the first time on my GF...
I used it as the bottom plate as it has those 'legs' to keep the basket off the filter assembly...Does anyone else do that, or do you use it properly per the website as the top plate?? Just curious...
The same thing happened to me yesterday. I think I messed up something while setting the controller to Celsius and cannot enter the menu -- holding down the two arrow buttons gives me a number, usually "0".
Does anyone have a fix?
Cheers!
The "legs" are "arms"! They are for you to place the top plate down on the top of the grain bed both at mash and then lower down prior to sparge. Yes that's why you got grain in boiler. If you use as designed, fit bottom plate well and throttle back the wort flow to stop from going thru the overflow you will get no grain in boiler.
The same thing happened to me yesterday. I think I messed up something while setting the controller to Celsius and cannot enter the menu -- holding down the two arrow buttons gives me a number, usually "0".
Does anyone have a fix?
Cheers!
Last night she finally arrived! I got her hooked up and cleaned. I have been extract brewing for years and finally made the jump to GF for the ease and space saved. Sparging will be something new. Can I just bring the water up to temp on the stove and then add it to the GF and circulate after my mash is done then pull up the basket? I know this might sound elementary but I wash hoping not to have to get yet Anouther piece of equipment just to sparge.
The first all grain batch I am going to do tomorrow has me mashing at 148 and that seems very low. Any thoughts?
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