Grainfather G30 v3 basket

[The Toad]

My replacement v3 basket, which does away with the need for the top plate and pipework, has been delivered and I'm keenly looking forward to my first brew with it.

It came with a decent length of silicone hose. Does anyone know if this has a specific purpose? I expect it's for putting on the recirculation arm. If so, is the intention for it to circulate into a greater depth in the grain bed than the original one? Or something else?

 

[tigertim]

If it's anything like the G40, it's probably to allow enough length so that it can be laid on top of the grain bed, so that the wort exits the pipe horizontally rather than vertically, thus causing less disruption to the surface of the grain (and channeling). This was probably less important with the top plate.

ETA: I must admit, I'm tempted by this upgrade myself, but I hate the fact that there's not much I can do with my old grain basket other than take it to the tip, when its intrinsic value is largely the same as the new one. I can't imagine there's much call for them on the second hand market and it seems a shame when the v3 basket is essentially just a modified v2 basket. It'd be nice if there was some kind of buyback but, as the drain holes are probably made in the sheet metal before it's rolled and welded, it's probably pretty difficult to retrospectively perforate an existing basket!

 

[peebee]

Grainfather mention they'd had a few folk grumble because the short length of tubing attached to the chiller forced them to sit the chiller on the glass lid (the GF was designed that way). They found this a bad idea 'cos they wanted to take the lid on-and-off and have the chiller sitting alongside the GF, not on top of it.

Can't fault anyone wanting to do that (I'd already changed the hose lengths on my chiller).

The replacement v3 basket for the G30 is the Bee's Knees (Cat's Whiskers, Dogs Do-Dahs, etc., etc.). Haven't actually used mine, but have been using the G70 with the same basket arrangement.

 

[tigertim]

I'm considering dropping the cash on the v3 basket but, of those with the v3 basket already (or a G40 or G70), I'm interested to know how you can be sure you don't have a stuck mash/sparge? With the existing centre-pipe arrangement, you can throttle the wort flow and, if the level of wort on the mash bed stays the same, then that would indicate a stuck mash - but if the wort is free to run through the perforations at the side, as with the v3 basket, you'd surely never know until you realised your efficiency was way off.

That said, I've never actually had. a stuck mash in all the time I've been using the G30!

Also, every time I think of dropping £175 on the v3 basket, I also think about selling the G30 entirely and moving up to a G40