Anyone using a Grainfather SF50

[Rento]

I’m thinking about an SF50 to match my G40, does anyone use one?

As I currently have really good temp control through a fridge setup and a bench with heatpad I’m concerned about going backwards as I’m not for spending crazy money on a glycol setup.

My main questions are

• how do you control temperature (cheeply and accurately)
• how do you transfer to a keg, is it high enough to just drain into kegs

Thanks

R

 

[Rento]

As it doesn’t seem like anyone else has one, I went for it! New shiny for my double batches as using 2 buckets was becoming a PIA!

I also acquired a free Klarstein SS fermenter and did my first brew with it the other week and have to say I’m very impressed with that as well, so much easier to clean SS than plastic!

 

[Rento]

An update on the SF50 after a couple of uses….I love it! Easy to clean and kept a constant temp even in the garage with just a simple brew belt, inkbird and an diy foil insulation wrap.

The only thing that’s no great is when you do a yeast dump the beer drops lower than the pickup so you could loose a fair amount. In second use I didn’t bother dumping yeast until cleaning time. Note for cleaning I softens the yeast cake with some water and dumped the first 4 litres to a bucket using the built in valve. Then for proper cleaning in attached a hozelock thread and a piece of hose to the drain for ease.

I also did semi closed transfer to kegs with the co2 keg out recirculating into the top bung which worked great as it does hold a little pressure similar to the GF30.

I definitely recommend it