All Things GrainFather

[maltbarley]

Hi all,
Since there are now 4 of us using these, I figured a separate topic about the GF would be a good idea. In addition to that, it's helpful to have a spare parts resource if you are stuck in a brew day with a broken lid, controller or pump.

So, I'll start the discussion by showing off my set-up.

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I re-purposed my old boil kettle for the HLT and use a sous vide cooker to heat the sparge water along with a cheap heat stick. The tall stand looks goofy but serves the purpose of a gravity fed sparge. I don't need to move the system around but the casters hold the stand off the ground in the event that I need to reset the GF heater trip (hasn't happened yet).

In all, I'm really enjoying this system. The simplicity and thoughtful design coupled with the excellent GF customer service have made it a great choice.

Big thanks to ScottK for being the club pioneer on this one.

[ScottK]

Good topic Tim. Thanks for starting it. I'll chime in again later when I've got some pictures of my setup as well. Brian, Tim, and I have been discussing brewing similar or the same batches on the Graindfathers and comparing the differences. With the same systems it will be easy to control the variables.

[lexuschris]

I too am eagerlly eyeing a GF ... for distilling, but I also see the value as a 5-gal beer batch, less space, electric brew system.. very cool! Thanks for starting this thread Tim!
--LexusChris

[brianc]

My first batch on the GF is currently fermenting away. Nice to dust off the brewing boots, I mean flip flops, again!

[Luckbad]

My first Grainfather batch is cold crashing in the freezer.

I'm brewing again tomorrow with a couple of friends from work who don't yet homebrew.

I bought a Grainfather Conical with Cooling Kit this past week at Windsor (had to order it).

Tomorrow I should also have a used glycol chiller from someone else at work.

I'll try to get some shots of the setup. I think I'll use the delayed start to heat up the strike water as well.

[Luckbad]

I got the glycol chiller (UBC Kalinka-Ice KG-1/6T) from my buddy at work. Cool provenance on the chiller: It previously belonged to Wes of Bottle Logic. This has good beer in its veins!

You can see that I have it indoors right now. It might get moved into the garage because it's not the quietest setup in the world. The conical does a great job of holding temperature with the double wall/insulation, so it should be fine even out in a 100 degree garage.

Presently, I'm using the Grainfather Conical cooling kit. Its pump is in the glycol chiller's reservoir. I contacted Bevie and they recommended going no higher than 5% propylene glycol with the pump. That kinda sucks, because it means you can't go terribly low on the temperature (freezing is only a couple of degrees lower with that low of a concentration of glycol).

They let me know that the output on the controller is 12VDC/3A, so it would be pretty easy to replace the pump with something more powerful.

Since I am only using the one fermentor, I'm taking another route.

The glycol chiller's pump is currently just looping back on itself. I'm going to add a relay that is controlled by the Grainfather Conical controller to activate the big Flojet pump. This thing is monster powerful and can technically handle a 50/50 glycol solution, but I'll probably do 70/30.

One more ale at the request of the wife, but then I'll be fermenting a lager in it.

This conical is pretty outstanding. I was a bit worried based on a few comments about leaks, but things are going very well so far. It takes less than 3 minutes to go from 68.5 °F to 68 °F (I set the hysteresis to 0.5 from 0.9) with the glycol chiller set to 58 °F. Since cool liquid is left in the jacket, it overshoots by 0.2 °F. I actually transferred to it at 80 °F and it only took maybe an hour to get to pitching temp.

The precise control and ability to program 5 steps does make one inclined to get too fancy. This Belgian Pale did 66 °F for a day, 68 for a day, 70 for 2 days, and is now 77 until it's 100% stable gravity, at which point I'll advance it to cold crash (temperature dependent on the arrival of my relay parts).

My biggest problem with the Grainfather (apart from my initial pump issues, which Bevie promptly resolved by replacing my entire unit) is that it makes for such a pleasant brew day, I want to brew about once a week and can only handle every 2-3 weeks depending on fermentation (and the status of my 2 kegs).

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[maltbarley]

I have my chiller cooling a water bath and then a small flojet connected to an inkbird with the probe in the fermenter. Simple and works well. I used straight RV coolant from Wal-Mart and it hasn't been a problem.

[ScottK]

My biggest problem with the Grainfather (apart from my initial pump issues, which Bevie promptly resolved by replacing my entire unit) is that it makes for such a pleasant brew day, I want to brew about once a week and can only handle every 2-3 weeks depending on fermentation (and the status of my 2 kegs).

My feeling exactly. I'm in the same boat.

[Luckbad]

I modified my glycol chiller to use its pump directly with the Grainfather Conical and its cooling kit. The pump from the kit is back in the box. This allows me to use up to a 50/50 propylene glycol/water solution. It's closer to 30% glycol now, which is more than enough.

The cooling capability of the Grainfather Conical is really impressive. I'll be cold crashing with it today or tomorrow depending on gravity readings. The White Labs Belgian Ale yeast decided to go slow and steady because I tried a thing (used wort from the mash as starter fuel for a few hours... didn't work as well as a day-before stir plate).

I made all of the connections temporary for now. No cutting of any of the chiller's wires and nothing's actually soldered together, just crimped.

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As you can't see, there's a solid state relay under that heatsink. The wires are all crimped together and I popped some electrical tape on for extra insurance against shorts. That red wire isn't actually hot, it's neutral. The black wires are hot (except for one of the black wires from mains... yeah, the color coding was jacked, so I had to check continuity).

This is definitely a better idea than my previous thought of using an external relay setup. This is stuck to the floor of the chiller with Velcro and is easily removed. It stays inside the housing and is nice and inconspicuous.

You can see it in action here. Pretty boring, but I'm able to switch the pump on manually or with a DC signal.

https://youtu.be/VTrJSUz9DRE

This is the before:

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[Luckbad]

Posted a four brew review of the Grainfather.

TLDR: I'll likely end up using the Grainfather exclusively as a mash/lauter tun. When I can afford to grab a nice immersion chiller or even a decent pump, I'll probably boil in a kettle again.

http://www.madalchemist.com/archives/th ... ew-review/

[Luckbad]

I'll be brewing tomorrow with the revised setup.

Mash: Grainfather
Sparge: My old cooler mash tun will act as the HLT (will heat in the kettle with the HotRod Heat Stick)
Boil: Modified ancient Bayou Classic on a Blichmann HellFire
Chilling: Grainfather counterflow chiller using a Topsflo TD5 pump and cam and groove. Pre-chill will go through an ice bucket to get it vaguely near lager pitching temp

I absolutely love the Grainfather for step mashes. Sparging with it gives me the willies because so much hot side aeration-maybe-oxidation is taking place.

The plan is to mash in the GF, pump over to the kettle, and boil with good ol' propane. I'll still use the Grainfather's counterflow chiller for now. It's a solid piece of gear. I've become used to immersion chillers in the past 15 years and might end up going back to a JaDeD Hydra, but not for now.

I should probably replace my kettle sometime soon. The Bayou Classic I have could probably get a Classic license plate at this point. It must be a decade old. Brewers Hardware punched a hole for me and added a bulkhead maybe 5 years ago, and I just switched the 1/2" barb to cam and groove.

The HotRod Heat Stick from Brew Hardware is probably redundant now. I'm just going to use it to heat up the sparge water, but I could just easily use the HellFire instead. I found it essential to boiling in the Grainfather when doing a 90+ minute boil with pilsner malt.