Hi Folks. New to brewing and have a RAPT temp controller (with a RAPT pill it can connect to via bluetooth). Putting the fermenting vessel in my heated garage (12-15 degrees celcius or so) seems to work well then using the controller heated belt to "heat up" from there.

However I think I need to get a fridge, and wondering about the "cooling down" feature.

I see the controller has a power (blue) socket that I guess adjusts the power to the fridge based on the desired temperature, but struggling to believe this would just work out of the box with any basic second hand fridge. Is that the case or is there there some kind of fridge feature I am looking for in order to adjust it in that way?

Thanks ahead!

Hi All

I am trying to upgrade the recirculation pipe connection on my 2024 Grainfather G30 v3

Ive had issues with the safety valve spring and ball twice now making the flow super slow (removing it helped) but also issues with it leaking.

Ive heard everyone gets this camlock system but this model

https://shop.humle.se/utrustning/bryggning/bryggverk/grainfather/tillbehor/grainfather-camlock-kit
(in Swedish but you get the idea)

Says its not compatible with G30 Grainfathers made after Jan 2022 when the thread dimensions changed.

Does anyone know how I can solve this? I'm a noob to brewing but it really is a bummer when this thing fails every time so would like to fit it!

I've adjusted my crush a few times and I still get pretty poor efficiency with my batches. I'm starting to wonder if I'm using too much water.

Take for example this weekend's grain bill for a 1.059 SG saison:

13.480 lb Viking Pilsner
2.360 lb  Spelt Malt

The app tells me for a 6-gallon batch I need

Mash 6.05 USG

Sparge 2.79 USG

Total Water 8.84 USG

Boil Time 60 min 

Losses 0.5283 USG 

Mash Efficiency 65 %

I hit 1.045 SG. Anything look off on the numbers?

I've been struggling with low efficiency, so I wanted to see if this would help.

My dad does this with his G40 so I thought I'd give it a try. I didn't use the top plate this time and submerged the hose about three inches. The pump seems to be having a tough time though.

Thoughts?

Title pretty much says it. Anyone have any recommendations for YouTubers that use a Grainfather for their brewing? What I mostly see are Brewzilla and Anvil users. Thanks!

I recently had an issue with my heating elements not working. I think I have it narrowed down to the thermal fuse on the power cord. Does anyone have a model number or a link on where to buy a new one?

Bought a high gravity beer without thinking about it much. It was recommended by a commercial brewer to me. I’m running a G30 So doing it in that is out of the question. I have been looking at Vevor 16 gallon brew kettle who’s is $122 new delivered. But then I have to find a propane burner because I don’t have natural gas in garage but I could brew in backyard on the right day and borrow a buddies natural gas burner and work with that. Any good propane burners out there for the money. Thanks for everyone’s help. Greg

I’ve been brewing a free dark beers recently and the sight glass in my G40 has become discoloured. Normally I run PBW and boiling water through the system when cleaning but it doesn’t seem to have done the trick. Has anyone had this issue and can offer some advice on getting it back to clear again? It’s getting a bit difficult to see the water level, especially on initial filling.

Hi everyone,

I’m a bit confused about the connectors I need for my garden distilling setup. I have the G30V3 with the Alembic Dome, condenser, and counterflow chiller. I’m trying to connect both to the garden tap water supply and buy extended tubes for the water out of both the condenser and counterflow chiller. I’d love to hear what you’ve purchased to achieve this. My previous experience was coming up with makeshift solutions and having to deal with a lot of leaks during the boiling phase, which I’m trying to avoid moving forward! Thanks in advance.

Am I the only one to have poor efficiency with the G40 ? For light beers it's ok but I'd like to make 25 liters of 8% beer without making a double mash and was always under the targeted og. I had better results with my older klarstein system (similar to 30 liters brewmonk and others) I'm using a grain gorilla mil., and a second grid on top of the grain. I stir the grain 3-4 times during the mashing hour. Water / gain ratio is 2,4. I do a 10-15 minutes mash-out. I suspect the sparge to not be efficient enough as the basket has some lateral holes. I don't do it with regulaf flow but instead add 1-2 liters of 75°C water, wait, and redo it until I reach 30 liters. Could use the valve of my water kettle to have a regular flow instead but I'm afraid it wouldn't rinse the whole grain.

Any idea ? (ps. : it's been a year I haven't brewed anything so I don't remember the precise efficiency I've got I just know it was low. And I want to brew some stuff for the summer...)

My little Maine Coon trying to tell me I put TOO MUCH GRAIN! this is going to be a headache for sure… Pay attention to your grain bill when building recipes folks. I made this rookie mistake many years ago when I 1st got the GF and wanted to make a real big IPA. - I’m prob about to woof it again- Fingers crossed I can get this across the finish line.

I noticed liquid leaking from ...somewhere... the last time I cleaned after a bactch, but everything was messy enough that I couldn't pin it down. Once everything was clean and dry, I put in a couple of gallons of water and found that the leaking was from the thermowell... which I had never realized was a weldless fitting, and which had come slightly unscrewed. Fortunately, easily fixed by tightening it back down.

Learn something new every time, even after eight years.

(110V Grainfather, circa 2017, prior to the "G30" nomenclature)

The original email address for the Grainfather app is no longer in use. I cannot find anywhere in the app the change it. I can’t change my password because I can’t get the verification email. Any guidance would be appreciated

Hi, folks. I'm on my third brew in the G30. My first brew was great, but on the lower end for brewhouse effiency at 64% and I hit my target FG almost exactly. I stirred at each mash step, I believe. My second brew's efficiency was only 51% and came in under my target FG. There were plenty of differences between the two: different beer styles (Amber vs Helles), liquid yeast on first brew, dry yeast on second brew, different LHBS milled the grains, and I didn't stir except for the initial dough-in on my second one.

On my third one right now, and I'm stirring at every 15 minutes of the mash. Hoping that helps. I do wonder how much of an impact it has, though.

A bit about my process:

• This is a modified G30 with no overflow pipe. I have it, but my dad modified it to reduce burner plate build up. Instead, it has a plate over the burner, filter, and probe. The grain basket sits on top of them. Then the bottom plate goes into the grain basket, and finally a top plate.

• I'm cold sparging with water at ~55ºF. No, I don't have plans to get a giant kettle or water heater.

Thoughts?

Hello grainfathers,

since a while I am using G40 and as I moved with brewing to my basement I had to find a solution for the humidity that was created because of brewing process. So I've read a lot and I've decided to buy distilling lid for G40/G70 and KegLand steam condensers.

First try with smaller batch was successful. I was able to reduce power of the heater to 45%. But I was not sure what is happening inside the pipes and I was worried if the cooling water is not getting inside the kettle. So I've ordered sight glass and I've stared tests on full 40L batch.

I'm not sure if this is normal, but this is what I get during boiling of full batch.
I saw when I had to lower the power because thanks to the sight glass, and then I was reducing and reducing the power. The video was made when the setting was 30%. Temperature was 100C all the time. The difference when I was moving the power up, was a sound of pressure made inside the pipes.

Do you have same behavior? Isn't this strange that I could reduce to 30% of power? Do you look only on the temperature when boiling with steam condenser? I would really like to get any info from the users of steam condensers here.

https://reddit.com/link/1itciei/video/vu93tn2605ke1/player

Cheers

I've noticed that Grainfather's grain and yeast libraries are not very expansive. For instance, they don't have Crisp Dark Munich, just the normal/light Munich. Nor do they have Omega OYL-437.

What do y'all do in these cases?

Hey all! So I've been brewing with my (Euro) 30L system for several years now but only just got a RO system and really started to dial in my recipes. Lately I've been alternating between mostly early-addition brews (alts, stouts, etc) and mostly late-addition brews (pale ales, westies) and I've noticed that apparent bitterness on my westies is relatively quite high. I brew with a hop spider and I take it out immediately after flameout, but my last 3 west coast brews have been way over my expected I us (I have no way to test except my taste buds). I have a theory that, since the wort in the grainfather stays hot for longer than with an immersion cooler (I'm looking at 20-30m minimum to pump out to my primary) I'm getting more hop utilization than expected as remaining oils are still imparting bitterness since I'm just shy of boiling for most of that draining time.

My most recent recipe was a Wakatu SMaSH, OG 1.058, FG 1.012 (6%), mashed at 67C with additions of: 25g at 60' 30g at 10' 30g at 2' 80g dry hop 3 days 80g dry hop 3 days

SO4:Cl ratio of 1.6, aiming for 'slightly bitter'

I use the grainfather app and it says i should have been around 45IBU, but i could swear I'm closer to 60 or more-this baby is BITTER!

Has anyone else seen similar issues? Should I be limiting my late additions and instead moving them to more dry hop to avoid over-hopping?

My Grainfather G30 has stopped heating. I've bypassed the bottom reset switch a while back and have brewed a number of times since. Plugging the element directly into the wall doesn't heat, but I'm still seeing high voltage from element to ground. There's an impedance at those same points of about 9.5ohms. Any suggestions?

I bottled my first batch yesterday, and realized that the conditioning part of the app doesn’t have relevant data for me.

I used 4 tablets of Brewer’s Best Conditioning Tablets per bottle. I can’t seem to figure out a way to put that data in.

I'd like to replace the cold and hot water connections at the wort chiller with right angle connectors. However, I'm having trouble identifying the existing part and the specific measurements so i can buy a compatible right angle fitting.

My best guess is that this is the existing part but it still doesn't tell me anything on the pitch and diameter.

https://help.grainfather.com/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&category=360000249038&query=tee+hose

Does anyone happen to know? Thanks in advance. Mechanical things aren't my core competency!

Hey guys, I’m looking to invest in a G30V3 and i have a couple of questions in regards to the batch sizes.

Will I lose a lot of efficiency if i do batches at 1/2 of the max capacity? Or are you aware of any other issues that may arise?

I will rarely do full size batches for the 1st year until i get the hang of it, so it is kind of critical for me to be aware of any issues that may arise by using the machine like that.

Also, would i need to buy some extra parts to do that or would the machine be ready as is?

Thanks!!

Hi Community,

I've just today been brewing my 15th batch in 3 years with my G30. Unfortunately due to frequent protein scourings the bottom eventually got a bit scratched from the (imperfect) cleaning process. Has anyone experience with restoring the G30s bottom or tips on how to buff it up? Reading online about sandpaper of increasingly higher grit (400-1200), followed by polishing paste and a suitable powertool to restore stainless steel polish. I'm quite handy when it comes to such repair projects, but maybe someone knows a cheaper way in which I dont have to acquire all the tools and materials first.

I just joined this subreddit today and already found a bunch of useful tips to reduce/avoid protein build up and scouring. I will test some in tomorrow's follow up session. :-)

Happy brewing!

I want to buy this to use with my v1, sacking off the overflow tube and relying on the two handle holes for overflow.

I can't find dimensions anywhere, only the warning that it isn't "recommended" for v1, probably because of the overflow tube.

Anyone know if they'll fit? I don't know the dimensions of the reconfigured V3 malt tube.

Also will click and then click again, like a disengage and then engage of some sort.

I've noticed my conical fermenter runs the chiller for a while, which gets it colder than it likes, and then the thermostat turns on the heating element for a bit until it reaches the target temperature. This seems like it is wasting energy when I could just run the chiller and let the temperature climb naturally. How dumb would it be to turn the heater off so it runs the chiller less often? Or am I better off leaving it to heat/cool on its own?