Dedicated Grainfather Guide, Problems and Solutions Thread

[Mister Wilson]

Should only be 4 sleeps away

You are a champion. Received this morning and will hopefully get a brew out on the weekend.

 

[Buckskin]

just wondering what efficiency you guys are getting from the GF....I follow the instructions in the manual to a T (60 minute mash at 67C, 15 minute mashout at 75C, sparge at 75C per GF calculations)

I cant get over 73% but have heard of people getting 80% with the GF...any idea why?

 

[Parks]

There are 3 things to look at here.

1. Grain crush - smaller generally gives more efficiency to a point but makes sparging more difficult/slower
2. Total grain vs water in the mash - the thicker the more difficult to be efficient
3. Efficiency != efficiency. A lot of people say "efficiency" referring to "Mash Efficiency" and others refer to "Brewhouse Efficiency". Mash efficiency should always be higher. Anyone using Beersmith would generally use Brewhouse efficiency as it's the number you see at the top of your recipe.

I have had a near 80% brewhouse efficiency batch which was a 5% APA which I crushed too fine so sparge was slow. My lowest Brewhouse efficiency was 63% for a 10% Russian Imperial Stout which I crushed too coarsely.

 

[HBHB]

just wondering what efficiency you guys are getting from the GF....I follow the instructions in the manual to a T (60 minute mash at 67C, 15 minute mashout at 75C, sparge at 75C per GF calculations)

I cant get over 73% but have heard of people getting 80% with the GF...any idea why?

Over 100 brews down the track with our unit, which was a pre-release model (same version as all the early adopters got) averaged out is 76. We've had a couple of lower efficiencies, depending on how guys crushed their grain (a fair few have down their own). I believe the lowest efficiency has been about 62 or 63% on a 9.00kg batch which was way too coarse in the crush. The highest was in the high 80's. All of mine averaged out is a little over 76 when milled at the same settings.I think there's a bunch of figures from the earlier brews back several pages on here.

If you dial in for 76% on beersmith 2 , you'll be close to the sweet spot for the majority of 4.5-6.0 % abv beers. Once you get up over about 7.5% beers, expect the efficiency numbers to drop away a little bit.

See what Parks said above. Might be worth while to adjust your milling just a little, maybe bring your sparge temp up a little. I usually sparge with water up around the 80 degree mark. All that said, some guys get a little bogged down on efficiency trying to squeeze out as much as they can from their system. We're talking a few cents of overall gain per brew and most with 3V systems are happy with anything over 70% odd brewhouse efficiency. Personally I don't think it really matters in the overall scheme of things - as long as the beer is good and is at the right gravity as planned.

 

[Buckskin]

Thanks Parks and HBHB. Some great input. Been using brew house efficiency on Beersmith 2. I think it's down to milling and possibly increasing the sparge temp to 80. Appreciate your help.

 

[Parks]

Keep in mind that stainless steel is exactly that - it stains less.

Unfortunately that's not what that word means. Any usage of -less as a suffix means without, cannot or unable to.

The fact it's called stainless is more of a misnomer.

No I will fly off to correct many other wrong people on the internet!

 

[butisitart]

carniebrew - sorry delay - i were away..
i sparge off gf calculator, so generally 12-13 ish L.
my grain leans towards fine, cos buying milled. (a mill is next on shopping list).

i doing a 13L sparge in about 15mins time - will time it


12.9L sparge through 6.1 kg grain bill........ 2min 55sec.
thank christ for that - i thought maybe i were suffering a little bit of self delusional time compression.
but yep - clean sparge, water between the top plate and fin the whole time. done. :super:

 

[carniebrew]

I'm...stunned. Under 3 minutes to filter 13 litres of sparge water through 6kg of grain. Wow.

 

[Gregos]

It takes me average of 20-30mins to sparge a 5-6kg grainbill,and 40 mins for 7.8kg,
I was with a guy last weekend , he uses rice hulls in his grain and the sparge for 5.8 kg still took 20mins but he reckons his efficiency is real good due to the evenness of the sparge.

I'm going to start using rice hulls from now on.

 

[bradsbrew]

Unfortunately that's not what that word means. Any usage of -less as a suffix means without, cannot or unable to.

The fact it's called stainless is more of a misnomer.

No I will fly off to correct many other wrong people on the internet!

I think the word you were looking for is Now, Parks.

 

[Parks]

Dammit - I can't even sneaky edit!

 

[HBHB]

Dammit - I can't even sneaky edit!

Is that like editing it sneakily?
h34r:

 

[butisitart]

carniebrew - 2min55 bona fide. note my sparging notes 15july, though. i clocked it this morning to see. clock ran from first to last drop of sparge water poured, keeping level between top grain filter plate and the tops of the fins as per gf instructions. i suspect the trick is to get sparge water rolling asap after lifting the grain cannister. my earlier stuck or slow sparges all occurred after waiting even a minute or two between lifting the grain and starting the sparge pour. A minute or 2 gap before sparging turns into 15min sparge, or 3-4 mins gap gives a stuck sparge and have to get the paddle out. or that's loosely my experience.

that were 5kg barrett burston pale, 1kg munich 1 and 100g crystal this morning - no rice hulls (but no wheat, either).
sparge water temp 76-78C and wort at 76C for 4-5 mins. (there is some comment above about temperature effects.) me not knowledgeable on that side, but that's my standard gf sparge out temps.

would be very interested eg with gregos to see how you go if you note time gap between lifting the grain and starting the sparge, and variations thereof. my theory is that if the wort drops out of the grain with nothing sparging behind it, then the grain will compact down, slowing or choking any water trying to come through later. if sparge water comes in straight away, then the grain will continue to get filtered, but won't have the chance to compact down. thus, easy sparge. gf instructions allude to that, without actually spelling it out. but yeah - i'm hitting around 3 mins pretty consistently now.

 

[carniebrew]

Cheers for the detailed info, will definitely give it a go next brew. I'm keen to change only 1 thing at a time to see which has the biggest effect...so next brew I'll do the insta-sparge after lifting the malt pipe...then after that I'll increase my roller width to 1.3mm (mashmaster mini mill). I've also been told the speed of my drill could be making a big difference to how my grain ends up...I've been doing full bore, so at some stage will back the speed off and see how it goes.

 

[butisitart]

just rang my supplier - all my grain comes through at 1.1mm. (i had no idea). would be highly interested in your observations on what you do on the next brew, and if it changes things. oh - while we've got a grammar thing running here, you must be old. i see you can spell 'definitely'

 

[carniebrew]

Problem is 1.1mm doesn't mean much if you're not comparing to the same mill at different widths. One mill can produce very different results from another model with the rollers at the same gap.

 

[butisitart]

that buggers that part of the equation. i see you tactically withdrew from referring to the duration of your foray on this lovely planet. chapeau. :icon_cheers:

 

[carniebrew]

LOL. Yes, i'm old. Let's just say I'm a child of the 70's....

 

[butisitart]

according to edward albee, who wrote 'who's afraid of virginia woolfe?', you're only as old as the woman you feel. but then, he also commented that the way to a man's heart is through his wife's stomach. he had a few scorchers. but this is not gf. me a child of the 50s, so i have a self ordained right to meander on clearly defined topic discussions. bit like hogging the front of the queue at the servo spilling out dad jokes in the hope that the 18yo girl behind the counter will fall in love with you and leave her 5 kids and husband, completely oblivious to the fact that the laptop bag you're toting only holds a colostomy bag and industrial quantities of warfarin. i might stop sampling my homebrew.

 

[Coodgee]

Going to pick up my grainfather tomorrow. I'm thinking of doing a recipe based on the 'sticks and stones' one from the recipe database as my first brew with the new rig.

So if there was one word of advise you could give for a first time grainfather user what would it be?

 

[carniebrew]

Going to pick up my grainfather tomorrow. I'm thinking of doing a recipe based on the 'sticks and stones' one from the recipe database as my first brew with the new rig.

So if there was one word of advise you could give for a first time grainfather user what would it be?

Kinda depends where you're coming from. If like me you were doing BIAB with no sparge, and you're planning to sparge with your GF, then my advice would be make sure you start the sparge as soon as you lift the malt pipe! Not that I've done it myself yet, but if it works out it'll be the best advice I've been given in a while.

 

[tugger]

Hop sock

 

[Coodgee]

Kinda depends where you're coming from. If like me you were doing BIAB with no sparge, and you're planning to sparge with your GF, then my advice would be make sure you start the sparge as soon as you lift the malt pipe! Not that I've done it myself yet, but if it works out it'll be the best advice I've been given in a while.

I've had a break from brewing for a long time but I've done plenty of 3V brews back in the day. I also read that advise to begin sparging as soon as you lift the grain out of the water so I will definitely look to do that. I don't want to be standing there with a jug for half an hour while the water trickles through.

Hop sock

ok. I have a couple of hop bags, do you think it would ok to just throw them into the boil and then fish them out before chilling?

 

[carniebrew]

ok. I have a couple of hop bags, do you think it would ok to just throw them into the boil and then fish them out before chilling?

I was using a hop sock pegged (literally) to the top of the kettle, but just bought a KK hop spider which will just hang over the side now.

 

[carniebrew]

Going to pick up my grainfather tomorrow. I'm thinking of doing a recipe based on the 'sticks and stones' one from the recipe database as my first brew with the new rig.

So if there was one word of advise you could give for a first time grainfather user what would it be?

Oh and little things like remember to switch the element to "Mash" once you reach your mash temp, and back to Boil after mash out.

Make sure you tighten ALL the connections on your counter flow chiller regularly, too many reports (and personal experience) of hoses flying off at the worst moments.

And make sure your bottom plate for the malt pipe is flat, mine turned up pretty skewiff and I got a fair bit of grain in my first couple of brews. After spending some time bending it into as flat a shape as possible I've had no issues.

 

[slcmorro]

ok. I have a couple of hop bags, do you think it would ok to just throw them into the boil and then fish them out before chilling?

Yes. But why not peg them onto the side of the GF?

 

[Coodgee]

seems like it would get better hop utilization to have them rolling around in the boil. (based on 0 actual knowledge haha).

 

[slcmorro]

You can have the hops roll around free if you want, but I think the difference between being bagged or spidered would be extremely minimal at best, if non completely non existent.

 

[Feldon]

You can have the hops roll around free if you want, but I think the difference between being bagged or spidered would be extremely minimal at best, if non completely non existent.

Everybody knows that spidered hops have a lower sperm count. :unsure:

 

[carniebrew]

Depends if you use boxers or briefs as your hop sock...