Dedicated Grainfather Guide, Problems and Solutions Thread

[buck_star]

Yeah mate just have a hose from my ball lock valve on my urn.

 

[bradsbrew]

You can use more than a litre at a time, as long as the sparge water does not go over the return. Should just be able to raise the return up so you can fit more water in.

I tested out an 80% volume mash yesterday.
experimental mild
Filled to 26L , heated to 68 and added 3.875kg of grain(3.2kg base)
after the mash had drained I added another 6L of water.
22L into the cube + 2 L in a flask @ 1.041, have not done the calcs but efficiency was a log higher than what I had expected.

 

[Autopilot80]

I found that my hop filter is pretty ineffective. With 50 grams of hops (pellets) the filter clogged up pretty quickly and then started pulling through the debris during the cooling. I had to syphon rack the wort into another FV once the hops settled. This inevitably led to a bit of extra loss. I would definitely recommend a hop spider. Ramp speed are pretty good too, although I did use the bigger element to get up to mash out temp (I don't know if this is recommended) and I found the smaller element was struggling to maintain 75 degrees with a 5kg malt bill. Boil was vigorous and you do have to pay close attention during the transition from ramp to boil as there isn't much head space so boil overs can happen quickly. Other than that the GF performed brilliantly. Look out world these things are going to sell like hot cakes.

 

[kaiserben]

Dunno if this is a stupid question, but ...

I've had a quick look at the tap adaptors for the chiller ... or more specifically, I've looked at my kitchen tap and I'm not sure how to attach it to an adaptor. There's no visible thread on my tap to screw in an adaptor (all there is is a screen, which I assume is a water saving thing. I'm not sure if I can somehow remove that screen or not, but there's no other obvious solution).

EDIT: Ah, it was a stupid question. The screen thing I was describing simply screwed out. Allowing me to replace it with the adaptor for the GF chiller.



And another question re designing recipes:

Up until now I've been BIABing and using the BIABacus spreadsheet to design all my recipes. Can/should I continue to use the BIABacus? I've also got Brewmate somewhere on my PC, so could switch to that if need be.

Basically I just want something where I can design a grain bill using percentages and then be told how much I'll need by weight, and how much water, etc etc for my GF system.

 

[buck_star]

You should have a little ring that will in screw on your tap and then it will go on. In regards to hop filter I have had issues with it clogging up so have gone back to using a sock. I knocked the filter off with paddle on my first brew and clogged the pump up.

 

[buck_star]

Beer smith has a grain father profile.

 

[kaiserben]

EDIT: Solution put into earlier post.

 

[Autopilot80]

Beer smith has a grain father profile.

That profile isn't really accurate even per the instructions you get with the GF, the sparge volumes are way off.

 

[slcmorro]

In regards to hop filter I have had issues with it clogging up so have gone back to using a sock.

I was going to ask that. Would a hop spider be a handy piece of equipment, for super hoppy brews?

 

[HBHB]

I was going to ask that. Would a hop spider beer a handy piece of equipment, for super hoppy brews?

Working with an off the shelf unit at the moment but it needs work. Spoke to Peter in NZ (Imake) and it's on the Wishlist.

In the meantime simply using a hop sock suspended over the side does a mighty job of reducing those losses without any loss of bitterness or flavour etc.

 

[wambesi]

Although I have yet to recieve a unit, I've been playing with the Beersmith profile to soften the wait.

By removing the 7 litre loss and manually editing the strike water with the GF formula it brings the sparge water to 1 litre off.

Would rather a profile that was spot on though.

 

[buck_star]

That profile isn't really accurate even per the instructions you get with the GF, the sparge volumes are way off.

Yeah I have noticed that so be using the instructions

 

[slcmorro]

Working with an off the shelf unit at the moment but it needs work. Spoke to Peter in NZ (Imake) and it's on the Wishlist.

In the meantime simply using a hop sock suspended over the side does a mighty job of reducing those losses without any loss of bitterness or flavour etc.

I sometimes use a hop sock with my current setup, CUB keg with a gas burner and it really helps with those beers that you want super clear and clean (Pils) so I can't see a problem with using one with a GF. Plus, it's cheap and easy to build your own hop spider anyways

 

[Snow]

OK. Pretty excited. Just unpacked my GF Christmas present this arvo and ran it through it's initial cleaning cycle. With the chiller, I will be setting it up as a closed-loop return cycle via our rainwater tank. Found out the GF kit only includes one barbed tap adapter, leaving me with the quandry of how to hook up the hot water discharge hose to my rainwater tank return hose. Problem solved with forcibly jamming the silicon discharge hose onto a standard garden tap disconnect. Anyone trying this method should make sure their garden tap disconnect has a tapered male fitting, as it was impossible to get the discharge hose onto a straight edge disconect fitting.

Looking forward to the first brew day tomorrow!!

Cheers Snow

 

[Trevandjo]

OK. Pretty excited. Just unpacked my GF Christmas present this arvo and ran it through it's initial cleaning cycle. With the chiller, I will be setting it up as a closed-loop return cycle via our rainwater tank. Found out the GF kit only includes one barbed tap adapter, leaving me with the quandry of how to hook up the hot water discharge hose to my rainwater tank return hose. Problem solved with forcibly jamming the silicon discharge hose onto a standard garden tap disconnect. Anyone trying this method should make sure their garden tap disconnect has a tapered male fitting, as it was impossible to get the discharge hose onto a straight edge disconect fitting.

Looking forward to the first brew day tomorrow!!


Cheers Snow

I'll be recycling to tank too. Unfortunately due to my set up I'll be discharging water to jerry cans then pouring them in. Not sure how much water I'll use.

Trev

 

[wambesi]

I fixed up a quick cleaning mod by joining the hose on the recirculation arm to the wort out hose on the chiller.
By positioning the wort in hose (with screw nut) over the hole in the lid (just reaches) you can now do one cleaning cycle, instead of one with the chiller and then the recirculation arm.

Equipment needed: Bit of bottling wand.



A few minutes saved is never laughed at in my book.

 

[Hippy]

So I had my first brew day with the GF the other day. I wanted to keep it fairly simple so my first brew was a little creatures bright ale clone with a single infusion mash followed by a honey wheat beer
Main issues I had were a slow sparge and the seal on the top plate coming loose, which was a result of neglecting to double check the silicon seal before I inserted the top plate. I'm pretty sure the sparge issues were caused by the plate seal lifting which caused the plate to drop and compacted the grain bed. The gap between the plate and malt pipe let a little bit of grain into the wort but nothing major.
The volume calculations provided gave pretty awesome mash efficiency on my first brew, where I achieved 10 gravity points higher than expected, but contributed to the sparge issues. On the second brew, which was a wheat beer with about 40% wheat bill I just went with 20L mash water and 12 L sparge. When I sparged I took the top plate off, lifted the overflow pipe to max height and poured about half the sparge water in at a time and used a mash paddle to scrape the bottom plate to lift the grain bed and improve the flow. In doing this I did the sparge a lot quicker than the first time. I also added an extra 4 litres of water post mash and during the boil to increase the volume and my OG was spot on to what beersmith predicted while my preboil gravity was high, so without the additional water my OG would have ended up much higher.
Piece of piss to clean and I no chilled as I didn't have time to get any starters up.

With the no chill I found a legnth of heavy duty 1/2 " silicon hose fitted snuggly over the wort return arm when pushed up past the hose barb onto the bend as per the above photo.
In terms of brew times, I did two brews back to back and it took about 9 hours. Considering there was a couple of blunders in the first brew which slowed the process down considerably as well ,as extra time taken to check the accuracy of the temp sensor by manually taking temp readings with a probe thermometer and double checking volumes,I reckon a brew could be done in around 4 hrs if you were step mashing.
All in all I'm extremely happy with it's performance and definitely think it's worth the coin.

 

[HBHB]

Mash in at 40 and give it a 30 minute rest. Should solve those lautering issues and stuck sparges. I wouldn't expect a 100g steel mesh to compact the grain bed...glad it all worked out in the end.

 

[Hippy]

Will give it a go Martin thanks.
It was not so much the weight of the plate but the fact the seal wasn't intact, creating resistance and holding the plate in place which caused the wort being pumped onto it to push it down.

 

[moodgett]

I found that my hop filter is pretty ineffective. With 50 grams of hops (pellets) the filter clogged up pretty quickly and then started pulling through the debris during the cooling. I had to syphon rack the wort into another FV once the hops settled. This inevitably led to a bit of extra loss. I would definitely recommend a hop spider. Ramp speed are pretty good too, although I did use the bigger element to get up to mash out temp (I don't know if this is recommended) and I found the smaller element was struggling to maintain 75 degrees with a 5kg malt bill. Boil was vigorous and you do have to pay close attention during the transition from ramp to boil as there isn't much head space so boil overs can happen quickly. Other than that the GF performed brilliantly. Look out world these things are going to sell like hot cakes.

hey I was wondering about this, does the hop filter issue effect just the hop debris into fv? or will it potentially stuff the pump up?

I've read a few comments saying a hop spider or hop sock with this system is almost a necessity, I'm a bit so-so about restricting my hops moving around in wort during the boil, and I'm super heavy handed with a lot of my beers.
that said I don't want to stuff the pump on my GF, but couldnt give a rats about not having crystal clear, hop debris free wort into FV (come from pouring stovetop partial boils into FV)
any feedback would be much appreciated

Cheers

moodgett

Cheers