Dedicated Grainfather Guide, Problems and Solutions Thread

[doctr-dan]

That looks like cold break too. I didn't get anywhere near that much (only noticed that I transferred some at the end). Did you use a whirfloc tablet or anything? I had no trouble the first brew without the tablet - I could see all of the cold break at the bottom of the kettle. This time.... Nothing, but not much transferred at all.

Last time I used a whirfloc and I had the same thing, this time I used a deltafloc tablet with the same result, I don't know if they are the same thing it's just what was supplied.
I thought it was just crap from the grains getting through, but I don't know a lot.
I will look up,cold break now

 

[BKBrews]

Last time I used a whirfloc and I had the same thing, this time I used a deltafloc tablet with the same result, I don't know if they are the same thing it's just what was supplied.
I thought it was just crap from the grains getting through, but I don't know a lot.
I will look up,cold break now

This time I didn't whirlpool, I just added my flameout hops and started cooling after 15min. Last time I whirlpooled for about 5min and those white 'clouds' you see in your fermenter were sitting at the bottom of the kettle on a pile. I think the GF still benefits from a whirlpool.

 

[Killer Brew]

I wouldn't be concerned with the cold break guys. Ideally you could remove some but yeast also need some. More of a concern in bigger operations I believe where they run it out of the cone.

 

[wildwhitty]

Whirlpooling leaves a cone of hops in the center and the filter clear.

 

[welly2]

I have finally dialed in my Grainfather equipment profile and the Mash & Sparge Water calculations in beersmith
Feel free to use and abuse B)


Grainfather Equipment Profile

Grainfather Profile.bsmx

Mash Profiles

Full Body Mash.bsmx

Medium Body Mash.bsmx

Light Body Mash.bsmx

This is brilliant and pretty close. I'm finding the mash water is spot on but the sparge is about a litre too high. The grainfather calc says for a 23L batch with 4.5kg of grain and 60 minute boil, the mash water should be 15.65L and sparge water 15.95L but this profile is showing 15.65L for mash water (bang on) and 16.86L for sparge water. I'm going to test it with a few different amounts of grain and see if that roughly 1L margin is the same throughout and can just adjust for it. But other than that, nice job. Thank you!

 

[BKBrews]

This is brilliant and pretty close. I'm finding the mash water is spot on but the sparge is about a litre too high. The grainfather calc says for a 23L batch with 4.5kg of grain and 60 minute boil, the mash water should be 15.65L and sparge water 15.95L but this profile is showing 15.65L for mash water (bang on) and 16.86L for sparge water. I'm going to test it with a few different amounts of grain and see if that roughly 1L margin is the same throughout and can just adjust for it. But other than that, nice job. Thank you!

I've got my profile to a point that I manually enter the mash water number (according to the GF calc) and then beersmith automatically calculates the sparge water number, which is normally roughly 0.2L higher than the GF calc.

For example, I did a 5kg SMASH last weekend which the GF calculator stated needs 17L mash and 15L sparge. Once I put the 17L mash water into beersmith, it spat out a sparge of 15.17L. works for me!

 

[nfragol]

What version of Beersmith are you using ?

With the latest version (2.3.7) my profile gives me exactly the volumes calculated by the online grainfather calculator.

Thats either using a 60 or a 90 boil.

 

[welly2]

What version of Beersmith are you using ?

With the latest version (2.3.7) my profile gives me exactly the volumes calculated by the online grainfather calculator.

Thats either using a 60 or a 90 boil.

Same version. 2.3.7. See attached.

View attachment Bitter.bsmx

 

[paulyman]

This is brilliant and pretty close. I'm finding the mash water is spot on but the sparge is about a litre too high. The grainfather calc says for a 23L batch with 4.5kg of grain and 60 minute boil, the mash water should be 15.65L and sparge water 15.95L but this profile is showing 15.65L for mash water (bang on) and 16.86L for sparge water. I'm going to test it with a few different amounts of grain and see if that roughly 1L margin is the same throughout and can just adjust for it. But other than that, nice job. Thank you!

I had a play around and the sparge water was consistently out by pretty well 1L for many different grain bills I put in. As I said earlier in the topic both the scales on the GF and the GF Urn are only accurate to 1L, so to me it's not a big deal.

 

[nfragol]

Same version. 2.3.7. See attached.

Bitter.bsmx

Actually, all you have to do is set the mush tun addition to 3.5 or 3.7 (i am at work and cant remember the exact number) for the grainfather deadspace.

Have you changed the grain absorption rate in the advance settings tab ?

I will take a look at your profile when i get home from work.

 

[nfragol]

Same version. 2.3.7. See attached.

Bitter.bsmx

@welly2

According to beersmith on my pc your profile is correct and gives me exact mash and sparge volumes.
(although i don't have "Adjust mash vol for losses" ticked).

Have you changed the grain absorption in the advanced settings tab to 0,7669 fl oz from 0,96 ?

 

[welly2]

@welly2

According to beersmith on my pc your profile is correct and gives me exact mash and sparge volumes.
(although i don't have "Adjust mash vol for losses" ticked).

Have you changed the grain absorption in the advanced settings tab to 0,7669 fl oz from 0,96 ?

I'll have a look when I get home, thanks for checking in to it though!

 

[welly2]

@welly2

According to beersmith on my pc your profile is correct and gives me exact mash and sparge volumes.
(although i don't have "Adjust mash vol for losses" ticked).

Have you changed the grain absorption in the advanced settings tab to 0,7669 fl oz from 0,96 ?

Just checked it on my work computer, that did the trick! It's absolutely bang on now. Thanks very much. This profile should go back to the developer of Beersmith to include with the software.

 

[Exile]

Sorry welly2, nfragol is right I should of added that to the comments section of my post.

 

[A.B.]

Anyone with a Grainfather and a Mini mill with fluted rollers ? If so what size gap are you using?

 

[Chridech]

Anyone with a Grainfather and a Mini mill with fluted rollers ? If so what size gap are you using?

Have the same set-up. Settled on 0.9mm for all Barley grists. Mash Efficiency varies between 75 and 82%, usually dependent on the grain weight. Haven't had a stuck sparge yet. Happy with the consistency and balance between efficiency and ease of sparging.

 

[A.B.]

Thanks. I had set my mill up at 0.9 for its first use tomorrow, so it's good to get confirmation

 

[BKBrews]

So it's happened to me again.... I keep getting stuck ferments and I don't know why. My IPA has stalled at 1.016 (starting gravity 1.064) and it's been in primary for 2 weeks. I had it at 18 degrees for 1 week, 20 degrees for about 4 days, then added a new brew to the fridge so dropped back to 19 degrees. Could it have anything to do with the wort temp when I pitched the yeast?

 

[Reedy]

So it's happened to me again.... I keep getting stuck ferments and I don't know why. My IPA has stalled at 1.016 (starting gravity 1.064) and it's been in primary for 2 weeks. I had it at 18 degrees for 1 week, 20 degrees for about 4 days, then added a new brew to the fridge so dropped back to 19 degrees. Could it have anything to do with the wort temp when I pitched the yeast?

It might well be finished based on your OG. What yeast did you use? What was your target FG?

 

[BKBrews]

I'll have to check my recipe sheet (can't find it), but the expected FG was around 1.012 using US-05.

EDIT: Expected SG was 1.065 and expected FG was 1.013.

 

[Reedy]

At 75% apparent attenuation, it's probably a little on the low side for US-05 (should be around 81% based on the Fermentis website).

I generally rehydrate US-05 and ferment at 18c for 14 days before I take a reading, never had an issue with a stalled ferment on this basis.

 

[doctr-dan]

Coming from someone who has no idea I would say it's finished when your starting OG was that high.
Also I spoke to a brewery and the head brewer said US-05 works best at around 20 something I can't remember exactly it was like 20.75 or something like that, very specific none the less but definately not 18 which I had always done.

 

[BKBrews]

This batch I stuffed up a little, in the fact that when I went to rehydrate my yeast I found some bits of stuff in my boiled (and cooled) water. I panicked and pitched 2 packets directly into the wort dry. 3 points isn't that bad I guess, I had 1.010 in my head for some reason. I'll probably leave it another week and cold crash next weekend to bottle.

 

[welly2]

Had a good brew day today. Used my new carbon filter, measured out water additions using Bru'n water to get the right ph (came in at 5.3 more or less bang on), efficiency was spot on. Ended up with a 88.2% mash efficiency and 78.3% brew house efficiency. I'm pretty chuffed with that. If I can get that every time, I'm going to be content. Exile's GF profile for beersmith was bang on. Well happy. I can retire Grainfather's calculators.

 

[A.B.]

I too had a good brew day, although it was interrupted by work on-call for 3hrs, and then some bricklaying, I managed to turn out a nice looking American IPA, just about to finish the boil and add a heap of Citra, Cascade, Chinook. Did have a minor ****** with my mill motor, so had to quickly fabricate a handle, but that should be fixed by next brewday.

 

[carniebrew]

So it's happened to me again.... I keep getting stuck ferments and I don't know why. My IPA has stalled at 1.016 (starting gravity 1.064) and it's been in primary for 2 weeks. I had it at 18 degrees for 1 week, 20 degrees for about 4 days, then added a new brew to the fridge so dropped back to 19 degrees. Could it have anything to do with the wort temp when I pitched the yeast?

Mate, nothing to worry about if you have a 1064 beer finish at 1016, that's quite normal. If you want to get it lower next time then just drop your mash temp by 1 or 2 degrees. But if it's stable now at 1016 then she's ready to go.

 

[paulyman]

The grainfather online calculator is gone... It just brings up a page not found error, so good job we have a beersmith profile sorted...

 

[kaiserben]

There's a new website. Just get rid of the .au

EDIT: Here's the full link.

 

[paulyman]

There's a new website. Just get rid of the .au

EDIT: Here's the full link.

Cheers that did the trick. They changed it quick, was working on the weekend and confused me today on my phone.

 

[wambesi]

Once the new app is released you won't need to go to the web site. Calculators are built into it.