The Grain Father

[Peter Smith]

http://www.grainfather.com/

Mangrove Jacks new all grain unit - its nice

[Ralph]

Looks good. Wonder what the price will be?

[Peter Smith]

The Grainfather The unit complete with Counterflow chiller will be $990 Mark. Roughly $750 for Mash Tun and $250 for Counterflow although final costing isn't in yet. We have just cracked some important fundamental issues that have involved some design changes. We don't have the costs in around these but regardless the first lot will not be more than $990 complete.

From there facebook page.

[Barry]

Sharp price if they can pull it off!

[Peter Smith]

Agree it will appeal to the asian market - "apartment brewing", this is small and compact.  Also that market is not into DIY.    I wonder if this is direct sale vs LHBS ?   With the element under the inner pot and the recirc step mash should be easy as....   may have to add a pump to my system to stay up with fashion....        I think this fits nicely in between the blichmann boilers and the speidal braumeister.

[Mark Weusten]

I agree the price is pretty good and would appeal to apartment brewers. Couldnt see the wife being too stoked about it bubbling away on the bench all weekend. I think she would rather I was out in the shed....Other thing would be what guarantee you got with it.

[Grant R Baker]

Cheaper than a 20L Braumeister.

[Barry]

Not just cheaper, less than a third the price.

[Peter Smith]

and way cheaper then the $1600 usd pico brew system.   Unless you are into DIY there is nothing around at this price/feature ratio

[Rhys Williams]

It's from the future - look at the site footer - ;-)

© 2023 by Rick Landry

[Cain Harland]

Could you DIY for much less than that? Including recirculation, temperature control and CFC.

My set up probably cost less but has neither recirculation or temperature control, basically its a chilly bin and big ass pot on an old 4 ring burner, on the up side it produces 40L per brew.

And a question for you guys who have spent several times that on flash DIY set ups - whats missing? and what are the advantages of having separate HLT, MT and kettle? (That's a little off topic I know).

[Barry]

Practically you lose very little, maybe a touch of brewhouse efficiency.

Braumeisters have 2 limitations for their stated batch size, gravity and hop usage. That is, there is a gravity ceiling (not sure the exact figure) that you can only get around by boiling longer which results in volume loss. And hop usage, you can't just keep throwing hops in the boil, again without limiting your volume.

But that is no different to 3 vessels in that if you are maximising your volumes you'll eventually hit vessel limitations. Just that in most DIY systems you would design in enough headspace to do your required batch at any given volume. For my system that (hopefully) means 23l of 1.036 mild, or 23l of 1.100 barley wine.

I reckon you'd be hard pressed to build a temp controlled recirculating single vessel system with chiller for $1K. That's bloody sharp.

For what it's worth the 23L Braumeister was on my radar when assessing systems, I was quite happy to go single vessel to not have to DIY (I couldn't really justify > $5K for an off the shelf 3 vessel system). I'm so bloody glad I didn't bite, I'd feel well ripped off spending $4K on a Brau only for this thing to come out for $1K.

But I'm glad I DIY'd my 3 vessel system in the end, it's been a fun build.

[Peter Smith]

I am trying to work that out myself as I am 1/2 way to building a 3 vessel system.  There is a big hidden cost in through fittings , hoses and quick disconnects. $35 ball valves etc ...   that said my budget tally up so far is

$298      HLT - 40L urn off grab one, timer pid, ssr probe and through fitting , 3 ball valve 

$313      Mash Tun - 10Gal igloo  with super sexy stainless false bottom through fitting 3 ball valve

$200      Big ass old 50L pot with 2 x 2.2kw elements, no PID control just on/off at moment.

$250      Hoses and quick disconnects etc 

$125     Copper immersion chillor

$80       15m roll of copper tube for HERMs

$$$$      Had already  - Iwakai mag pump - food safe yadda yadda

So thats $1266 and its not actually finished but probably close.  I expect to spend another $2-300 easy plus a lot more if I do a full control panel.

Positives

Moderate sense of pride in design / building it.

Able to do 46L batches easily

Its easy to change or tweak a component.

Able to control flow rate during sparge

I can sell individual bits if I upgrade or replace things - also reuse things later

No need for any heavy lifting (I am having an arthritis flare at the moment)

Negitives of my system

Takes up a lot more space

Costs a lot more money

Probably has less resale value more sunk costs.

Needs to be spread across several breakers due to amp to run all components.

Having an HLT beats warming water up in kitchen jugs....  PID  holds perfect temp while you concentrate on flow rate in/out of mashtun.   You could easily add a pid controlled urn to this grainfather system.

I think you actually get a lot for your money with the grainfather system.    the deep grain bed is going to mean you get reasonably slow (and clear) sparge runoff.  I don't see that 1.080 ish limit as a limit, I have never brewed to this gravity anyways.

I think you are going to be able to brew great beers with the Grainfather and its going to get a lot of people into AG brewing once they (read their other half) get over having to spend $1000 in one hit.   Like owning a boat, its better to enter a long term relationship with said boat, rather then having to justify expense to purchase one.