The Bulldog Brewer

[Fal]

@darren966 I left the malt pipe in only because I read a post where someone said it separated the hot break I think. But I think you could easily do without it.

@CH maybe that's what this plug is for

But I think I might have had too much flow from the pump too.

@kroc definatly get onto them, it took me 30 mins to get to mash temp. Its is slower to get to temp than my keggle with two elements, but the temp into my fermenter was bang on. I don't feel so bad that my efficiency was off now! I need to learn more about sparging & beersmith but I love to hear others experiences.

Another positive is it's much lighter, I screwed my back up last winter and the mash tun and keggle would kill me lifting them, this is much lighter even full of grain.

[Fal]

@Ch do you mean instead of the metal pipe?

[Damofto]

kroc it almost seems like your wattage settings are wrong, it would take around an hour 20 minutes to get to mash temp at 700W  and you would boil off at least 5 litres at 2500W . I boil at 1800W and lose around 4 litres.

I'd use around 17.5 litres in the mash for that amount of grain, because the maltpipe is raised off the bottom I think you need to allow for the water that is sitting underneath.

[krockett]

Damofto- good point. It was definitely 5 litres and a very vigorous boil at supposedly 700 watts.

[Damofto]

the boil at 700 watts is not vigorous by any means, that's why I use 1800.

[Fal]

Damo, how much water did you sparge with? For 5kgs of grain beersmith is telling to mash with 23.27 liters and fly sparge with 14.33litres

[TonyC]

Plan on doing a brew tomorrow with it. Going to do BIAB instead of sparge

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[Motorbikeman]

Dont people mash with the Grainfather with the malt pipe open? 

[darren996]

Dont people mash with the Grainfather with the malt pipe open?

You mean the centre tube? if so, then yes, this is a safety overflow tube. If the mash compacts, then the malt pipe will fill up and the boiler could run dry, the overflow prevents this.

[TonyC]

Went to do a dry run today before a brew tomorrow and the pump doesn't work 🙁

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[TonyC]

All sorted loose connection in the pump. Easy fix

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[auralabuse]

I agree with the assessment that the wattage must be wired up wrong. Figures seem to add up

[Damofto]

Damo, how much water did you sparge with? For 5kgs of grain beersmith is telling to mash with 23.27 liters and fly sparge with 14.33 litres

I use 19 litres in the mash and 16 to sparge with an 1800w boil. You might need to top it up a bit afterwards, on my last brew I ended up 1 litre short and 2 points high on the gravity but I want to do another brew before I change any settings.

[Fal]

So put 35l in total into the mash? How much did you end up with for the boil? I haven't fully got to grips with liquid volumes

[Damofto]

Yes 35 litres total, I had 28 or 29 litres in the boil and 24 into the fermenter after. Beersmith did say to top-up preboil volume to 30 litres but I didn't do that because I wasn't sure what the postboil would be. I was happy enough with the slightly higher gravity and 24 litres, never managed that volume with my old setup.