Grainfather

[Pheeel]

I bought a Grainbrother the other week from THBC. They sent me the new controller. I used it to brew a pilsner with a step mash. Lovely!

One thing I noticed is that the pump on my original GF was a LOAD slower than the pump on my GB. I checked and it's the same model. I think I need to clean out the pump on the GF as it's probably got some gunk in there. Has anyone attempted this? Any guidance? I don't want to balls it up!

[mick02]

I bought a Grainbrother the other week from THBC. They sent me the new controller. I used it to brew a pilsner with a step mash. Lovely!

One thing I noticed is that the pump on my original GF was a LOAD slower than the pump on my GB. I checked and it's the same model. I think I need to clean out the pump on the GF as it's probably got some gunk in there. Has anyone attempted this? Any guidance? I don't want to balls it up!

I haven't opened up my pump to clean it so can't comment. I did have a pretty serious blockage a few brews back and used a pump for an air matress to blow are through the recirculation arm back into the kettle. It cleared the blockage and I did notice a performance improvement. Your mileage may vary though!

[oreils87]

I got a bottle of the Grainfather Cleaner when I bought it and just about empty, has anyone used anything else with similar success? or would getting the official one be the best bet?

[DEMPSEY]

I have recently bought that stuff but have not used it yet but I presume its really PBW 

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

I use pbw after most cleans.
The GF cleaner gets used now and again for a proper clean when I leave the water pumping through for over a half hour. The pbw works at a lower temp so it makes cleanup quicker.

[Simon_]

One of the designers (guy who's in all the GF youtube videos) from iMake said PBW was fine on a Reddit AMA


It's very rare I do more than clean it with more than hot water.

[Pheeel]

I'll try the PBW but I think it's definitely got crap lodged in there. I guess I'll try and break it down this weekend!

[Leann ull]

Run the tap full whack through it?
Or recirc using a glass bowl reservoir using pbw to see what comes out

[mick02]

Did a brew on the GF yesterday and ended up with 87.5% efficiency ... that's serious stuff. Over shot my numbers massively though 

[Leann ull]

Those are typical numbers when crush is right and mid range abv

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

Those are typical numbers when crush is right and mid range abv

+1

Savage efficiencies on the GF

[DEMPSEY]

Same here,my efficiency is high

[mick02]

I've also found a bug on the new GF app if you're brewing using an imported recipe from BeerSmith.

I found that if the boil is more than 60 minutes (90 in my case yesterday) the app disregards any information before the 60 minute mark (i.e. the 90 minute hop addition) and starts to countdown from 60 minutes.

If you pause the timer to try and let the boil catch up with the app you lose all info of the session off the app. Kinda a nuisance as I was left scrambling to calculate times/additions on the fly.

I've flagged it with GF though, hopefully they will be able to squash the bug.

[Níall]

Hi all,

I did my first Grainfather brew at the weekend and it all went very smoothly until it came to chilling time. After attaching the chiller and recirculating for a few moments the pump stopped flowing and after several attempts to get it moving I had to abandon the brew and proceeded to jug out the wort to empty the boiler, the grain particles were very visible in the sample:



I did notice when the boil started that there seemed to be a lot of grain particles - certainly a lot more than I normally get. When I was emptying the boiler contents with a plastic jug I put a sieve in the sink and poured the wort through it to see how much was in the boil:



I took the pump filter off and there was hardly any grain inside so I'm guessing the grain passed through the filter. I also removed the ball lock and spring and there were no blockages there. After the boiler was emptied I blew down the chiller's wort output pipe and this did force out a little grain and a single hop flower so it seems as though the blockage was indeed in the chiller and not the pump. In fact I ran the pump without the recirculating arm or chiller attached and the liquid flow coming out was fine.

I'm not sure if this is related to grain crush, I used a mashkit that I got from HBC for this brew, maybe the grain crush was too fine for the GF. I do have a Crankandstein 2 roller mill that I can use to crush whole grains so would be interested to know what setting to use. There was only about 50g of hops in the brew, both in hop bags so I would be surprised if they caused an issue.

Despite having to abandon the brew I'm encouraged by the ease of use of the GF, up to the chilling stage it was a very relaxed session compared to my normal brewday with 3 vessels, pump etc.

I'm curious to know if you've experienced similar issues and if you know what might cause them!

[mick02]

Hi all,

I did my first Grainfather brew at the weekend and it all went very smoothly until it came to chilling time. After attaching the chiller and recirculating for a few moments the pump stopped flowing and after several attempts to get it moving I had to abandon the brew and proceeded to jug out the wort to empty the boiler, the grain particles were very visible in the sample:



I did notice when the boil started that there seemed to be a lot of grain particles - certainly a lot more than I normally get. When I was emptying the boiler contents with a plastic jug I put a sieve in the sink and poured the wort through it to see how much was in the boil:



I took the pump filter off and there was hardly any grain inside so I'm guessing the grain passed through the filter. I also removed the ball lock and spring and there were no blockages there. After the boiler was emptied I blew down the chiller's wort output pipe and this did force out a little grain and a single hop flower so it seems as though the blockage was indeed in the chiller and not the pump. In fact I ran the pump without the recirculating arm or chiller attached and the liquid flow coming out was fine.

I'm not sure if this is related to grain crush, I used a mashkit that I got from HBC for this brew, maybe the grain crush was too fine for the GF. I do have a Crankandstein 2 roller mill that I can use to crush whole grains so would be interested to know what setting to use. There was only about 50g of hops in the brew, both in hop bags so I would be surprised if they caused an issue.

Despite having to abandon the brew I'm encouraged by the ease of use of the GF, up to the chilling stage it was a very relaxed session compared to my normal brewday with 3 vessels, pump etc.

I'm curious to know if you've experienced similar issues and if you know what might cause them!

I don't think it was the mash kit from HBC. I've brewed lots of these kits from HBC and have never had the problem you were having. There must have been some issues with the pump filter if a full hop flower was stuck inside. The perforations on the filter are so small that there is no way a hop cone could pass through it.

I'd concentrate my efforts at the filter.