The Grain Father

[Peter Smith]

http://www.grainfather.com/

Mangrove Jacks new all grain unit - its nice

[Mark Weusten]

I don't want a stuck ferment or off flavours so will go with 2. Cheers

[clinton james anstis]

 made my first brew in the grainfather yesterday,took a while to sparge.has anybody got an approx sparge time?im thinking my grains may have been a little fine?

[Mark Thomas]

Was that with the Chur kit? Mine took quite a while to sparge (~20 minutes maybe?) but I was sparging 2 litres at a time and reboiling the kettle in between. I usually only had 10 to 30mm head of water above the grain at any particular time, which would slow things down.

Next time I'll boil a pot with the full amount of sparge water to speed up the process. I'll also be using grain crushed at Brewer's Coop which might be coarser.

[Mark Weusten]

I didnt take a time but would have been around 30 mins I think. You have answered my question as I didnt do the Chur kit and the grains were still very slow sparging. Cant have been the way the grains were crushed. Peter Smith made a comment that maybe the grainbed compacts with the constant recircultaion and I think this is right. I found giving them a good stir between jug fulls helped the flow.

[Dene McDonald]

Would stirring the grains defeat the purpose of recircing? 

[Mark Weusten]

Not sure if I understand your question Dene. I didnt stir the grains until half way through the sparge, when mine became stuck. Anyone know of a reason why you shouldn't?

[Dene McDonald]

Recirculation does a few things including clearing the wort, maintaining temperature and rinsing sugar from the grain. Stirring would allow anything that was filtered out to transfer back into the wort. Some people also think that stirring would release tannins too but from what I've seen (and anyone that has done BIAB) this is not true.

So it wouldn't cause major problems it would just allow more trub through and make the beer a bit more cloudy. If you are paying for a recirculation mashing system you'd hope to not have to do it. I'm sure it's just a small issue that can be corrected with a bit of playing around with water levels, crush rate and by how far down the plate top plate is.

Maybe something to put on the Grainfather FAQ page. I hope they monitor this forum too.

I really do hope they can sort out some of these issues. They are not all that bad but when combined together they do get a bit annoying. I've never seen a piece of brewing equipment take this forum by storm like this has. It would be great to see a kiwi product revolutionising the world of home brewing and meaning that the hobby is accessible to those with little time and space.

[Peter Smith]

why does it need a top plate on top of grain?  

[Dene McDonald]

I would say it needs the top plate during sparging to avoid channeling. 

Maybe it the top plate is getting pushed down and the grain bed getting compressed while recircing. Perhaps people are just pushing it down too far when inserting it.

[Mark Weusten]

I think the only reason is to disperse the water hitting it.

[Mark Thomas]

I think it's just a way to distribute the recirculated/sparge water evenly across the grain bed. The overflow inlet doofer prevents the recirculation water from exceeding ~20mm head above the top plate (and I guess it also makes sure that the pump doesn't run dry).

Dene - yeah I agree these are all just minor issues, probably to be expected with the first manufacturing run of a brand new product. From what I've seen, the guys at Imake are being very proactive and positive about getting them sorted - just yesterday they made a new video to help people with the recirculation leakage. Give it half a year and I reckon these minor issues will be sorted.

IMO the Grainfather has found a sweet spot between BIAB and home built systems, and the more expensive 3 part systems by Braumeister et al.

[Mark Weusten]

Yes my wort was cloudy and lots of trub. I will try being a bit more patient with the next brew.