First Brew Using a Grainfather

[Mungri]

First brew using a Grainfather yesterday.

Used the free mash kit I got from HBC, Quint Hopulus face smacking ale.

Pale & Crytal malt

Target, Apollo, Chinook, Fuggles & Columbus hops, mostly in leaf form.

MJ Liberty Bell yeast.

Mashing

Mashing was great. I’ve never had proper temp control for the mash before, so having it just stay at 66c without any effort was nice.

Bought the stainless steel mash paddle and glad I did. I don’t think my shorter handled plastic one would have cut it. Definitely something I’d recommend to anyone purchasing a Grainfather.

Sparging

Sparging was fine. I just jugged the water from my Peco boiler. Took about 40mins in all. Will try to refine this method I think. Maybe use a tube from the Peco at a set flow rate.

Boiling

Very nearly had a boil over. Turned the boil on during the sparge, as I’ve seen in some you tube vids, to get to the boil quicker.

By the time I’d finished the sparge the temp was already up to 100c. You’re supposed to fold the boiling foam back into the wort to prevent a boil over, but no amount of paddling was going to stop this one boiling over. Turned the heat off when it was about 1cm from the top.

Died down immediately and 20-30 seconds later the heat was back on with no further problems.

Nice vigorous boil compared to my Peco boiler.

After the hop stand I manually whirl pooled with the mash paddle.

Let it sit for 15mins before starting the cooling process.

Cooling

I really liked the counter flow chiller. A few minutes re-circulating the wort through the chiller and it was coming out cool.

Saved the cooling water in builders trugs for re-use.

Fermenter

Pumped the wort into the fermenter with no problems.

I’ve heard / read plenty of stories about the Grainfather filter getting blocked by hop material. I was either lucky or the fact that they were mostly leaf hops saved me from any problems.

Took about 20 mins to fill the fermenter. When the wort was down to near the bottom of the boiler , I could see all the leaf hops had been drawn to the filter .

For some reason I ended up with 19.5 litres, Instead of the 23 I was aiming for.

Checked the gravity and it was up at 1062 from 5kg of grain. (is this normal?)

Liquored back with 3.5 litres of water to a more reasonable 1049.

Hopefully that should give me around 5%

Pitched the yeast at 1100hrs and it’s bubbling away nicely this morning.


All in all including cleaning the whole brew took about 5 ½ hours. I reckon I can cut this back a bit after a few goes.

Quite pleased for my first effort. Tips from the forum and vids from you tube made things easier.

 

[Slid]

This sounds "all good" to me. You just needed to sparge with another 3.5L of water - that would have got a little more out of the grain as well.

I generally use about 35 or 36L in total split between the mash and sparge to get 25L in the FV. The bigger the grain bill, the more the absorption loss is.

 

[chewie]

A faster sparge will negate the boiling over issue you had, if possible place the peco above the extended grain basket and gravity feed the water in.

You will see higher efficiency numbers from the GF than you would normally expect, do allow a little extra water into your calcs to allow for boil loss and deadspace etc, I typically have around 34l with mash and sparge water combined total .

 

[Mungri]

Thanks lads.
I followed the instructions from the Grainfather manual. I.E 17l for mash and 15l for sparge.
Next time I will up both by 1.5l and see how that goes.
Going to get some tubing to go from the Peco into the Grainfather. Hopefully that will help with the sparge.
Can,t complain though. I think it went well for a first try.

 

[Zephyr259]

Thanks lads.
I followed the instructions from the Grainfather manual. I.E 17l for mash and 15l for sparge.
Next time I will up both by 1.5l and see how that goes.
Going to get some tubing to go from the Peco into the Grainfather. Hopefully that will help with the sparge.
Can,t complain though. I think it went well for a first try.

Did you have 5kg of grain? Odd that you were short as the standard formula works well for me. But team things as you need to based on what you experience.

Do you have the connect controller? It should set the temp to 98c while you're sparging so you get close to the boil but should not boil over. Can easily do this manually too.

Sounds like a good start, good luck.

 

[Mungri]

Did you have 5kg of grain? Odd that you were short as the standard formula works well for me. But team things as you need to based on what you experience.

Do you have the connect controller? It should set the temp to 98c while you're sparging so you get close to the boil but should boil over. Can easily do this manually too.

Sounds like a good start, good luck.

Hi Zephyr.
Yes 5k of grain.
I do have the connect, but just turned it onto boil by holding down the heat button for a few seconds. I must admit to not knowing much about the connect yet, just the basics. The manual for the connect is basic. I def need to do some more reading.

 

[Zephyr259]

Hi Zephyr.
Yes 5k of grain.
I do have the connect, but just turned it onto boil by holding down the heat button for a few seconds. I must admit to not knowing much about the connect yet, just the basics. The manual for the connect is basic. I def need to do some more reading.

It's fairly straightforward using the app. Create your recipe on the online site which will then sync to the app and control the GF via Bluetooth. Makes mashing even easier and alerts you when to add your boil additions.

 

[Mungri]

It's fairly straightforward using the app. Create your recipe on the online site which will then sync to the app and control the GF via Bluetooth. Makes mashing even easier and alerts you when to add your boil additions.

Thanks mate.
I have got the app and added a simple Simcoe & Citra recipe. I’ll try this next time out.