Dedicated Grainfather Guide, Problems and Solutions Thread

[Chridech]

http://grainfatherweeklymash.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/week-62-large-grain-bill-brewing-what.html

Latest Weekly Mash report from Imake/Grainfather. Brewing with grain bills > 6kg. Nothing much specific for the Grainfather. More about recipe formulation for big beers. Mentions lower Efficiency with larger grain bills but not quantitative. Guess you need to brew a couple to get a feel for it.

 

[Ratu]

I just completed my first all grain recipe in my new Grainfather. It's only my fourth all grain brew overall. Love this piece of kit and it was a fun day.

It was a 23 litre batch and I used the Grandfather app. It called for a 17 litre mash and a 12 litre sparge. This left me three litres short of the expected 28 litre boil volume (which I added before the boil anyway). The post boil volume was spot on to give me 23 litres into the fermenter.

After the fact I checked the sparge calculation using the formula in the Grainfather instruction booklet. This gave me a figure of 15 litres. My "missing" three litres?

Has anyone come across this disparity before?

Using Grainfather's efficiency calculations I came in at 79% so I'm very happy with the result in any case.

 

[N3MIS15]

I use the calculators on their site (http://www.grainfather.com.au/#!brewing-calculator/cljs).
The app and the calculators page do differ slightly but not by enough to count. (the page seems more accurate).

The calculators on their site have given pretty good results in my experience..
EDIT: also worth checking your app is up to date. The latest version (on android at least) "Reviewed sparge water calculation"

 

[Ratu]

Thanks Kit Master. I'll check the web site and the currency of the app.

Ray

 

[Ratu]

Yep, app needed updating. Calculations are now pretty much aligned to to web site.

 

[jayjt29]

Hi guys,

Having read all the pages on this thread, i decided to take the plunge with the GrainFather. Im so glad i did, best bit of kit ive purchased to date!

Ive written a review on my first brew on a blog, it can be found on my site www.doghousehomebrew.com

Cheers

Jay

 

[welly2]

Hi guys,

Having read all the pages on this thread, i decided to take the plunge with the GrainFather. Im so glad i did, best bit of kit ive purchased to date!

Ive written a review on my first brew on a blog, it can be found on my site www.doghousehomebrew.com

Cheers

Jay

Welcome and your pub looks amazing! What a thing to have at the bottom of the garden! I'm from just up the road from you in Harrogate, but living in Australia now.

 

[butisitart]

Hi guys,

Having read all the pages on this thread, i decided to take the plunge with the GrainFather. Im so glad i did, best bit of kit ive purchased to date!

Ive written a review on my first brew on a blog, it can be found on my site www.doghousehomebrew.com

Cheers

Jay

don't tell me they're even selling these to the poms.
can you make hot piss in a gf??

seriously, welcome to the fray, jay.
you'll need to keep us up with any good brit recipes - we can get most of the stuff here, so enjoy :beer:

 

[Kingy]

Nice doghouse I've got plans for something along those lines off the back of my house. I'm slowly workin on the misses. She wants a deck I want a drinking establishment.

 

[fletcher]

sorry if this has been written before but just wanna check on something with the GF and mash pH.

how long should i take to take a reading once i've added minerals to mash water? i've read 5 mins so i've mashed in and have taken a reading from the wort above the top grating.

i did that and ph was still quite high, so have added phosphoric acid to bring it down to 5.4 with ATC pH reader using sydney water. i seem to have added a lot more acid than bru'n water would suggest to bring it to 5.4. it stated about 1.4ml and i've added about 3ml. having said that, i don't know the strength of the acid so it might be 10% and not higher.

is there a large discrepancy between the ph of the wort coming through the pump from the top than what is slowly perforating through the grain? i would assume no, but just want to make sure i haven't added way too much acid and the ph in the 'middle' of my GF is lower than what the wort above would suggest.

my first time with water chemistry and i know it's a stupid question so be easy on me >.<

thanks!

 

[Killer Brew]

Hi guys,

Having read all the pages on this thread, i decided to take the plunge with the GrainFather. Im so glad i did, best bit of kit ive purchased to date!

Ive written a review on my first brew on a blog, it can be found on my site www.doghousehomebrew.com

Cheers

Jay

Your doghouse is outstanding! I think my dog may need something like that.

 

[jayjt29]

Cheers All

Well I done my second brew today on the GF, it was a small grain bill of 3.7kg, so called for 13.49l of mash water, anyway the pump seemed to suck in air whilst circulating the mash, this did not happen on my first brew. It created quite alot of foam. I stopped and started the pump several times and it seemed to suck air in (some how) when the liquid went over the overflow pipe, it was running fine till then but as soon as the liquid reached the overflow air was sucked in?!

I wasn't to bothered about this but god knows why it happened! Anyway the sparge went without hitch took around 10 minutes to add the 17.47 litres of water, boil went well and then started the pump to circulate the wort to create a filter with the hops etc. No air intake or bubbles!

Anyone know why? Im not bothered as the sample from the trial jar tasted how i would have expected it to taste

Cheers Jay

 

[meathead]

Not saying this answer is definitive but here goes. My guess is that the strike water isn't flowing thru the grain fast enough into the dead space and hence air going thru pump. Temps would be effected as well.
What I do with a small grain bill is add more strike water say 3 litres and deduct from sparge

 

[HBHB]

3.7kg 16.5L mash water and 14.5L sparge would have been better suited. That allows for an extra 3L of mash water due to the small grain bill and would have made the grain a bit more buoyant, also allowing more water in the base around the pump inlet.

 

[butisitart]

i think you'll find that can happen on any grainbill size - i tend to get it on too finely milled grain, especially with wheat. my observation (and this may not be conclusive) is that in the moments that enough wort hits the overflow pipe to smother it, you'll hear a bubble sound from the unsmothered (wort plus air) further down the pipe and underneath it, when that air bubble finds space under the grain cannister. if it is happening on any grainbill, it is probable that your mill is too fine and you've got a sediment bed on the bottom of the grain cannister. or in other words, a slightly sticking mash.
i see you got your mash off the gf calculator - i think they need to do some refining there. try loading over about 9kg and the calculated mash water won't fit into the gf. perhaps, as per meathead and hbhb, the lower end also needs refining from the gf calculator, cos i can't really think how you could get a mash sticking in a gf on 3.7kg otherwise.

 

[jayjt29]

Cheers for the responses, interesting Ill try adding extra mash water next time I do a small grain bill, but as butisitart says can happen on any size grain bill.

Jay

 

[LAGERFRENZY]

I am about to buy a Gen 1 Grainfather that has the upgrade kit. If I were to purchase a Grainbrother would I still need to purchase another upgrade kit for it (the GB) so that the two would be compatible? I saw a post to this effect last year and was hoping that the manufacturer has since seen the light and upgraded the Bro.

 

[Killer Brew]

Cheers for the responses, interesting Ill try adding extra mash water next time I do a small grain bill, but as butisitart says can happen on any size grain bill.

Jay

Consider adding rice hulls (around $1.50 per kg from your LHBS) to small grain bills, particularly those with wheat. Will boost the bill size so the GF can be used as designed plus provides a filter bed to help prevent stuck sparges.

 

[Coodgee]

I was getting stuck sparges and the way i fixed it was to not stir the mash too much when mashing in

 

[welly2]

I was getting stuck sparges and the way i fixed it was to not stir the mash too much when mashing in

What worked for me, after dealing with two really, REALLY slow sparges (45 minutes and 1 hour 15 minute) was giving the mash a reasonable stir after mashing/mashing out. Sparge finished in 20 minutes and ended up with 89% efficiency.