Grainfather Users Group

Comment by David M on October 31, 2014 at 9:44am

As a plus I have found their customer service to be pretty good. Have dealt direct with Estee each time. Replacement chiller was shipped promptly. Agree their freight company is crap. My grainfather was just left in the unattended foyer of my work building by the courier not delivered to the 2nd floor.

Comment by Dene McDonald on October 31, 2014 at 9:51am

I completely agree about the immersion chillers being better than the supplied counterflow. I can chill in 15 minutes and then transfer from the top with a siphon and avoid all of the trub at the bottom meaning it's crystal clear.

Comment by Peter Smith on October 31, 2014 at 10:03am

I think they will regret going CF chiller, braumeister is immersion

Comment by Pilgrim on October 31, 2014 at 11:15am

Once I get mine down to temperature I give it a good whirlpool stir then cover it and leave for 15 minutes. I then use the pump to transfer it to the fermenter. Not too much trub and a good bit of agitation to get some oxygen into the wort whilst going into the fermenter.

Comment by Matt Poff on October 31, 2014 at 11:30am

Did the last brew about 3 weeks ago and went through the recommended cleaning rigmarole and was surprised to see about 1/4 cup of gritty rust coloured fluid drain out of the counterflow exit hose when I was showing the kit to a mate. Think it was just wort/trub but mystified where it came from as I ran the cleaner then clean water through the system for a good 5-10mins each. Was also surprised that there was still fluid in there as I saw it run back out the inlet hose when I closed the exit tap, shut off the pump then opened the tap again (as they suggest).

Comment by Dene McDonald on October 31, 2014 at 11:33am

Just thinking back to my second brew day and first with the counterflow, the same thing happened to me. I had to quickly try and flush it out with water. Just hope running boiling wort through it for 10 minutes cleaned it out.

Comment by Crusader-Rob on July 12, 2015 at 8:15pm

hi, anyone know where/if I can get just the grain basket for these units??? I've got a side project I'm working on, and was this seems to be a perfect fit.

Comment by Crusader-Rob on May 24, 2016 at 4:30pm

Can anyone tell me the Kg max for the micro pipe work?

and also the Minimum for standard pipework?

Comment by Peter Scandlyn on October 8, 2017 at 4:41pm

Recently had an experience with crushed grain purchased from a Brew Shop in Auckland I've never dealt with before, that caused great difficulty with my GF. Only reason I used them was they had a particular specialty grain I wished to try.

Basically by the time I completed dough-in, I was experiencing sever heat surge (@52 degrees) and troubles continued all through mash, sparge and chill. 

Contacted supplier and suggested crush was faulty - too fine - and received assurance stringent quality control was in place to ensure such could not happen and further, they often had GF users seeking double crush to fit the GF purpose.....

One of the few things I have learned from reading online is fine crush is an absolute avoid, so can only assume if second crush needed obviously first crush was badly cocked up.

Looking and asking further has confirmed my thoughts. Clearly, by the time I'd finished dough-in, free space between underside of bottom plate and GF base was not free, but choked with over crushed grain. When I pumped to fermenter, difficult for obvious reasons, there was no free space below grain pipe.

I've not named the supplier but specialty requirement or not, will not use again.

Would be interested on any other take on my difficulty because, simply put, I can't see one.

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