New Grainfather Conical Fermenter

[SBOB]

The prices I've seen are:

$740 for the conical.
$140 for the dual valve tap.
$90 for the temperature controller.
$1430 for the glycol chiller.

Those prices put it at a similar price to the BME chronical 7. The SSBrewtech glycol unit doesn't seem to ever be coming to Aus as far as I have heard and I have put feelers out, at least for a price anywhere near that, so they may have the market there.

~$900 for a 30L conical with a pretty tricky looking valve setup

outside impulse buy territory

 

[Hippy]

Yeah that sample valve looks like a ***** to clean.

 

[wambesi]

Hi all, I thought I'd quickly jump in and post a few photos I took this morning after reading the last two posts.

Although I may be bias, I do believe this tap design is quite innovative and personally don't think its tricky - it also comes apart quite well for easy cleaning - there's also a little wire brush included.

 

[Peter80]

Is the tap a ball valve and if yes can it be disabled for cleaning?

 

[malt junkie]

Hi all, I thought I'd quickly jump in and post a few photos I took this morning after reading the last two posts.

Although I may be bias, I do believe this tap design is quite innovative and personally don't think its tricky - it also comes apart quite well for easy cleaning - there's also a little wire brush included.

2017-05-23 08.49.11.jpg

2017-05-23 08.53.33.jpg

Way more complex than used in commercial setups. I don't get why it needs to be so, more parts, more seals, more crevasses for nasties to hide.I prefer the rotating racking arm used by Stout, Glacier, and most commercial CCV manufacturers, simple to use, simple to clean.

Innovative it probably is, and if you like it and it works for you, all good.

 

[Hippy]

Way more complex than used in commercial setups. I don't get why it needs to be so, more parts, more seals, more crevasses for nasties to hide.I prefer the rotating racking arm used by Stout, Glacier, and most commercial CCV manufacturers, simple to use, simple to clean.

Innovative it probably is, and if you like it and it works for you, all good.

I tend to agree.
Don't get me wrong I think the conical itself looks like a very well designed piece of kit and with a glycol unit would be any home brewer's wet dream. However I have recently picked up a 100L conical with triclover ball valves which I will be replacing with butterfly valves as soon as possible because they are much easier to clean and sanitize. While the tap design is quite clever I feel that it has a lot of small parts that will require a lot of attention when it comes to cleaning.
That's just my opinion however and it may be completely wrong as I've never had any practical experience with the grainfather conical.

 

[lespaul]

Seems like the jacket system and glycol chiller is wayyy too much money for something thats limited to 30lt, overkill?

 

[skb]

So did anyone take the plunge and get one ?

 

[paulyman]

So did anyone take the plunge and get one ?

I did. Done two batches so far and dumped both due to oil contamination. There was no instructions on taking apart the tap for cleaning!

After dumping batch 2 tonight I took some time to see if I could take it apart and more importantly put it back together. Took some video and have posted to the Grainfather Users Facebook group. There was oil residue everywhere inside the damn thing and two tsp cleans hadn't helped. Good and clean now and relatively easy to clean and take apart/put back together.

Again, no idea why there are no instructions out there.

Great bit of kit otherwise, hopefully now the tap is fully cleaned up I can get a batch through it that doesn't taste like rancid oil.

 

[fungrel]

I did. Done two batches so far and dumped both due to oil contamination. There was no instructions on taking apart the tap for cleaning!

After dumping batch 2 tonight I took some time to see if I could take it apart and more importantly put it back together. Took some video and have posted to the Grainfather Users Facebook group. There was oil residue everywhere inside the damn thing and two tsp cleans hadn't helped. Good and clean now and relatively easy to clean and take apart/put back together.

Again, no idea why there are no instructions out there.

Great bit of kit otherwise, hopefully now the tap is fully cleaned up I can get a batch through it that doesn't taste like rancid oil.

I saw those videos you posted. How odd the package didn't include strip-down instructions for the tap.

 

[paulyman]

I saw those videos you posted. How odd the package didn't include strip-down instructions for the tap.

Yeah it is strange. Ssbrewtech have detailed instructions on how to prep their conicals and brew buckets and how to strip the ball valves. Although the little ball valve on the brew buckets doesn't break down particularly far which I don't like, it's the same one as on the GF tap.

 

[wambesi]

Hi there, you're right that we don't have it in the instruction manual at the moment but we should have a PDF shortly with the instructions for it and hopefully next print run will see it included

 

[wambesi]

Thanks for the videos but we also now have the following available: https://www.grainfather.com/media/wysiwyg/PDFs/DualValveTapAssembly_copy.pdf

 

[EalingDrop]

Thanks for the videos but we also now have the following available: https://www.grainfather.com/media/wysiwyg/PDFs/DualValveTapAssembly_copy.pdf

This will come in handy, I've just ordered the Grainfather Fermenter (pro edition).

I'm making a glycol chiller using a bar fridge, tray of water and a pump. To stop the water freezing, I'm considering adding anti freeze but not sure if has any adverse effects on the cooling jacket.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

This will come in handy, I've just ordered the Grainfather Fermenter (pro edition).

I'm making a glycol chiller using a bar fridge, tray of water and a pump. To stop the water freezing, I'm considering adding anti freeze but not sure if has any adverse effects on the cooling jacket.

Why bother with antifreeze? Just use metho, it's vastly cheaper and just as effective. Since you don't need very low brine temperatures you can use ~20% metho in water.

 

[EalingDrop]

I did. Done two batches so far and dumped both due to oil contamination. There was no instructions on taking apart the tap for cleaning!

After dumping batch 2 tonight I took some time to see if I could take it apart and more importantly put it back together. Took some video and have posted to the Grainfather Users Facebook group. There was oil residue everywhere inside the damn thing and two tsp cleans hadn't helped. Good and clean now and relatively easy to clean and take apart/put back together.

Again, no idea why there are no instructions out there.

Great bit of kit otherwise, hopefully now the tap is fully cleaned up I can get a batch through it that doesn't taste like rancid oil.

Pauly, have you dry hopped in this yet? If so, how did you find dumping hop debris?

From their website, it only talks about fruit additions going into nylon bags, but that won't work with a NEIPA dry hop schedule where I intend to dump the first lot of hops just a bit after active fermentation.

Orginally thinking of a Witbier which would be easy. but changed my mind.

 

[paulyman]

Pauly, have you dry hopped in this yet? If so, how did you find dumping hop debris?

From their website, it only talks about fruit additions going into nylon bags, but that won't work with a NEIPA dry hop schedule where I intend to dump the first lot of hops just a bit after active fermentation.

Orginally thinking of a Witbier which would be easy. but changed my mind.

Yeah I have done a dry hop. Put 200g straight in no bag and it dumped out fine. I have the pressure transfer setup now as well which comes with a stainless siphon, so makes transfer with large hop additions even easier.

 

[wambesi]

One of our testing guys has been dumping hops through the yeast dump, but it's going to depend on the amount of course.

We also have the longer inlet ideal for hoppier beers, I have yet to use it myself though.

 

[EalingDrop]

Sweet! Just the answers I needed.

The ghetto glycol is also in place. Using 25L@22c of water to test and a starting water bath temp of 5c, it takes 4mins per degree. The fridge could not chill it any future and reaching an equilibrium of 12.8c. Good enough for Ales.

Since that first test, I've submerged the coolant panel directly into the water bath and using a much larger and flexible bucket (26L).

I'm not 100% sure if it's possible to cold crash without requiring to add ice, will find out in a few weeks.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Very nice! Should pop some isolation valves on the inlet and outlet on the fermenter so you don't have to drain the glycol coil inside everytime you move to clean/hose down etc. Even some form of dry break coupling on the hose and then inlet/outlet would be perfect.