Grainfather!!

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Just want to say again this setup is amazing, you should ask buy it, no joke. Amazing with a side of easy amazing balls.

Grab that base I posted awhile back and this thing is just amazing.
 
So, we ended up with a surprise tax-time bonus.

My wife said she would get the electric hot water urn that I was banging on about. So I send her the details. I has cheekily sent through the Grainfather details, knowing full well she'd have a brain aneurism at the price. Then I sent the link to the urn I was after to make up my planned 1V DIY electric brew rig.

While on the phone to the retailer, she decided she'd lash out and get the Grainfather as a surprise instead. She phoned me at work to tell me as she couldn't keep it secret. The unit gets delivered to her work tomorrow. Can't wait.
 
Just want to say again this setup is amazing, you should ask buy it, no joke. Amazing with a side of easy amazing balls.

Grab that base I posted awhile back and this thing is just amazing.

Really wish I had mine, it's been a week since I shipped it back after arriving dented (kettle and basket) and have no date of a replacement shipping out yet. It's killing me I would be doing my second brew in it this Saturday if I had it!
 
Well, after nearly 25 years of home brewing, I took a leap of faith and bought The Grainfather, Graincoat and Sparge water heater. I've been following this post for quite some time and decided to pull the trigger (on the big auction site) last week.

I have been brewing on a 10-15 gallon 3 tier system with RIMS for many years and decided I wanted to come out of the garage, move into the kitchen, simplify my brewday and mostly speed up my clean up.

After experimenting with equipment, ingredients, water profiles, PH adjustment, recipes, mash profiles, etc, I have just decided I want to brew the beers my family and friends love to drink and The Grainfather seemed to be a nice and easy way to enjoy home brewing with much less work.

I just got her (or maybe it is him) assembled and am running the PBW through as instructed. I can't wait to do a test run this weekend! We're going to brew my wife's favorite beer, a home concocted Session Citra Pale Ale.

We're pretty flipping excited!! :rockin:

Good for you and a high five :rockin: welcome to the Brotherhood.Brewing beer just got more enjoyable for you.One tip I suggest is if you have an immersion chiller repurpose it as a pre-chiller to feed into the counterflow chiller.Put it in an ice bath if you have a double sink in the kitchen or a cooler of you dont.....seriously chills down the wort faster and less water used.

RMCB
 
By chance, does anybody have the page number where someone posted the Beersmith settings for the grainfather. I think it was an attachment. I've been searching for it but can't find it. Thanks in advance.
 
By chance, does anybody have the page number where someone posted the Beersmith settings for the grainfather. I think it was an attachment. I've been searching for it but can't find it. Thanks in advance.

I posted three files on March 24 -- p. 124 of this thread -- https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=550870&page=124 -- that should help. Read the entire pdf-file and make all three sets of changes, and you should get fairly closel
 
You guys rock! Thank you both.

If you use Beersmith, open your recipe, edit, scroll down to equipment, filter by profile for "Grainfather". Select Grainfather 5.28gal. Tweak away.

There are also very active groups on Reddit and Facebook for Grainfather brewers. Love this HBF monster thread but it's just too damn big.
 
ordered mine this week and should be getting it tomorrow. CAN"T WAIT! not sure if i'll be able to brew with it this weekend but will definitely assemble and maybe do a test boil.
 
Got mine today. Did a cleaning run and ready to brew tomorrow.

grainfather.jpg
 
Got mine today. Did a cleaning run and ready to brew tomorrow.

Enjoy! Let us know how it goes.

I'l be brewing 3 gallons sweet stout tomorrow. Still waiting on that micro pipework to get back in stock...so just going to have to add more mash water for now.
 
I never add more water.... Adjust your pump return valve to control flow. My last dozen brew I have not sent a drop down the overflow.
 
I never add more water.... Adjust your pump return valve to control flow. My last dozen brew I have not sent a drop down the overflow.

I do that. But I'm only brewing with 5 pounds of grain..I've brewed a couple 2.5-3 gal batches and I've had to add more mash water and subtract from my sparge since I don't have the micro pipework.
 
Enjoy! Let us know how it goes.

I'l be brewing 3 gallons sweet stout tomorrow. Still waiting on that micro pipework to get back in stock...so just going to have to add more mash water for now.

Doing a Dr. Smurto's Golden Ale right now. About to mash out. So easy!:rockin::ban::mug:
 
Adjust your pump return valve to control flow. My last dozen brew I have not sent a drop down the overflow.

IMHO that's adding un-nessesary complexity to the process, nothing wrong with the overflow being used. The amount of wort going into the overflow will reduce to usually nothing as the mash goes on so it's going to need adjusting along the way.

Occasionally I will get some grain down the overflow, last time I was a bit keen pushing the top plate down to start lautering and the stuff that had collected on top went down, in this case I just put a strainer under the pump outlet and caught it while it was coming to the boil. If you have a hop spider this would also be fine, a few bits of grain isn't going to make any noticible difference anyway.

On the topic of hop spiders, I'd not felt the need for one until yesterday :)

eaXhmysl.jpg
 
i got mine yesterday and did a cleaning and test boil today. one think i was having issues with is the pump not always working. it seems to work better if i don't have valve shut off before starting it and sometimes it helps to rescrew in the circulation arm or chiller. i'm thinking it might be an issue with the safety ball valve, which i've heard folks suggesting be removed anyways as it gets clogged. wondering if anyone else had this issue.

Brewing a centennial blonde tomorrow. wish me luck!
 
IMHO that's adding un-nessesary complexity to the process, nothing wrong with the overflow being used. The amount of wort going into the overflow will reduce to usually nothing as the mash goes on so it's going to need adjusting along the way.

Occasionally I will get some grain down the overflow, last time I was a bit keen pushing the top plate down to start lautering and the stuff that had collected on top went down, in this case I just put a strainer under the pump outlet and caught it while it was coming to the boil. If you have a hop spider this would also be fine, a few bits of grain isn't going to make any noticible difference anyway.

On the topic of hop spiders, I'd not felt the need for one until yesterday :)

eaXhmysl.jpg


I was the same til just now.
Might get one for the next imperial IPA. I think.
 
just started boiling my first batch. i'm noticing a LOT of husks in the boil, at lease more than i got with my cooler mash tun with braid in it. I've scraped about a good 2 cups worth of proteins. i'm wondering if this is normal for the system or if i made a mistake. when circulating the mash i saw some husk though it seemed like very thing circulated well. I did remove the ball valve since i heard it gets clogged a lot. any ideas?
 
just started boiling my first batch. i'm noticing a LOT of husks in the boil, at lease more than i got with my cooler mash tun with braid in it. I've scraped about a good 2 cups worth of proteins. i'm wondering if this is normal for the system or if i made a mistake. when circulating the mash i saw some husk though it seemed like very thing circulated well. I did remove the ball valve since i heard it gets clogged a lot. any ideas?

Awhile back in this thread, someone posted a sink strainer over the overflow pipe. I bought one and it keeps the husks out of the boiler. $2 fix.
 
@domdom This is just a simple user error. You need to adjust the re-circulation flow (via the ball valve) so not so much goes through the overflow during the mash rest.

I ignored the flow and had it wide open my first few batches and had the same problem you're having. Fiddled with the flow the 3rd batch and haven't had any issues since. I suppose you could take the route damdiver did, but IMO, that's just kinda fixing a problem that shouldn't be there in the first place.
 
I still think your getting most of the grain in the boil from grain getting though the bottom plate on the mash tun section. I posted sometime ago how built a triple false bottom. Works perfectly now.
 
I still think your getting most of the grain in the boil from grain getting though the bottom plate on the mash tun section. I posted sometime ago how built a triple false bottom. Works perfectly now.

If you get grain through the provided false bottom, then I think your grain is crushed too fine. And I would think you would get some really, really slow sparges unless you are using rice hulls. Just my opinion. I don't have an issue with grain or husks going through.
 
I'm getting what seems to be a fair amount of grain or husks in the boil as well. I haven't paid that close attention to the overflow but I looked towards the end today and it was definitely flowing into the overflow even towards the end of the mash.

Could this be affecting my efficiency? Only reason I ask is I've ended up with crazy high efficiency with my first two brews. Crushing my own grain at as close to .039 as I can get and I'm getting between 91 and 95% efficiency using the calculator on the grainfather website. I measured the well stirred preboil wort with both a refractometer and a hydrometer and got the same numbers (at room temps). It takes me a while to Sparge and nothing seems to be stuck. I pour pretty slowly to try to keep that 1cm distance above the grain bed. I just take a quart at a time from a pot I warm on a camp stove in my garage. I can get it to maintain 168* pretty well. I've been mashing around 152 for 60 minutes. I thought my scale might be off but with a 30g weight it was only off by .3g so I don't think that would have that big of an effect.
 
I doubt many grains are getting through the bottom or top plate. If so then the crush is too fine but doubt that's it.

Have a picture on the amount of grain? I get some but not a lot at all.
 
I doubt many grains are getting through the bottom or top plate. If so then the crush is too fine but doubt that's it.

Have a picture on the amount of grain? I get some but not a lot at all.

I'm crushing grain with a Monster Mill Pro3 mill, but have tried the Barley Crusher also. The bottom plate is the main issue for grain in boiler. The stirring action on mash in pushes the grain though the plate. I'm sure it varies from crush to crush or how much the person moves his/her spoon around the bottom. My triple bottom makes it harder for the grain to work its way past.
 
Try conditioning your grain next time. After weighing, mist it with 3-4 oz water or star san and give it a good toss. It helps if you seal it up in a container for a few hours or overnight before crushing, but it's not necessary. This keeps the husk from splintering into tiny fragments allowing a finer crush, better circulation and lautering.
 
Just FYI, brewing today so I ran my mash through a strainer for 10 minutes when bringing it to a boil and pulled out this, it is all very small and probably not a problem, but I might keep doing it.

http://imgur.com/1ZN4v5B
 
one thing that might have been the reason for all the grain in my boil was that i tried doing a low mash at 113F for 10 minutes. I gathered hot water from my tap for this and has a starting temp of about 120. the temp didn't drop as much as I thought it would after adding grain so I added a couple ice cubes and plunged the mash grain container in and out a few times to bring the temp down. Next time i'm going to do a simple single temp infusion and see if i end up with less grain in the boil. if now, i'll add some stainless steel mesh to the bottom.
 
Did my first brew with the GF last night. A weeknight is definitely not the best to use a new system for the first time. I started at 5:30 and finished at 11:00. It will take some time getting used to; the chilling and cleaning more than anything else. I was <4hrs with my cooler/kettle set up so that's going to be a high bar to beat. The all in one convenience was very nice and I was able to sparge right from my stovetop by just controlling the kettle valve (no more lifting 5+ gallons repeatedly!). Sparge went very quickly with a small grain bill, about 20 minutes total.

Recipe only used 2oz of hops but they formed a nice barrier/filter on the pump intake and the wort was very clear out of the chiller. Boil came within 20 minutes with Graincoat on there and was plenty strong.

I ended up letting the wort sit overnight and pitched this morning. Tap water here is 85 degrees and I didn't have the pieces to set up my old immersion chiller as a pre-chiller. Definitely will by next batch though as chilling in the summer is a nightmare. I can see this counterflow chiller will be awesome in the winter.
 
I noticed on this beersmith profile that you have your final batch volume set to 6 gallons versus the typical 5. Is there a reason or do you bottle 6 gallons when you brew, typically?

I've used these profiles for my brews and thought the same thing. I was going to adjust it, but figured not to screw with it.

In the end, I just figured, "Who cares". The extra left in the GF after I fill my fermenter (which also has extra volume in it) is not costing that much more and I'm assured of having my cornies filled to the 5 gallon mark every time. Plus, on the heavy dry hop batches the extra liquid that gets absorbed doesn't leave me with a "short batch".

FYI, the one change I've made to the profile was dialing in my efficiency at 85%. That's what I get with my Barley Crusher .038" mill setting. Slower sparge, but rice hulls helped and I have yet to overlap the sparge with the boil (boil switch on when sparge starts). Gotta wait for the boil to come up so who cares about the length of the sparge.
 
Latest brew results...

Early in my brewing on the grainfather I was having horrible efficiency. I brewed 8 or 9 batches within the first two months of having the grainfather, I still could not get it right and efficiency was just at 60% or slightly higher. (this discussion is earlier in this thread and mostly concerns sparging).

After taking a break because of work travel, I have started brewing again. I have brewed 6 batches in the last 4 weeks and I am now getting 80% or better now because of one simple factor... double milling. I have started double milling the grain at my LHBS and adding rice hulls as a standard addition to my recipe. I have noticed that as a result of the double milling, the mash flow is much slower and the flow rate has to be adjusted down or the wort will go through the overflow tube. Lastly, because of the thicker mash from double milling, the sparge process is taking much longer but I feel that it is much more efficient.

Just thought I would share this as others might have had the same problem.
 
I posted three files on March 24 -- p. 124 of this thread -- https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=550870&page=124 -- that should help. Read the entire pdf-file and make all three sets of changes, and you should get fairly closel

I just made the adjustments that were in the PDF and I have a few questions.

1) After the "Check boil off as an hourly rate" it says the evaporation rate should be 7.2%/hour but on my beersmith, it says 6.8%/hour. I swear everything prior to this step is perfect. Will this make much of a difference?

2) I noticed that the hourly boil-off rate is 0.5 gal per hour. However, after a few batches, I've noticed that I'm getting about 0.5gal per 30 mins. I have the double-layered reflectix layer on my GF. How should I go about making adjustments for this?

Sorry if these are noob questions...I'm fairly new to beersmith and obviously my GF :mug:
 
So I have a couple cleaning questions. After brew day, I have always just ran hot water through the chiller, no PBW or anything. Is this okay, or before my next brew day should I run a pbw/oxy solution through it? I have had a few infection scares my past two brews that I brewed on the grainfather. I'm wondering if my cleaning procedure has something to do with it? I recirculate the boiling wort through for 10 minutes so I wouldn't think that it would, but who knows. Brewing this weekend so interested to hear your guys thoughts.
 
After each brew you should run PBW through so it doesn't collect solids on the inside of the CFC, those solids could become a house for bacteria and make it harder to sanitize. PBW/Oxy is a cleaner though, not a sanitizer. The CFC get's sanitized upon pumping the boiling wort through it. With that said, if there's a buildup of solids it makes it that much harder to sanitize if there's places for bacteria to hide.

I would also say cleaning it right away after brewing will make it easier to clean. If you wait, those solids harden and become more difficult to get clean.
 
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