Grainfather!!

[scallopking]

just sharing again....I did an Simcoe/Galaxy IPA and hit 79% using my new Grain Crusher yesterday - better then I've got at the LHBS to date and best on the GF so far. no water changes/additions. This was with 5 oz hops total boil and steep - no clogging. had to tilt to get all the wort from the bottom but that's okay! Also hit 209 yesterday for a few mins - woo-hoo!

I have been doing 90 min mash and 90 min boils. And I ran without the spring and ball in the valve. Think I will leave them out for good now.

I overshot the post-boil gravity from 1.060 to 1.066. Need to get use to the new mill and crush, maybe go back to 60 min boils?

 

[Kampenken]

Looking to see if people have tested the grain bed temperature once your system is mashing? I did a run today with 9.5 pounds for grain and tested the grain bed temp 4 times to see what its actual temp was. Mine was at least 5 to 6 degrees below the controllers set temp. The controller was reading the correct temp, but actual grain bed was cooler.
....Has anyone else done testing?

I have not, but that's interesting thought. I figured that it was all generally within the temp of the STC, up down a degree or two. I have thought about first checking (calibrating) the STC with my digital probe in just the water- starting temp up to a boil temp. I don't understand why the STC can read up to 214 when boiling, I thought, at my elevation, 360', it wouldn't exceed 212. I need to test this out, including the grain bed temps, but in ~2wks till next brew...

Brewhouse efficiency. pH=5.4. Lighter lagers (pilsner, helles, Bock, etc). RO water with 1 tsp CaCl per 5 gal.

Wow and an 84% Brewhouse eff, that's awesome performance. What is mash time? Like Scallopking's 90 min time that would increase efficiency (if maybe only slightly).

I've got ya beat on lazy: I just drained my finished beer out of the fermenter into the keg, and pumped the new wort right in without collecting slurry or cleaning the fermenter. Already started bubbling within about 4 hours.

As far as cleaning the CFC: after use, I hook up the wort-out tube to my water faucet and run water through it for a few minutes. Then, with a hot PBW solution in the Grainfather, I hook it back up to that and pump it through a few minutes, followed by another cold water rinse from the faucet. Takes all of 10 minutes while I'm cleaning the Grainfather anyway. Hang it up to dry and your good to go next time. I don't bother blowing it out or discarding water: whatever nasties are in there are sanitized by your hot wort anyway, assuming you're recirculating wort through it for ten minutes before chilling to your fermenter. Of course this is coming from someone who didn't clean his fermentor, so take it with a grain of salt.

This makes sense, just hard for me to "pull the trigger" and pitch on a cake, but maybe, for experimentation and all ;-) I'll try it too!

I read there was another reason than keeping a sanitary CFC for draining the water, as if its not supposed to remain. Doesn't make sense to me why GF suggested this, its copper after all, if you've rinsed out well w/clean water, why the blow out? Next we'll be needing an air evacuation pump!

Just for you Kampenken!

Now that's a sight to behold! Beautiful display in a dedicated fridge!

While we are on th subject of yeast and whatnot, in the past I have had a couple of IPA's that came out tasting like a Hefeweizen. Three times it was with yeast slurry (made a starter, 1 US-05 and 2 with WLP-001) with DME and once it was from a yeast slurry that I pitched 2 heaping tablespoons of straight into the wort. The most recent started out tasting like a hefe, but settled right out after keg conditioning for a week.

This is over a course of 8 years of brewing. I am pretty anal with my cleaning and sanitizing but am open to the idea that I missed something along the way. Anyone else ever experience this?

I had this once too, but with US -04. I swear I won't use that yeast again. I too am anal about cleaning and sanitizing (why the pitch on cake is so foreign to my ever changing brewing belief system!). So, I just chalked it up to US 04, or it could be it was pre-water conditioning and something was funky. So I don't have much to offer on that one. Its not continuing to occur is it? Otherwise its a search mission, and we'll need more to hear what' going on.

Btw, those who control their water, do any of you have an at home test kit? I'm fortunate that my water company emailed me a thorough report, even asked for my address to ensure accuracy, but was thinking if an easy, quick and fairly accurate test can be done (titration, not strips) then maybe that's not a bad thing to check pre-brew? We have time on our hands to start, so could be put to good use.

just sharing again....I did an Simcoe/Galaxy IPA and hit 79% using my new Grain Crusher yesterday - better then I've got at the LHBS to date and best on the GF so far. no water changes/additions. This was with 5 oz hops total boil and steep - no clogging. had to tilt to get all the wort from the bottom but that's okay! Also hit 209 yesterday for a few mins - woo-hoo!

I have been doing 90 min mash and 90 min boils. And I ran without the spring and ball in the valve. Think I will leave them out for good now.

I overshot the post-boil gravity from 1.060 to 1.066. Need to get use to the new mill and crush, maybe go back to 60 min boils?

Brewhouse eff? I think the longer mash will help for sure, though it does get negligible, however... you didn't mention if you undershot your volume. If so that would be quite reasonable for a higher OG (post boil).

 

[seabrew8]

I see a lot of variables when speaking of efficiency. First, which efficiency is being quoted- Mash, Kettle (beginning or ending) or Brewhouse- the latter especially. Prior to the GF I had almost no drop between ending Kettle and Brewhouse (other than wort shrinkage from cooling). Now, with the GF I lose a bit due to pump out (tipping limits that!) & residual remains in CFC*. Also, time of year will change your boil off (e.g. Northern winters=drier air, higher evaporation). This is new to me, looking for more information. Next up imo, is water chemistry. A high mash pH will kill efficiency. So really to compare efficiency we need to know the brewer's mash pH. As this certainly can be driven by style of beer if no water additions are included (lighter beer = higher pH) its also important to know the style, if no water additions. I figure with the GF we should all have very similar efficiencies if we're clear on the above, starting with which one.

Having said all that (whew!) I just missed my OG by 10pts! It was my first time using corn, heard I could substitute corn meal, didn't hear I needed a cereal mash! My 150F mash temp likely converted zero into sugars! Don't ask my efficiency, . Instead of a mildly hopped easy drinker (4.5%) I expect I will end with a more hop forward light beer (3.4%)! Also I ended with 5.75g of this yellow water, instead of 5.25g. I swear the GF's low grain bill calc needs adjustment. Anyone else?

*Curious on how you're all cleaning/clearing out your CFC. I've been making sure to toss down the sink the first pumping of the CFC prior to the recirc on my next mash- so I basically am getting rid of ~1 cup (~237ml Seabrew!) of water until I see the mash wort come through. I am being lazy, I've got an air compressor, but haven't run it through. Anyone doing this? Or anyone using the blow through it method as I saw on a You-Tube vid?

Yambor, looks like you're safe, glad to hear you're handling it that way! Any thoughts about just collecting slurry, and pitch that?

Thanks for the ml conversion. I've been using a coleman air pump that came with my air mattress to blow out the CFC. I also dumped the last bit of wort through a piant strainer bag last batch to get every bit of wort. It actually came out to near exactly 23L, which was the batch volume i was shooting for.

 

[Jay-Brew]

Admittedly I may have missed it somewhere, but I have been trying to find out if anyone has had difficulties running the North America version on a 15 amp outlet.

I just ordered one and think I read somewhere about it can throw a breaker. The outlet I am using is 15 amps, and I don't think there is anything else on that circuit.

Suspect it will be fine but just curious.

Thanks!

 

[Tang10]

I came from cooler brewing before I started using the GrainFather. I know with coolers you need a strike temp for water that is adjusted for the cooler and the grain. With the GrainFather we don't need to worry about adjusting for the cooler, but our grain is going in the mash tun section at room temperature. We are going to drop 6 to 7 degrees adding the grain. Drop a few degrees for the time it takes to stir grain in from the start.

My tests show when I put the top grate in and started the pump for re-circulation the system needs to raise the temp 7 to 9 degrees to hit controller set temp in the mash tun section.

Most of the YouTube video show the system recirculating the wort straight down the overflow pipe. This will not help raise the grain bed temp. We need the pump/system to pull the wort though the grain bed from the top to the bottom. The temperature probe outside the mash tun is only giving use the wort temp below the false bottom.

Maybe I'm off base on this, but my cooler days told me we needed to lock in mash temperature within 5 plus minutes of starting out mash process.

What do other people think?

 

[user 21663]

Interesting point. I wonder if we should initially set the mash temp a few degrees higher, dough in and reset for the desired mash temp. that way it would reduce the ramp up time from adding the grain. The Grainfather profile seems to set the strike water at approx. 8F higher too.

Maybe restricting the flow initially on the recirculation pipe to minimize the amount going down the overflow tube would help as well.

With my cooler, if I can stabilize my temps within 5-10 minutes, I'm good. I wouldn't want to go any longer than that.

 

[Tang10]

I 100% agree about setting the flow on startup to get the pump pulling the wort though the grain bed. From my testing, I think rice hulls in the grain mix is a good idea. To get my last test batch to not overflow down the pipe I needed to throttle back the ball valve a lot. I never did get the mash tun to the correct temp after 60 min on the flow rate that I could run.

I'm going to try a big double IPA this weekend on the system. Putting in .75 to 1 lb of rice hulls.

 

[kevreh]

Admittedly I may have missed it somewhere, but I have been trying to find out if anyone has had difficulties running the North America version on a 15 amp outlet.

I just ordered one and think I read somewhere about it can throw a breaker. The outlet I am using is 15 amps, and I don't think there is anything else on that circuit.

Suspect it will be fine but just curious.

Thanks!

It can/will throw a breaker if you have other things on the same circuit that are pulling enough amps. Things like a hairdryer or coffee maker will do it. Depends on how much is on your circuit.

 

[scallopking]

Brewhouse eff? I think the longer mash will help for sure, though it does get negligible, however... you didn't mention if you undershot your volume. If so that would be quite reasonable for a higher OG (post boil).

this is where I'm confused now, never went over post-boil gravity (or original gravity if I am correct). What is the abv, ibu impact of going from 1.060 to 1.066? It's crazy fermenting right now also good thing I have blow off tube.

now I'm thinking how did it happen? could that be from boiling off too much wort? I didn't get volume after the boil but I've been doing the same 90/90 on a few batches now. could it be from having better crush and efficiency and with a longer mash/boil caused it to go up. I'll admit I'm not the best on this. I understand what they are but translating that in and out of Beersmith for estimated and actuals is another thing for me.

also I'm using the GF profile add-on in beersmith but immediately found the mash sparge waters didn't match so modified it to the point where they are very close. as I side note, I wonder how that might be throwing off recipe vs. what I actually get. anyone have a real good profile match for the GF in beersmith? thanks again.

 

[Jay-Brew]

It can/will throw a breaker if you have other things on the same circuit that are pulling enough amps. Things like a hairdryer or coffee maker will do it. Depends on how much is on your circuit.

Thanks! I'll double check but I'm pretty sure it's just one outlet on the breaker. It's beside the panel and runs directly to it and is used for the washing machine. Obviously won't have the washer on while brewing!

 

[seabrew8]

Interesting point. I wonder if we should initially set the mash temp a few degrees higher, dough in and reset for the desired mash temp. that way it would reduce the ramp up time from adding the grain. The Grainfather profile seems to set the strike water at approx. 8F higher too.

Maybe restricting the flow initially on the recirculation pipe to minimize the amount going down the overflow tube would help as well.

With my cooler, if I can stabilize my temps within 5-10 minutes, I'm good. I wouldn't want to go any longer than that.

I heat a few degrees celsius above mash temp before i dough in.

Tango10, I haven't seen any videos with the recirculating arm going straight in the overflow pipe. That would defeat the RIMS of the GF. Its supposed to rest on top of the perforated plate. I just leave the ball valve fully open, the wort will be VERY clear at the end of the mash.

 

[treacheroustexan]

My last brew I had a very very hard time recirculating without it going down the overlow pipe. My first brew was fine but this one was bad. I used it maybe 10 minutes of the mash and then turned it off.

 

[seabrew8]

My last brew I had a very very hard time recirculating without it going down the overlow pipe. My first brew was fine but this one was bad. I used it maybe 10 minutes of the mash and then turned it off.

Oh yes it does overflow. Usually in 10-15mins - for me - it stops going doing the overflow pipe, i don't even pay attention to it anymore. I was a little concerned with it at first too but the wort will be crystal clear in 60min with minimum amount of grain debris. I have had no issues getting crystal clear beer in the glass.

Maybe thats what Tango10 was refering too. I thought he meant the silcone hose was actually placed directly over the overflow pipe.

 

[Tang10]

I heat a few degrees celsius above mash temp before i dough in.

Tango10, I haven't seen any videos with the recirculating arm going straight in the overflow pipe. That would defeat the RIMS of the GF. Its supposed to rest on top of the perforated plate. I just leave the ball valve fully open, the wort will be VERY clear at the end of the mash.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. When I say recirculating, I mean the wort is going straight down the overflow pipe, not the arm/hose in the overflow.

The guy on You tube (Time4Another1) does a good 3 part series with the GrainFather in action. He makes the comment also about the wort going straight down the overflow and seems confused by this.

Just so I understand can you run your ball valve wide open without the wort overflowing down the overflow pipe?

Thanks

 

[treacheroustexan]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. When I say recirculating, I mean the wort is going straight down the overflow pipe, not the arm/hose in the overflow.

The guy on You tube (Time4Another1) does a good 3 part series with the GrainFather in action. He makes the comment also about the wort going straight down the overflow and seems confused by this.

Just so I understand can you run your ball valve wide open without the wort overflowing down the overflow pipe?

Thanks

The first brew I did I ran it with it wide opened and it was fine. My second brew was a larger grain bill and I even tried closing the ball valve a little bit and it still went into the overflow pipe. Not sure if it was just because of the larger grain bill?

 

[Tang10]

My experience is my beers are attenuating better since using the GrainFather, but I think its more liked to lower mash temps in the 60 min mash cycle.

I really enjoy the system and its simple to use process. Just trying to explore how I can make the system rock solid with good tests that show it performing great is all steps of brewing.

Thanks for the comments

 

[Tang10]

The first brew I did I ran it with it wide opened and it was fine. My second brew was a larger grain bill and I even tried closing the ball valve a little bit and it still went into the overflow pipe. Not sure if it was just because of the larger grain bill?

I'm doing a 14 lb grain bill this weekend. Going to use 1 lb of rice hulls to help the system flow.

My wort is always clear at the end mash, but not sure what that really tells us. We need a stable mash temp for 60 plus minutes to really change the game over cooler brewing.

 

[seabrew8]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. When I say recirculating, I mean the wort is going straight down the overflow pipe, not the arm/hose in the overflow.

The guy on You tube (Time4Another1) does a good 3 part series with the GrainFather in action. He makes the comment also about the wort going straight down the overflow and seems confused by this.

Just so I understand can you run your ball valve wide open without the wort overflowing down the overflow pipe?

Thanks

IME it will stop overflowing in 10min or so. I always get a very small amount of grain debris in the wort. But by the time i pump it to the fermenter its very minimal. And with 10 days or so fermenting and 3-5 days of a cold crash i have crystal clear beer - commerical quality. This last batch doesn't have chill haze either! Which i have some issues with.

In a perfect world i would like to see zero grain in the wort but its not something i believe is essential anymore.

But hey? if you figure how to elimate it let us know!

 

[rawlus]

To echo what others have said, it's not necessary to slow the flow of wort just because some is going down the overflow pipe, the overflow pipe exists because a portion of the recirculation is intended to go down there. Over the duration of the mash, you'll notice that clarity of wort improves, demonstrating that it's not all going down the overflow, that the grain bed is indeed acting as a filter, and that indeed wort is going through the entire column of grain to extract the converted sugars... Your pre-boil readings will confirm this with the expected efficiency... I'm not sure you can extract more efficiency by slowing the flow and trying to keep it from overflowing, but to me slowing the flow will potentially cause more variance in temp in the column of grain because not as much wort is hitting the heating element in the same amount of time.

In many brews running the recirculation wide open, as long as you have Properly prepared the grain bed, and used rice hulls under certain circumstances, you"ll be absolutely fine, nothing is broken and it is expected behavior.

 

[treacheroustexan]

To echo what others have said, it's not necessary to slow the flow of wort just because some is going down the overflow pipe, the overflow pipe exists because a portion of the recirculation is intended to go down there. Over the duration of the mash, you'll notice that clarity of wort improves, demonstrating that it's not all going down the overflow, that the grain bed is indeed acting as a filter, and that indeed wort is going through the entire column of grain to extract the converted sugars... Your pre-boil readings will confirm this with the expected efficiency... I'm not sure you can extract more efficiency by slowing the flow and trying to keep it from overflowing, but to me slowing the flow will potentially cause more variance in temp in the column of grain because not as much wort is hitting the heating element in the same amount of time.

In many brews running the recirculation wide open, as long as you have Properly prepared the grain bed, and used rice hulls under certain circumstances, you"ll be absolutely fine, nothing is broken and it is expected behavior.

I guess I just panicked because I saw quite a bit of grain going down there compared to my first brew.

 

[gspot]

IME it will stop overflowing in 10min or so.

This. There is no need to slow the mash recirculation by closing the ball valve.

 

[treacheroustexan]

This. There is no need to slow the mash recirculation by closing the ball valve.

Good to know. Thanks!

 

[seabrew8]

I guess I just panicked because I saw quite a bit of grain going down there compared to my first brew.

Understandable, my first few batchs i wanted everything to go "perfect" but thats literally impossible.

Eventhough no small grain debris gets in the wort with BIAB, the few times i used it the wort was much more cloudy then the GF. The last few batchs i could see clearly through well over 1 inch of wort and see the bottom of the bolier. Its crystal clear - just in case i never said it before.

 

[seabrew8]

Just a random thought - i guess you can't make the perforated holes in the plates small enough to prevent grain debris in the bolier and at the same time have enough wort flow through the plates for the system to work...?

Maybe some of those little particulars do get pumped back up into the graiin bed...?

At any rate it doesn't need to be fixed.

 

[mos13gman]

To Yambor44: Just thought I'd throw it out there that in my experience, beer always tastes better in a keg if you can stand waiting 30 days. My beers taste ok (green) after a week of conditioning; but really, they take on an all new personality if you can wait a month--perhaps even two in higher gravity cases like IPA. If your beer gets rid of the hefe taste when you wait, then maybe waiting is the key.

 

[Tang10]

To echo what others have said, it's not necessary to slow the flow of wort just because some is going down the overflow pipe, the overflow pipe exists because a portion of the recirculation is intended to go down there. Over the duration of the mash, you'll notice that clarity of wort improves, demonstrating that it's not all going down the overflow, that the grain bed is indeed acting as a filter, and that indeed wort is going through the entire column of grain to extract the converted sugars... Your pre-boil readings will confirm this with the expected efficiency... I'm not sure you can extract more efficiency by slowing the flow and trying to keep it from overflowing, but to me slowing the flow will potentially cause more variance in temp in the column of grain because not as much wort is hitting the heating element in the same amount of time.

In many brews running the recirculation wide open, as long as you have Properly prepared the grain bed, and used rice hulls under certain circumstances, you"ll be absolutely fine, nothing is broken and it is expected behavior.

I completely understand what your saying in your post. What I originally stated was has anyone tested the mash temp during the mash cycle? You can collect clear wort on a Rubbermaid cooler with a toilet braid filter. What made me by the system was controlling mash temperature during a cycle.

Getting clear wort and beer as a finished product is a great outcome.

The step mash process will fall short I promise if you can't get the wort flow though the grain bed good without going down overflow and the ball valve will need to be open completely.

I challenge someone to test the mash temp also. Set the controller at 152 and see what the bed temperature is.

 

[Tang10]

To echo what others have said, it's not necessary to slow the flow of wort just because some is going down the overflow pipe, the overflow pipe exists because a portion of the recirculation is intended to go down there. Over the duration of the mash, you'll notice that clarity of wort improves, demonstrating that it's not all going down the overflow, that the grain bed is indeed acting as a filter, and that indeed wort is going through the entire column of grain to extract the converted sugars... Your pre-boil readings will confirm this with the expected efficiency... I'm not sure you can extract more efficiency by slowing the flow and trying to keep it from overflowing, but to me slowing the flow will potentially cause more variance in temp in the column of grain because not as much wort is hitting the heating element in the same amount of time.

In many brews running the recirculation wide open, as long as you have Properly prepared the grain bed, and used rice hulls under certain circumstances, you"ll be absolutely fine, nothing is broken and it is expected behavior.

I'm only suggesting we need to slow the flow to heat the grain bed if we are pour down the overflow. Thats the point to having the controller for controlling the temp of the mash.

 

[seabrew8]

I'm only suggesting we need to slow the flow to heat the grain bed if we are pour down the overflow. Thats the point to having the controller for controlling the temp of the mash.

Its just a basic controller to get it precise you would of been better served with a high end system.

Besides its not rocket science to mash grain.

 

[Yambor44]

I'm not sure why we are trying to "fix" a system that we have all posted about being one of the best we've ever had. ;-)

Regarding the mash temp. I understand the temperature and readout are from below the bottom screen. However, once you turn the pump on and begin recircuation, all of that cooler wort in the grain bed moves down and through the bottom screen thus coming into contact with the thermo probe this giving you a proper reading of the what's coming from the grain bed.

In my experience it drops a few degrees and slowy comes back up to temp within 5-7 mins. This can be corrected (if it bothers you) as mentioned by raising the strike water temp 5° then reset it to mash temp after dough in right after starting the pump up.

As for overflow as others have pointed out its okay to overflow. That's why it's referred to as an overflow pipe. Even the GF manufacturers videos show the proper flow to go down the overflow pipe. I set mine somewhere in the middle to where I get some overflow but not a ton. Maybe on my next batch I'll try it wide open and compare results.

 

[gspot]

I'm not sure why we are trying to "fix" a system that we have all posted about being one of the best we've ever had. ;-)

Regarding the mash temp. I understand the temperature and readout are from below the bottom screen. However, once you turn the pump on and begin recircuation, all of that cooler wort in the grain bed moves down and through the bottom screen thus coming into contact with the thermo probe this giving you a proper reading of the what's coming from the grain bed.

In my experience it drops a few degrees and slowy comes back up to temp within 5-7 mins. This can be corrected (if it bothers you) as mentioned by raising the strike water temp 5° then reset it to mash temp after dough in right after starting the pump up.

As for overflow as others have pointed out its okay to overflow. That's why it's referred to as an overflow pipe. Even the GF manufacturers videos show the proper flow to go down the overflow pipe. I set mine somewhere in the middle to where I get some overflow but not a ton. Maybe on my next batch I'll try it wide open and compare results.

+1. Yambor44 nailed it. There's nothing to fix or tweak here. The reason is, having wort flowing down the overflow does NOT mean you don't have sufficient flow through the grain bed simultaneously to equalize the mash temp between the bed and space below the false bottom. In my experience, the amount of wort going down the overflow trends to decrease over the course of the mash anyway. And whatever the actual grain temp, the 80+% efficiencies I've been getting indicate sufficient conversion going on, so RDWHAHB.