That seems like a good setup. So many different ways to skin the cat. I don’t care how much it costs, so that doesn’t factor in. I just want the cleanest and most efficient process from start to finish. Seemed the Grainfather ticked all the boxes. I’ll keep snooping around for ideas. Cheers
Yeah, not sure what your space requirements etc are, but I find that something like a ferm fridge can also double up for warming yeast starters etc. Also, when you're not brewing you can use it as a fridge on it's own (I brew too often for this hahaha) but I also like making bread / pizza so I use it for making pizza / dough in as well.
It really is a very painless process, but that's only for 23L batches. My setup is all in the garage, and within a few meters of each other. If I was super lazy, I would put the empty prepped fermenter into the fridge, then pump from the Guten into the fermenter to fill it. Then, when done I could have a 2-3m gas line from the bottle and hook to the fermenter still in the fridge and transfer it. Means I wouldn't need to lift a filled fermenter once.
At the end of the day, at least in my opinion, a dedicated ferm fridge + keg setup made a world of difference, because of zero oxygen transfers. The other thing to look up (and please don't jump on me everyone) is the RAPT ferm chamber I believe from KegLand. (I buy from both places I AM NOT AN EMPLOYEE OF EITHER KK OR KL) which seems like a really nice bit of kit for $499
RAPT Temperature Controlled Fermentation Chamber/Fridge
but yeah, I am in the camp of 'buy once, cry once' but sometimes a little thrift can get you much for value, and sometimes a better set up (in my opinion).
Either way, the GF looks sweet and if money wasn't an issue I would seriously look at running it with a Glycol, just remember the GF doesn't come with a chiller so that's another $600+ and then having to deal with Glycol.