Grainfather

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

How much is the braumeister gonna set you back?
To me this is pretty much an all in one setup, apart from my small burco for sparge water.
Space is an issue with me too, this suits my needs. The idea of buying a readymade unit appeals also, the thoughts of building boilers etc again defo does not.
I think I'm pretty much convinced about it, they were hitting some great numbers if you read the review on the the Aussie Homebrew page that I linked earlier

[Simon_]

I think it looks like quite well engineered considering it's price range. If you were to go out and buy all the constituent parts that it includes (food grade pump, cf chiller, 30 litre pot, element, stc200, crab cooker...) you're looking at about €500 and you'd have spend hours sourcing them all, more hours fitting it. Then you're left with this frankenstein collection of objects that takes up lots of space. With this you're getting something where all the parts have been engineered to fit and work together.

Saying that it looks underpowered and could do with some program-ability.

I would feel I was somehow cheating though. How long long before grain and hops come in Nespresso type capsules?

[Simon_]

whos this he sounds irish and has one
https://www.youtube.com/user/okjhayes

These videos where he's having to wrap it in a quilt to reach temperatures and draining the first runnings to a fermenter make me less enthused. You're as well off with your cheap gear if it's not up to what it's designed for.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

The absolute apex of compact all in one solutions appear to be the brew in a conical units.

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

I think it looks like quite well engineered considering it's price range. If you were to go out and buy all the constituent parts that it includes (food grade pump, cf chiller, 30 litre pot, element, stc200, crab cooker...) you're looking at about €500 and you'd have spend hours sourcing them all, more hours fitting it. Then you're left with this frankenstein collection of objects that takes up lots of space. With this you're getting something where all the parts have been engineered to fit and work together.

Saying that it looks underpowered and could do with some program-ability.

I agree with you wholeheartedly - what free time I have I want spend brewing, not building something that may or may not work properly.
There seems to be an option for changing the controller in the pipeline. It suits me as is now anyway.

[johnrm]

Not forgetting the distillation add-on if that tickles your fancy...

[armedcor]

35 minutes in the video to get 20 litres of water to 45 degrees? He wasn't even close to mash temp.  That is a bit of a deal breaker for me

[molc]

Yeah I totally agree about wanting an all in one unit that's low hassle and just works out of the box. I think this one is just too clunky and low powered/featured for me to justify the spend. At the very least, if it's going to be underpowered, it needs to be programmable so you can set it to mash while you're away, including a mashout to lock in the grain. That said, at least it can take 10kg of grain, unlike a braumeister

[DEMPSEY]

What  I do not like about the designs is the narrow layout. A modern mash tun is wider so as to allow you to have a larger floor area to drain from and despite hop bags and filters the best way to deal with hops is to whirlpool and allow the spent hops form up a cone in the middle and finally allow you to drain from the side.

[Simon_]

Not forgetting the distillation add-on if that tickles your fancy...

Of course for distilling essential oils and water

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

The Braumeister doesnt seem to handle as much grain as the Grainfather does. 9kg v 6kg
BM also has the same 2kw heating element.

This choice is getting easier. 

[johnrm]

You can get a bigger grain bill into the braumeister than you think.
Once the starch is rinsed from the initial grist, you can pause the program, then add more.

[Will_D]

The Braumeister has an optional lagging jacket. Sugest the GF also would benefit.

It looks an interesting system with some design improvements over the BM. Also its a fairly modular system so you could probably swap out the STC controller for a more flexible Brewduino type controller if you wanted to. Also the pipe from the pump needs a quick disconnect as mentioned.
Also a rotary sparge arm.

There also seems to be some confusion about the boil/mash switch on the controller and when the STC is used for control and on one video I thought I saw another switch on the boiler itself (like on a burco - which I assume this is) being used to switch elements.


Hmm Am I getting interested in this?

Err Yes!!

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

I'll be placing my order with geterbrewed next week.
Feel free to come have a look Will when I get it.

[johnrm]

There's a couple of BM users here - a side by side would be interesting.