Grainfather Mods

[Mark Weusten]

As I threw away my top overflow pipe I have been brewing without it, admittedly with a couple of disasters (blocked pump being the worst) I have seen mods done by Karl from All Grain where he changes the recirculation to a ball valve and silicon pipe. Far superior in my opinion so because imake are being so useless with the replacement part I want to modify the perforated plates instead. My question is, can I get a bit of stainless plate tack welded to the the existing plates removing the overflow pipe completely? I think if you can adjust the flow of recirculation to suit your grain bed there is no need for this pipe. See pic for recirc mod.

[Dene McDonald]

I can't see why not - I was also wondering if removing the top and putting a sparge head on would improve things - then it becomes more of a traditional mash tun type setup.

[Mark Weusten]

Anyone know a place in Auckland that would do a small job like this? or alternatively where to get bungs that would seal up the holes?

[David M]

Rather than weld something over the hole in the bottom of the plate why not use a short bolt and a washer to block it.
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Stainless-Steel-Kettle-Plug...

Could be a bit easier and you can revert it back if you need to.

Be interested to see how you get on.

I saw what Karl had done and was curious as to the logic behind it.

Is there an advantage to slowing the flow so it only recirculates through the grain bed and not the overflow?

His mods from the default setup would only mean you don't have to have a flow down the overflow pipe if you restricted it right back. Does the flow down the overflow affect the mash process? Will this affect the pump if the flow is greatly reduced? What are the benefits of restricting the liquid flow?

My thoughts are the GF design with greater flow and the overflow pipe design would probably keep the circulating liquid at a more constant temp as is an increased flow rate. You can also leave it an not worry about having to monitor and vary the flow using the valve. Restricting the flow so the overflow pipe is not used as much wouldn't increase the flow through the grain as it should be the same as long as the grain bed is covered with liquid.

Anyone know Karl's reasoning for it?

Be interested in any feedback?

[Matt Poff]

FWIW - The first brew I did (Chur), I  didn't push the overflow pipe down so it was flush with the cutout in the top plate. It was fully-extended and sitting high so no spill-over was going through it. It meant that more wort was draining through the grain bed and there are no issues with grain by-passing mesh because anything that floats out the top (it didn't) would get caught during the sparge.

Beer turned out fine with good extraction so a good way of experimenting with on overflow without permanent mods and still the fail-safe for overflow.

On a related note - I need someone in Welly (pref city burbs or Petone) who can do spot tig welding jobs. The top bracket on my recirc pipe came off on last brew. Am trying to organise a fix through iMake who have been great at coming to the party but so far have been slow at sourcing a local welder.

[Mark Weusten]

Great thinking David. I will try that. I think the logic is instead of excess flow going down the pipe because the grain bed cannot accept it to button off to a rate where equilibrium is reached. I cant see the pump grizzling about this as the wort chiller already does this. Regarding temp consistency only one way to find out.

[clinton james anstis]

I still have a spare overflow pipe if that would help mark.only being new to this I have stuck with what they reckon and have had great results .latest one was little creatures ale clone I got from brewers coop and it's great

[Mark Weusten]

That would help in the meantime Clinton thanks. I can get it back to you when Imake finally come through. I will pm you.

[Pilgrim]

I turned up a new Stainless Steel sleeve to replace the overflow sleeve. This doesn't have the internal lip at the top so can freely slide down the top pipe. I did this mainly for use when doing a low alcohol brew, where the top plate wouldn't normally go down low enough to rest on top of the grain bed. It is also useful for sparging with the pipe extended as in the attached photo. I could have machined the lip out of the supplied one but didn't want to alter that. I asked iMake if I could buy a spare one and got a reply saying that they would let me know when parts were available. That was some time ago and I couldn't wait. With the pipe fully extended I can pour in up to 5L of sparge water at a time. This means I don't have to stand and watch it too closely and also the increased weight of water helps to speed up the sparge process.