Dedicated Grainfather Guide, Problems and Solutions Thread

[LAGERFRENZY]

Timely cheat sheets guys - I brought my GF many months ago from Brad but life got too busy to brew with it til now. Gunna fire her up this weekend. Damn this thread is good!

 

[carniebrew]

Okay so I mash for 1hr at 67 degrees and then heat to 75 degrees once at 75 degrees leave it for 15 mins the start sparging?

That'll do it. With most grains you'd probably get away with doing the 67C for 45m, then doing your mash out. Just remember to start sparging (with 75C ish water) pretty quickly after pulling up the mash pipe, or your sparge will take a lot longer.

 

[A.B.]

Yep

 

[Coldspace]

Definitely have your sparge jug ready to go with 76 to 80 water as soon as you pull the malt pipe.
Start pouring in around evenly across top plate as soon as the wort drains down past . And keep it pouring sparge. If you pause too long, the grain bed will drop down in temp and make the sparge too long or if double batch run the risk of stuck.
Sometimes I feel the tap on the gf urn can't keep up with the sparge drain, so I scoop sparge water out and onto top plate with a mug while filling sparge jug up, otherwise it slows down way to much. I don't want the sparge to drain down too deep into grain bed before next top up, otherwise the grain bed bogs down.

Keep the sparge flowing guys if double batching, I find 85 on my gf urn temp setting gives me about 80 into the jug after losses waiting for fill, and about 77 to 79 when onto top of grain bed.

Temp drops pretty quickly , so start at 85 on the gf urn dial.

I get my double batch sparges done in approx 10-15 mins.
Done over 50 double batches now, usually 1 a week on average, more so lately and this is what I've encountered.
Cheers

 

[fishingbrad]

What Coldspace said.

I turn my urn ON when mashing begins. This insures sparge water is up to temp when needed. I use 2 jugs alternating, colleting 2-3lt at a time depending how fast the sparge runs.
Good point on the sparge water temp drop Coldspace, I never thought of that. shall up mine.

Once you get a couple of single batches under your belt, go back and read Coldspace's post on double batching. It really is worth while and stuff all more effort.

Happy Brewing.

 

[doctr-dan]

Brew dy started 26.5 litres up to mash temp in 30minsabout to add the grain

 

[doctr-dan]

Pause to much water ! Almost stuffed up

 

[doctr-dan]

Looking good while mashing


Once I lifted the basket I forgot to push the plate down before sparging, is this going to be a problem?
Sparge seemed to be done pretty quick like 10-15mins max.

I just scooped out some wort to let cool and take a sg reading pre boil.


What's with the colour?????

 

[Wee Jimmy]

If you have a high enough bench in your brew space a length of hose coiled onto top plate and shoved on the end of the urn tap let sparge water drain through onto top plate. Will post a pic this arvo

 

[carniebrew]

Looking good while mashing

image.jpg

Once I lifted the basket I forgot to push the plate down before sparging, is this going to be a problem?
Sparge seemed to be done pretty quick like 10-15mins max.

I just scooped out some wort to let cool and take a sg reading pre boil.

image.jpg

What's with the colour?????

No probs on pushing the plate down, the sparge water's still getting through the mash.

How did you scoop the wort out for an sg reading, just from the top? Looks like you got mostly water. Make sure you give the wort a really good stir to ensure consistency before taking a sample. And if you can afford it I highly recommend a refractometer, much easier using a little pipette to take a few ml for a sample, that sample cools much faster and the refracs often have temp compensation anyway.

 

[doctr-dan]

Chilling now!

That ball valve got block straight away so had to pull it apart, made a bit of a mess.

When running a cleaning cycle do you put the grain basket and everything back in?

 

[carniebrew]

Chilling now!

That ball valve got block straight away so had to pull it apart, made a bit of a mess.

When running a cleaning cycle do you put the grain basket and everything back in?

I don't, I clean it separately. I hook the chiller up, then put the return arm onto the wort out tube on the chiller, re'circing back into the Grainfather.

 

[doctr-dan]

Still chilling , ball valve got blacked again so I have removed it now.
It's started slowing right down again should I try give the filter a scrape?

 

[A.B.]

Chilling now!

That ball valve got block straight away so had to pull it apart, made a bit of a mess.

When running a cleaning cycle do you put the grain basket and everything back in?

Cool. I clean the basket while boiling, then I also put it back in for the final clean, then a rinse and a spray of starsan.

My chook get the spent grain, but it can also go in the compost.

 

[Wee Jimmy]

As per earlier post

 

[nfragol]

Has anyone tried the new beersmith 2.3 update with the grainfather?

Its supposed to have fixed the mash and sparge calculations that didn't agree with the grainfather calculators.

 

[paulyman]

I've tried updating but keep getting an error that it"could not establish connection to server". So I'll give up for a day or two and see if I can try again.

Edited - auto correct changed day to week for some crazy reason! Bit exessive auto correct.

 

[nfragol]

I had the same issue at first, but after a computer restart the software updated correctly.

 

[paulyman]

Okay upgraded successfully today. I can't see any difference, it's not matching the grainfather calculator? I have it setup as per an earlier linked post.

I think I'll keep my process the same. Use Beersmith for recipe formulation and predicting efficiency and OG and use the calculator for volumes.

 

[nfragol]

There is supposedly an option in the equipment profile that adds the mash tun deadspace volume to the first mash step.

That should make the volumes calculations correct for the grainfather.

When I give it a try I'll let you know.