Grainfather - First brewday EKG PA

Today was my first go with my new toy, the Mk 2 Grainfather.

This one comes with a substantial metal insert tube as a grain plug for the tube thingy in the middle.

I was up out of bed relatively early at ~7:30am and the use of this marvelous time and effort saving device saw me miss the KO (3pm Scotland vs France) by a full half hour. I kept asking myself, all day, why everything seemed to take so long?

Anyway, I used a grain bill of 5kg, using 4.75kg base malt and .25kg crystal malt. 17g of a bittering hop (Herkules, which the HBC use in their AG kits) and 100g EKG. All this is in the style of Greg Hughes' Single Hop Ale Recipes.

I ended up with just under 22.5L of wort at OG 1048, which represents about 66% efficiency, when I put it into BrewMate. I don't think this is too bad, BTW, as there was quite a bit of liquid in the finishing debris - mainly hops, that I would have squeezed out and brewed with under the previous methodology.

The wort was very clear and I doubt that I am going to lose much to trub, as was the case with a stove-top brew.

Next time will be different and hopefully better as I think I made a few mistakes today. Things I might do differently include:

Bit more grain - say 500g or so. This is pretty cheap, in the scheme of things.
Not panicking around temps readings at the start of the mash - I added the best part of a litre of cold water during the doughing in. (Even though I know it cant get hotter when the grain is cold).
Staying patient when it takes ages to get the grain mixed. 5kg is a lot of porridge!
Bit more sparge water - any excess can go in my 15L pot, on which, by fortune, deus ex machina, the inner GF bucket actually fits. I would aim for 25L in the FV next time for a pale ale
Thinking about different ways to deal with the late hop additions. They absorb a lot of wort and I am not sure about whether the half litre or so wort might be viable in the FV.

Didn't know you were getting your mitts on a GF, Slid. Nice! Dont know much about these infernal brewing machines (tbh I'm not anti-GF I just like the phrase infernal machine :lol:) but as for doughing in get a balloon whisk, the bigger the better. Makes doughing in loads easier

MyQul said:

Didn't know you were getting your mitts on a GF, Slid. Nice! Dont know much about these infernal brewing machines (tbh I'm not anti-GF I just like the phrase infernal machine :lol:) but as for doughing in get a balloon whisk, the bigger the better. Makes doughing in loads easier

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I used one of those stick blender things with the whisk attachment. It was a piece of ****.

I use my GF a lot, 50+ brews at a guess.
Maybe more as have done 2 brews a day on it on a few occasions.

As you have a newer model you most likely have the new filter and the long rod as a top plug.
Both good to have, the filter is much improved.
The original top stopper is a screw cap bottle top, the kind you get on a miniature spirit bottle.

You say that mashing in took a while and was a bit difficult to stir in.
I will hazard a guess that you didn't have enough strike water in the GF.
They do give instruction as to the amount of strike water to use but it is best to go with what makes sense to you.

With 5kg of grain I would use a 4:1 ratio of water/grist.
So 20l of strike water and 15l of sparge water.
That gives me 30l pre boil volume and with a 60min boil around 24l net into the fermenter.
90min boils will net me less, around 23l but I tend to use a bit more sparge water to bring the pre boil volume up a tad.
31l is about as far as I will go pre boil volume wise as the GF is getting very full and you are less than 2" from the rim.
Turn your back for a second and you will have a BOIL OVER.

A trick I sometimes use which I think you have already latched onto is that the basket can be transferred to another vessel to drain the last litre or two out.
The basket sits perfectly on a 10l plastic fermenter.
More accident than design :)
I add the extra wort part way through the boil when the volume in the GF has reduced a bit.
If I have enough volume already I can use the extra wort for making yeast starters rather than waste it.

Note: My Friend and fellow GF user prefers a 3.5:1 ratio.
Less strike water, bit more sparge water.
We both generally aim for 30l pre boil.

Also don't give up too early when using the chiller.
I end up with very little liquid in the hops.
You will see foaming in the pipe and assume that you aren't going to get any more wort out but you will.
Also you can tilt the GF to get a bit more wort out.
Tilt towards the pump inlet.

Although since I have been using the new filter I haven't bothered tilting
the GF as it seems to suck almost dry if given enough time.
The wort is sucked slowly through the hops. they act like a wick.
It takes a while but on your next brew day give it an extra few minutes and you will be surprised.

Personally I wouldn't squeeze the hops left behind in the GF as they have acted as a filter medium and will be full of sandy looking trub.
Also if you have used a protofloc they will be covered in protein slime.

The mash/boil switch is a PITA but a necessary evil I'm afraid.
You WILL on many occasions have it in the wrong position.
Waiting for the GF to boil with only the mash element active will take a very very long time !!
Thing is though if you leave the switch in the boil position which gives you full element power. the mash temperature will fluctuate far too much.
I got so fed up forgetting to switch or not being sure what position it was in i plugged my GF into a cheap KW meter and can see at a glance how many watts it is drawing.
2kw or a little over, I see around 2.2 kw and you are on full power
The mash element is around 750w.

Do not wait for the sparge to be done before switching to boil mode.
move the mash/boil switch to boil when you begin sparging and the switch on the controller to II.
This will save you a lot of time.

note: You may have the switch on boil already as it is a time saver if you want to do a mash out.

The chiller is the real star of the show.
Provided it is used as intended.
I say this because there is an often viewed video comparing the GF to an established rival product where the reviewer used the chiller to cool the entire volume of the wort down in the GF.
It sucks at doing that.

You do recycle the wort back into the GF for a short period of time to heat the wort carrying tubing to sterilise it.
During the sterilising the cold water isn't turned on.
Then you turn on the cold water and run the output of the chiller into your FV.
In 30 mins, (can be less if you have cold ground water and run the pump without throttling) you have cooled wort at pitching temps in your FV.
Very impressive if your previous experience has been of immersion chillers

Obviously the colder the ground water the better but you don't need a large temperature differential.

I don't have any problems getting 20c wort using the mains supply to the kitchen..
Keep an eye on the temperature of the wort exiting the chiller into the fermenter and adjust the flow.
I use a laser thermometer, don't know how I managed so long without one.
I sit on my brewing stool and point it around real lazy.


There is more I could add but this post is long enough already.

Happy to share experiences with the GF and answer any questions.

Some fantastic GF tips there PCZ. I've made a copy of this and put it in the guide forum

Yeah. Not sure what to say, except, thanks, pcz.

Speaking here, in as much as I may, on behalf of the whole local HB community:thumb:

The SG of this on bottling was 1.005 or 1,006 and it does taste vaguely peppery. Fairly reminiscent of a Saison, I would say. Could suggest some sort of rogue yeast?

The yeast I used was a saved US 05 from the previous brew. 1.005 would be really quite low, given that I estimated the OG at 1.048, both measures using the guessing stick from first Coopers set-up.

On the plus side, it was very clear indeed and I got 10x 2L bottles and 2x 500ml bottles.

Slid said:

The SG of this on bottling was 1.005 or 1,006 and it does taste vaguely peppery. Fairly reminiscent of a Saison, I would say. Could suggest some sort of rogue yeast?

The yeast I used was a saved US 05 from the previous brew. 1.005 would be really quite low, given that I estimated the OG at 1.048, both measures using the guessing stick from first Coopers set-up.

On the plus side, it was very clear indeed and I got 10x 2L bottles and 2x 500ml bottles.

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Thay's 89.5% attenuation. I would definately be suspecting a wild yeast infection. Especially as you've described the beer as "peppery" it should be floral with hints of honey for an EKG single hopped beer. I've never heard US-05 described as peppery before

MyQul said:

That's 89.5% attenuation. I would definitely be suspecting a wild yeast infection. Especially as you've described the beer as "peppery" it should be floral with hints of honey for an EKG single hopped beer. I've never heard US-05 described as peppery before.

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No, neither have I. Suppose it will be whatever it turns out as.

It was not unpleasant and not unlike the Belgian yeast sort of taste that I get from a recent brew made using the yeast from a Brewferm Xmas ale kit.

Slid said:

No, neither have I. Suppose it will be whatever it turns out as.

It was not unpleasant and not unlike the Belgian yeast sort of taste that I get from a recent brew made using the yeast from a Brewferm Xmas ale kit.

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That's exactly what I was thinking. If you had used some sort of weiss yeast I'd be saying the peppery flavour would be nothing to worry about as at lower temps they kick out cloves flavours

Well, that's what it seems like, tonight I'm drinking the first of GF#1, bottled as recently as 2nd April.

No peppery taste now and not too Belgian a yeast sort of taste, although I do still get a sort of hint.

This is a nice drink, not out of place on the first warm day of spring!

The Belgian yeast thing may well come from the storing of yeast slurry (under green beer) from previous beers. It is quite hard to remove it from the bottom of a small bottle and it is well possible that I have used the same small bottle twice.

I feel that this may be asking for trouble. I did experiment with beer resilience by poring the fag ends of bottles into a single bottle and seeing what turned out. These did confirm that the most aggressive (most attenuating) yeast would be active towards the end, even in a fridge.

Apologies if this seems out of place, but GF#1 at the end of its in-bottle existence is very good. No trace of the source of its high attenuation.

I've used the Belgian yeast on a few other brews of late. There is a definite impact on the end taste as well as the attenuation.

The recent very warm weather has led to recent GF Brew - Green Buller and WGV still venting profusely at 19 days into fermentation and after 1x Racking.

I brewed this with M-J Workhorse, which is re-used from a source brew.