GF #8 Another ESB

Well, today's Brewday went very well. Challenger and EKG over a bittering from Herkules (40:30:20). Only cock up was adding the mash water before replacing he hop filter.

Decant water out of GF and into supporting vessel. Hop filter and water replaced.

After the mercifully uneventful brew, I mistakenly unscrewed the ball valve thingy that controls the flow from the pump. The spring was totally bunged up with a hop twig of some sort. No wonder there were some issues on previous brews.

Anyway, the issues with the fine crushed base malt were not so bad today. I started the mash with a very slow flow through the pump and after 20 mins or so, it was clearing through OK, so was able to increase the flow a bit,

Sparge went well and ended up with 25L in the FV. Efficiency in the FV still 65% and OG a fair 1.048.

What recipe did you use?

Malts - 5.5kg Base Malt, 250g Crystal 50g Choc, 125g Torr Wheat.

Hops -20g Herkules @60, Challenger 40g, EKG30g 1/2 @15 1/2 @ 0

Very similar brew last weekend, except a bit darker, with 96g Choc and 80g Roast Barley. Similar hop schedule, but 10g less altogether of Challenger & EKG.

This went very well indeed. Now getting used to the idea of turning down the throughput on the return of wort to the top of a rather sticky mash. Much better to let it go through slowly than pour all sorts down the central tube in the Grainfather.

Patience is also the motto of the Grainfather Masher.

Slid said:

Very similar brew last weekend, except a bit darker, with 96g Choc and 80g Roast Barley. Similar hop schedule, but 10g less altogether of Challenger & EKG.

This went very well indeed. Now getting used to the idea of turning down the throughput on the return of wort to the top of a rather sticky mash. Much better to let it go through slowly than pour all sorts down the central tube in the Grainfather.

Patience is also the motto of the Grainfather Masher.

Click to expand...

which version of the grainfather do you have and how do you find it ?

Slid said:

Very similar brew last weekend, except a bit darker, with 96g Choc and 80g Roast Barley. Similar hop schedule, but 10g less altogether of Challenger & EKG.

This went very well indeed. Now getting used to the idea of turning down the throughput on the return of wort to the top of a rather sticky mash. Much better to let it go through slowly than pour all sorts down the central tube in the Grainfather.

Patience is also the motto of the Grainfather Masher.

Click to expand...

I find that the water volumes their calculator suggests do lead to a thick mash, though I'm used to biab with nearly the full volume or liquor in the mash. I've started adding a litre more than they suggest and sparging a little less. Given how efficient the gf is I don't mind if this loses a bit of efficiency, I'll end up closer to predicted og.

I've yet to do a rye mash but slowing the recirc flow is a good suggestion for when I do.

I generally find the gf keeps the grain bed quite fluffy

Slid said:

Very similar brew last weekend, except a bit darker, with 96g Choc and 80g Roast Barley. Similar hop schedule, but 10g less altogether of Challenger & EKG.

This went very well indeed. Now getting used to the idea of turning down the throughput on the return of wort to the top of a rather sticky mash. Much better to let it go through slowly than pour all sorts down the central tube in the Grainfather.

Patience is also the motto of the Grainfather Masher.

Click to expand...

Never thought about turning the flow down, will try that tonight and see how it works out.

Slid said:

Very similar brew last weekend, except a bit darker, with 96g Choc and 80g Roast Barley. Similar hop schedule, but 10g less altogether of Challenger & EKG.

This went very well indeed. Now getting used to the idea of turning down the throughput on the return of wort to the top of a rather sticky mash. Much better to let it go through slowly than pour all sorts down the central tube in the Grainfather.

Patience is also the motto of the Grainfather Masher.

Click to expand...

When I tried turning the flow down I found the temp flucuated quite a bit more than usual.... so I've been letting it run through on full speed, but mashing a little longer. Perhaps I need to try changing the flow again!

Did you put the ball valve back in? I've left mine out as it kept restricting the flow!

Personal91 said:

which version of the grainfather do you have and how do you find it ?

Click to expand...

I have the Mk 2 version with the long tube that stops grain going down the middle on the mash-in.

How do I find it? - Well here are some step by step comments vs Stove Top Partial Mashes and one and few bits of BIAB:

The set up is easy and using the tap attachments to fill for the mash is easy. The water comes quickly up to mashing temps from the hot water tap.

Mashing-in is best done carefully with a plastic spoon, as the central pipe arrangement is flimsy in comparison to the £20 GF stirrer, which might double up as a gardening implement.

The mash is much trickier than I originally thought. The absolute minimum flow should go down the central tube.so it needs "nursing" to see how much is actually collecting at the top. Too much and you get "bits" of grain in the lower chamber and this is bad news. It blocks the pump.

The sparge is less science than art. For a start, you need 12-15L of wort at 75C. It is relatively easy to start your sparge with this amount of liquid at 75C. You just need a thermometer. The complications include:

Layering of temps as you remove the sparge water
Loss of heat just by transferring the water and waiting for it go go through the raised grain cylinder
General cooling of the grains in the cylinder post raising
When to start the boiling
When to get fed up with waiting for the sparge water to drain through. By a miracle, the Wilko 15L pot is a good fit for the grain cylinder and it is easy to boil this through on the stove after the main boil is well advanced.

The boil is brilliant - It is easy enough to "manage" a very full boiler using a spray and a "GF" paddle. During the boil, the GF paddle is useful to stop a build up of stuff on the boiling plate.

The chiller is the star of the show. Only downside time-wise is the time it takes to do the preparatory sterilisation. If the pump is not clogged up with grain related stuff, the leaf hops will form an auxilliary filter and the wort is both clear and can be easily brought to a temp that can be pumped to the FV, using the fol controller on the GF and the cooling flow from the tap.

Cleaning up afterwards is a fairly lengthy process, as there is a lot of debris, which is compacted a bit, if you tilt the GF to extract the maximum wort. There is always some spillage, which means there a large number of things to clear up post pitching:
Disposing of the grains
Getting out the hops from the GF
Washing out the GF
Running cleaning fluid through all GF parts in contact with the wort
Then rinsing with cold water all GF parts in contact with the wort
Sorting out the sink which gets full of grain and hop stuff
Cleaning and drying all surfaces of the GF bits
Removing as much liquid as possible from the chiller.
Packing it all away and sorting out the kitchen floor.

Garethhuwwilliams said:

I find that the water volumes their calculator suggests do lead to a thick mash, though I'm used to biab with nearly the full volume or liquor in the mash. I've started adding a litre more than they suggest and sparging a little less. Given how efficient the gf is I don't mind if this loses a bit of efficiency, I'll end up closer to predicted og.

I've yet to do a rye mash but slowing the recirc flow is a good suggestion for when I do.

I generally find the gf keeps the grain bed quite fluffy

Click to expand...

I go with 3.5L of water for each kilo of grain and this is less difficult to mash-in. I got this tip from pcz (I think). It was great advice, as was all the rest :thumb:.

Efficiency is 65% for the ones I've tried to measure, but that is "in-FV".

The pale malt I am using currently is a very fine crush, which seems to be a bit of a mixed blessing in a GF.

Turning down the flow does make a big difference to how many cock-ups ensue.

mak said:

When I tried turning the flow down I found the temp flucuated quite a bit more than usual.... so I've been letting it run through on full speed, but mashing a little longer. Perhaps I need to try changing the flow again!

Did you put the ball valve back in? I've left mine out as it kept restricting the flow!

Click to expand...

Yes I did, as I knew not otherwise. The ball valve might be useful on the mash and on the filling the FV stages, I would suggest.

I think my issues with the GF come down to some main issues:

Not fully understanding the brewing process and how this relates to the GF equipment
Panicking when things do not go smoothly.
Being careless at the start of the set-up and mash-in
Using Base Malt at different crush fine-nesses.

.:whistle:

Slid said:

Yes I did, as I knew not otherwise. The ball valve might be useful on the mash and on the filling the FV stages, I would suggest.

I think my issues with the GF come down to some main issues:

Not fully understanding the brewing process and how this relates to the GF equipment
Panicking when things do not go smoothly.
Being careless at the start of the set-up and mash-in
Using Base Malt at different crush fine-nesses.

.:whistle:

Click to expand...

The only real issues I've had in the four brews I've done (two with a loan machine, two with my own) were the chiller output flow slowing to a near stop due to leaf hops clogging round the filter (easily solved by scraping) and when I mashed with too little water and it went wired and foamy.

Though I have heard of plenty of people with issues.

I think you're right though, having a good understanding of the brewing process and what the machine is doing at each stage is helpful. I found it became more intuitive as I figured that out.

Slid said:

Cleaning up afterwards is a fairly lengthy process, as there is a lot of debris, which is compacted a bit, if you tilt the GF to extract the maximum wort. There is always some spillage, which means there a large number of things to clear up post pitching:
Disposing of the grains
Getting out the hops from the GF
Washing out the GF
Running cleaning fluid through all GF parts in contact with the wort
Then rinsing with cold water all GF parts in contact with the wort
Sorting out the sink which gets full of grain and hop stuff
Cleaning and drying all surfaces of the GF bits
Removing as much liquid as possible from the chiller.
Packing it all away and sorting out the kitchen floor.

Click to expand...

Don't know if it's an option for you but if you can get the GF outside and use a hose it is a doddle to clean out and then rinse after running the cleaner thru. Also, if I use leaf hops I put them in muslin bags as I found them a pain in the **** to clean out and as I have the V1 version with the rubbish filter it was constantly clogging. I've upgraded the filter now so might try a brew without the bags although I've ordered the hop spider so if that arrives before the next brew I probably wont.

DoctorMick said:

Don't know if it's an option for you but if you can get the GF outside and use a hose it is a doddle to clean out and then rinse after running the cleaner thru. Also, if I use leaf hops I put them in muslin bags as I found them a pain in the **** to clean out and as I have the V1 version with the rubbish filter it was constantly clogging. I've upgraded the filter now so might try a brew without the bags although I've ordered the hop spider so if that arrives before the next brew I probably wont.

Click to expand...

I carry mine outside as well, pull out the hops by hand straight into the compost bin and hose down. Since I removed the ball valve I jet the hose down that outlet as well. Also I blow down through there which usually ends up with some hop leaves dislodging from the pump. Didn't do that on my first 3 brews and the outlet on the pump became blocked - had to strip down the pump which I'd rather avoid having to do again!
I've a clip helping to hold the filter on now, though whirlpooled the rubber cap off the filter last brew - doh! Don't use a hop spider and it seems to work well, have to scrape occasionally

Slid said:

Yes I did, as I knew not otherwise. The ball valve might be useful on the mash and on the filling the FV stages, I would suggest.

I think my issues with the GF come down to some main issues:

Not fully understanding the brewing process and how this relates to the GF equipment
Panicking when things do not go smoothly.
Being careless at the start of the set-up and mash-in
Using Base Malt at different crush fine-nesses.

.:whistle:

Click to expand...

Sorry - I meant removed the ball and spring, that is just there for safety but clogged every time I brewed.

I've had a few panics and cockups as well... pulling the stick up too far and it came off, clogging the pump, knocking the filter off, knocking the cap off the filter..... but it's getting more comfortable each brew - i like to do 2 brews in one day so the whole clean cycle only has to be done once!

mak said:

Sorry - I meant removed the ball and spring, that is just there for safety but clogged every time I brewed.

I've had a few panics and cockups as well... pulling the stick up too far and it came off, clogging the pump, knocking the filter off, knocking the cap off the filter..... but it's getting more comfortable each brew - i like to do 2 brews in one day so the whole clean cycle only has to be done once!

Click to expand...

Great to know it's not just me that has cocked it up!

Thanks to all contributors, here, it makes me feel a bit less simple.:whistle:

Slid said:

Great to know it's not just me that has cocked it up!

Thanks to all contributors, here, it makes me feel a bit less simple.:whistle:

Click to expand...

+1 for outside cleaning. And everything else. See how I feel about that in December though

Slid said:

Malts - 5.5kg Base Malt, 250g Crystal 50g Choc, 125g Torr Wheat.

Hops -20g Herkules @60, Challenger 40g, EKG30g 1/2 @15 1/2 @ 0

Click to expand...

Just drinking the first of this brew now, bottled 9 weeks ago. very nice indeed and the torrified wheat does make a difference to the head.