Dedicated Grainfather Guide, Problems and Solutions Thread

[Bribie G]

Aha, time to read the full thread methinks :lol:

 

[tugger]

My pump died today.
It's fooked. Mid brew.
Lucky I was planning on immersion chilling and have a spare auto siphon.
I'm going to order a new one on Tuesday when the lhbs opens.

 

[Bribie G]

So is the pump covered by a warranty?

 

[TidalPete]

Bribie G, on 12 Mar 2016 - 4:10 PM, said:


With my beloved Crown Urn now approaching six years old it's time to consider a "succession plan" and thinking of stabling it with a young whipper-snapper unit as a transition to its eventual retirement.

You only live once Bribie so please consider tossing in a few dollars for a

:icon_offtopic: :icon_offtopic: Braumeister.

Ever Poms reach their use-by-date sooner or later so go for it old son!

If my HERMS exploded or the house was destroyed by fire that's how I would go. No disrespect to the Grainfather intended really & truly. :beer:

Hope this helps? :wub:

 

[Bribie G]

Thank's Pete, I've actually used a BM, or at least participated in a BM brew when we had the systems war on in 2011.. shit was it that long ago... and we all minded each others systems when we had to go for a brew or a slash, and I minded the BM for Pocket Beers while he was called away for his celebrity photo shoot for the conference. We did the post boil rest then the drain.

TBH I didn't find it worth ten times a Crown Urn, impressive though it was, but I can see the advantages of a GF from the point of view of not having to do lagging and much probing with my stick thermometer, plus the malt pipe (I've had a couple of stabs at doing my own malt pipe, you may remember) and the GF seems to be a fairly good system that's more sensibly priced for what it is. More like an automatic version of a Ford Focus rather than a BMW but gets the wort done just the same.

 

[TidalPete]

And still :icon_offtopic:

No worries Bribie!

Each to his own I guess?

Don't suppose you'd be keen on setting up an el-cheapo HERMS when the time comes?
Only too happy to help out there. Too easy! :beer:

 

[tugger]

So is the pump covered by a warranty?

i will ask but don't really expect it too.

 

[Bribie G]

i will ask but don't really expect it too.

It it's less than 2 years old I'd certainly expect it - most consumer electrics like fridges, etc are routinely covered.

Another advantage of the GF is that you can get a certain attachment that we don't talk about on this main forum.

 

[Killer Brew]

12 month warranty but as has been mentioned many times in this thread the GF guys stand behind their product. Worth asking the question.

 

[butisitart]

47 brews down, i could only see me replacing my gf with 2 things -
a braumeister. ain't gonna happen according to the director of domestic finances, and i should remain thankful that i got a gf.
or a bling thing that i design myself, spend $11230 on and take 9 years to assemble.
if i were going to spend the same money on a system again, would i buy a gf? yep. simple.
ain't perfect heaven, but i found that hooked into a minimash mill and beersmith, it's in pretty good company.
(no affiliations).
cons if you're interested - it's a bit fiddly at the end of boil - you have to decide what to do with the 2L or so of tun leftover (see above), then take immersion chiller lines off to sort that out, then rinse gf, then re-connect immersion chiller lines for a rinse, then disonnect so you can properly clean gf, then re-connect so you can clean immersion chiller (unless somebody has a quicker way of doing this). apart from the end clean which happens to come at about the same time as you need a rest and a refreshing cup of tea, the rest is utterly control freak enjoyable.

 

[butisitart]

Goony? Wine cask bladder?

goony - 2L glass bottle prehistoric cask bladder. popular in the 1970s with university students. abherraion of flagon to flagoon, goony.
ah - the good old days, when you could shout the household a goony for $1.99 then letch on to the girl with the vaguest responses.

 

[paulyman]

i will ask but don't really expect it too.

I would damn well expect it to be covered and would push it under our consumer law if I had to. I'd expect something like this to last much more than 2 years under reasonable wear and tear. But I get the feeling you won't have to push it, these guys seem to genuinely love their product.

 

[Coldspace]

About 50 brews into mine and loving it. Spectacular beers and consistent as well with receipes. I mainly run double batches through mine with 8.5 to 9 kgs of grain.

Plus no chill into cubes. Couldn't be better.

 

[butisitart]

I would damn well expect it to be covered and would push it under our consumer law if I had to. I'd expect something like this to last much more than 2 years under reasonable wear and tear. But I get the feeling you won't have to push it, these guys seem to genuinely love their product.

yep - consumer act 2009 states that a product must be replaced if it fails to operate within a reasonable expected life time of that product (paraphrasing here).
so equally, if you ever consider getting an 'extended warranty' on something, think again, you're covered anyway.
i've had one expensive product (60inch plasma tele) had the guts replaced out of it at 3 1/2 years, no extended warranty, under that act, without question, because a tv should last 6-7 years minimum.
if you have any problems getting it replaced, please report back. there'll be a backlash.

 

[wambesi]

Of course the pump is covered guys, we back all our products and I've had no complaints with not being looked after - at least since I started with them.

Any problems are dealt with as soon as we can. Your first port of call should be with where you purchased it and they should be able to look after you.

 

[tugger]

Either way it's not a problem. I will just use the other one until it's fixed.

 

[nfragol]

Hi, anyone using the Brewferm mill? If so, at what setting? And how long does sparge take with that setting?

Cheers

Hi there, sorry for the late reply.
I am using a Brewferm mill. I have the setting at 1mm, sparge doesn't take more than 20 or so minutes and been having good efficiency.

 

[stuartf]

Does anyone have experience with grain bills at the higher end of the GF's capacity? Got an RIS in the planning stage but wanted to know what issues I may hit trying to mash a 8-9kg grain bill? To date my largest has been 6kg, I'm guessing slower sparge is the main thing?

 

[Coodgee]

I think poor efficiency is also an issue with grain bills that large because you have such little water left to sparge with. Never tried it myself but there are comments in this thread about it. I would sparge till you had it full to the 30l mark

 

[MastersBrewery]

I think poor efficiency is also an issue with grain bills that large because you have such little water left to sparge with. Never tried it myself but there are comments in this thread about it. I would sparge till you had it full to the 30l mark

As with any process there is a sweet spot for efficiency.
You can do 0 to 200kmph in 12 seconds but use lots of fuel and cover little distance or you could cover 20 times that distance for the same fuel... just slower. Extreams will never give great results even on pro gear.

MB