Grainfather

[Andrew]

Just heard my Glycol Chiller is on its way (10 months later)...

[aaronm13]

Finished my third brew with the Grainfather yesterday and really like it but one major thing is bothering me and it's the water volumes. The volumes yesterday were pretty bad. I use Beersmith for design but use the Grainfather app for water volume. Long story, I was aiming for 25 liters into the fermenter. According to the app my pre boil volume should be 27 litres and I got 29 and there was easily another litre in the bucket I put the grain basket into when I finished sparging. I didn't throw this into the boil as I thought I had loads. Going by Beersmith my pre boil gravity should be 1.054 but was actually 1.061, no problem there. Have efficiency set to 75 so just need to boost that. Anyway I was left with only 24 litres at the end of the boil.

So I'm starting the boil with too much volume and finishing with too little. Really can't understand this. I can boost my initial volumes to yield more at the end of the boil but gravity will suffer or decrease my initial volumes but will be left with even less. Each solution is cancelling out the other. Has anyone come across this?

Used my grain mill on this for the first time too and think it was too fine of a crush as the sparge took well over an hour and the mash was constantly over flowing so I had to monitor it constantly and turn the.pump off every now and then. I set the mill to a credit card thickness but I double crushed them, grain was fairly well milled after this. What's the ideal mill gap setting for the Grainfather, definitely going wider and won't be double crushing them. Efficiency was great but sparge length was rediculous and I think having to turn the pump off every now and then defeats the.purpose.

[Simon_]

You can adjust your Beersmith boil off, grain absorption, and efficiency values to what you are getting.
Sparging should never take that long. When I start sparging the wort is ramping to a boil and I'm normally finished sparging by the time it gets to 90°. Most of the time it flies through but if it's slow because you've a load of wheat or whatever you can scrape the bottom of the grain basket a bit with your paddle to get it running. You've no problem with efficiency so may as well get it done quickly. Sounds like there's no need to double crush your grain. Credit card width is fine.

[aaronm13]

Thanks Simon. The first 2 batches I did the sparge took no more than 20 minutes, these were pre crushed grains. It was my first time using the mill and a lot of the grains didn't look crushed at al which is why I ran them through again. Won't make that mistake again.

Adjusting the boil off and grain absorption is fine but surely this will only increase my original volumes, as it is I'm getting too much back. Really has me baffled.

When you reach the boil do you scale back power or leave it at 100%? I scaled mine back to 90% yesterday.   

[Simon_]

So I think your grain absorption is lower than you've set because your preboil volume is higher than expected. Your boil off is greater than you have set because you've ended with less post boil. Or your dead space value is wrong or a combination? Does that make sense?

All the  grain or nearly all should be cracked after 1 run through the mill. You might just have to play with it to get how you like

[aaronm13]

Think there's a bit of trial and error with it alright. A good excuse to brew more. The grain was like flour in fairness going into the mash, so definitely too fine.