All Grain Brewing System reviews.

[Hoddy]

I could quite easily make a proper controller for a GF. As I am a process control engineer. But that would cost about £100 plus my time to do the software development. So that and the £650 for a GF does get it quite close to a BM. I have seen on the BM forum that there is talk of a PC client program for the new BM and the "network connection" the new one has. Allegedly to remotely monitor and add/modify mash profiles and recipes. Although there is not much out there info wise on when it might come out, if at all. Anyone else heard this?

 

[skiard]

The advantage of Brewster is Price (at least where I come from) and changeability - a versatile setup. GF is sturdy made and I love the destilation top. But it also very tight build.. Fx. What if the pump stop working? The BM is just too expensive... I'm from Denmark by the way and I use my Brewster for a lot of other things than brewing beer. I have aktually two boilers - a cheap no-name and all the accessories fits right on... Would change some of the nylon tubes with cobber to loose some of the dangliness. U need to think about what u want to use it for how versatile u need it to be.. I'm sure all three are equally good at brewing beer - wich one to choose is a mater of religion (or money) [emoji3]

 

[DoctorMick]

That's the only thing with the GF. I'm not convinced it has the same reliability as the BM. Anyone else able to sing for the BM or had issues with the GF since having one.

My hot wort out tube split twice on my GF, I now have about 10 spares after I sent them a tweet telling them. I've had no other technical issues, so far, but I know they're really good at providing advice and troubleshooting if you get in touch with them. From what I've seen the build quality of the BM is better, the question is does that increase warrant the price difference? Hopefully I'll get to trial the 10l BM to find out.

One thing that may be of interest for some people, you can easily (with the help of a few hundred quid) repurpose a GF as a still which I hope to do next year.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

One thing that may be of interest for some people, you can easily (with the help of a few hundred quid) re-purpose a GF as a still which I hope to do next year.

Could i ask anyone wishing to discuss this further to use Private Messages, discussing distilling is against the forum T&C's.

 

[Hoddy]

With any luck some of the GF reviews from the forum members will appear on here? How many are being handed around and when will we see some honest "equipment" reviews of the GF?? I really want to review a BM before buying one. But that might just be me being hopeful.
[emoji106]

 

[McMullan]

With any luck some of the GF reviews from the forum members will appear on here? How many are being handed around and when will we see some honest "equipment" reviews of the GF?? I really want to review a BM before buying one. But that might just be me being hopeful.
[emoji106]

I don't talk sh*t and have problems tolerating it most of the time. There, that's me. The Braumeister is top quality and a fantastic all-in-one design for wort making. You wouldn't be disappointed.

 

[Hoddy]

So just to mix it up a bit, and going ever so slightly off topic. What is everyone's views on a custom built solution like the blichman with additional HLT's mash tuns etc added on. What has people's success been with those 2 or 3 can set ups? What's the eventual final cost been? More or less than a GF or a BM?

 

[McMullan]

If I had the money and the space, an electric Blichmann set up would be on the cards.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrrSzxOzXgg[/ame]

 

[MyQul]

Like the look of the Blicmann. This thread definatley seems to have turned into brewing porn :lol:

 

[Hoddy]

[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23] [emoji106]

 

[dweb]

What about a Brewferm Beer Brew 25?Just received an email from GeterBrewed about them.I asked how they compare to the GF and they said they haven`t tried it yet.The only main difference I see ,is the lack of a pump but then it is only £435.

 

[Hoddy]

But Chippy does anyone know any suppliers in the UK who actually sells the Breweasy as a complete set?? Or anyone who actually sells an equiv as a complete set. I a complete set, rather than a cobbled set of pots and pans from eBay. I want to do a cost comparison of an electrical 3 tier setup and a BM.

 

[Fil]

What about a Brewferm Beer Brew 25?Just received an email from GeterBrewed about them.I asked how they compare to the GF and they said they haven`t tried it yet.The only main difference I see ,is the lack of a pump but then it is only £435.

the G/F bundle with its included cfc is a complete system ready to brew out of the box tho as an owner i am biased

 

[Spoon]

So just to mix it up a bit, and going ever so slightly off topic. What is everyone's views on a custom built solution like the blichman with additional HLT's mash tuns etc added on. What has people's success been with those 2 or 3 can set ups? What's the eventual final cost been? More or less than a GF or a BM?

Give me another month and I might have an answer. I'm currently building "TheAn Electric Brewery" based on the original but with some changes based mostly around cost saving and usability (adding a valentine arm, using an immersion chiller, vacuum break to the mash tun false bottom to prevent a stuck mash and I'll only use 2 PID's).

So far I'm about ��£500 in and still need to buy sundries like cable, connectors, etc and that is using Polypropylene buckets not stock pots, and brass fittings not stainless.

Rough breakdown of costs

��£100 - stuff from homebrew shops (buckets, strainers, etc)
��£200 - stuff from screwfix (plumbing and cabling)
��£200 - control panel stuff fro Rapid and Ebay.

So the cost is going to equal the grainfather almost certainly. The upside is I like fiddling with stuff and I can spread the cost out with ��£100 worth of stuff each month. And in the future I can upgrade to stainless pots (or even a full on microbrewery) with little more than new pots and elements (control panel should be good for about 14kW per vessel if you can find a 60A single phase supply, else it'd need about another ��£100 spending on 3 phase relays and SSR's).

 

[glynb]

Firstly, sorry to resurrect an old thread but with it being a sticky..hey ho. I have to admit that I'm getting frustrated with my grainfather. The transfer flow rate is very slow due to the filter getting blocked with mush all the time no matter what I do. I've lined the filter with fine mesh.. it gets blocked. Today I used a pair of tights wrapped over the bottom plate and middle tube and even used a pre boiled hop bag.. filter still blocked. Very slow flow rate through the counter wort chiller which worries me because I'm thinking contamination all the time. Buckle up, there's more! I set the mash temp today to 65. I just want to mention that I insulated the outside of it with that silver bubble wrap stuff from B&Q because of this problem.. It supposed to stay within 1 degree either side of your set mash temp. Nope, dropped as low as 60 and then as high as 71. The last problem is the boiler element is too weak. I suggest you turn on the boil feature when you are sparging or you'll be there forever! Getting from 99c to 100c you have to keep pressing the green button until it decides that yes, it's actually boiling as it keeps flicking between 99 and HH (HH is when it hits 100c, it stays at 100 too unless you look at it.. *******.. lol. I'd have like to have seen a little higher on the temp, maybe 101 to make sure as I wasn't confident during the mash stage). And just getting from 98/99 to 100 takes I'd say at least 5 mins.. Then you add your 60 min hops... temp drops again, at least 5 minutes before the beep goes as the temp has dropped to 98. At least 15 mins before the end of the boil time, you have to connect the counter wort chiller and run the pump to sterilise it.. boil temp will drop gain. The efficiency of it extracting what we need from the grain is awesome and IMHO, that's the only thing it has going for it to be honest. At this moment in time I'm glad I didn't sell my trusty ol' coolbox mash tun and sub wort chiller.. If there's a braumister trial happening, I'd love to take part in that. Just like to add that knowing me I've bought a duff one and I'd love to hear if anyone else has experienced these problems.

Take care everyone.

glyn.

 

[Fil]

hi Glyn.. re the hop filter issues there are 3 options 1) buy the upgraded hop filter they have a bigger one for circar £15 + pnp iirc,
2) bag hops in socks
3) consider a hop spider..

regarding the temp control issues have you considered swapping out the stc1000 sized controller from the control panel with an alternative??
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AC-220V-3...605077?hash=item5d4bf99015:g:WykAAOxyOalTayli

though it might be worth checking the temp probe out first a simple 2 point test @ close to 0c and close to 100C can be carried out with iced water and boiling water info between pages 16-18 in this pdf for details. https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r...gEpsPw4Sf3xsym8v704V_A&bvm=bv.114195076,d.d24

 

[halfpint]

Firstly, sorry to resurrect an old thread but with it being a sticky..hey ho. I have to admit that I'm getting frustrated with my grainfather. glyn.

I have had exactly the same problems Glyn.
The first thing I did was to move the Grainfather to a stable temperature room, instead of my garage.
The second was to fit a Graincoat from the accessory range.
The third was to use a SS hop spider, again from the accessory range.

I had a power cut during a mash one day but was happy to see only a 4 degree drop after 1.5 hours, I put this down to the Graincoat

I know it meant spending money to cure a problem that shouldn't have existed, but it was cheaper than replacing it with something even more expensive.

 

[Covrich]

Well the main thing is you get your problems sorted however selling accessories to help get over shortcomings on a £600 purchase doesn't sound like great business to me.. I know relative to teh BM the price is cheaper but still £600 is a lot of money for a product which needs you to spend a futher £15 on getting an adequate sized hop filter.. I certainly couldn't be changing out any electronics on it..

 

[JapanBrew]

I wonder if the original being 240 Volts, when they made the 110 if that weakened the element? Any input from others who use the GF? I'm interested because this year I plan on buying one. This is the first time I've heard of people having issues.