Grainfather vs Biab

[Alex.Tas]

So you really you need to add this onto the price of the grainfather is what Im getting at.

no you don't need to buy a grainfather one. From what i can tell, they are a regular urn with grainfather stamped onto it.

other options you could go with:

1. if you have a 5-6L kitchen pot at home you can heat this water up on the stove - I did this for a couple of years. it was easy and cost nothing as i already had the pot.
2. use a cold water sparge as SBOB suggests. - not sure what % drop you would get, but i doubt it would be much.
3. Or you can keep an eye out on gumtree/ebay for 2nd hand urns as slcmorro suggests. I picked up an old 20L birko urn for $20. the advantage for me in having the separate urn is that i don't brew near my kitchen.
4. Or you can skip the sparge step for a slight drop in efficiency.

 

[Drick]

How do most Grainfather users heat up there sparge water? I've been watching a few YouTube clips etc and noticed a few seem to have a urn as well for this purpose.
Is this common ?

I've been using the GF to heat the water and store it in a cooler.

I have read of some people who use hot tap water which they bring up to sparge temp by adding some boiled water. I've checked my hot water for devolved solids and it seems OK so I'm going to try it with my next brew as it'll knock around 50 minutes off my total brew time.

 

[doctr-dan]

Okay thanks

I wasn't meaning the grandfather urn specifically just a urn.

 

[doctr-dan]

In my complete noob state the things I like about the grainfather over a 40ltr urn are,

Not having to hoist the bag up and being able to setup the temperature and not have to monitor it. It seems like you can walk away from it a little bit and do something else.
Im not sure on the chiller if its more hassle than its worth as from what Ive read it doesn't chill down to pitching temp anyway so would it be easier and more time efficient to no chill?

A 40ltr Urn on the other hand has a massive cost benefit

 

[welly2]

I'm using the crown urn I bought when I got into all grain brewing. I almost got rid of it a few years ago. Glad I kept it now, it's a perfect HLT for sparge water heating.

 

[welly2]

In my complete noob state the things I like about the grainfather over a 40ltr urn are,

Not having to hoist the bag up and being able to setup the temperature and not have to monitor it. It seems like you can walk away from it a little bit and do something else.
Im not sure on the chiller if its more hassle than its worth as from what Ive read it doesn't chill down to pitching temp anyway so would it be easier and more time efficient to no chill?

A 40ltr Urn on the other hand has a massive cost benefit

The chiller is excellent. I get down to about 26C in 15-20 minutes using the water coming out of the tap at this time of year, which is about 22c. I'm putting together an intermediary cooler via an immersion chiller and an esky full of ice water to bring the water down to much less than that before it goes into the grainfather chiller. I reckon I'll be chilling it down to pitching temperature in less time if all goes to plan. And then winter water temperature should be much lower than 22c so that'll help too. But the chiller is very good and quite efficient.