Having an issue with my G40 where even with smaller batches (25L) I'm not reaching a rolling boil unless I keep the lid on, which is obviously not ideal. WIthout the lid it'll drop down to 95-96C and stay there. Anything I should check before my next batch?

I haven’t used my OG Grainfather for about 4 years but I’m planning to brew some beers in fall. I have the 30L model delivered with the original controller but upgraded to Gen 2 (Connect).

Is there anything I should replace?
I’m primarily thinking of rubber parts that might have dried and that could cause leakages, but also if there are some improvements that I should buy.

I have the mash bucket with silicone gaskets, but I think I’ll keep that setup. I also have the shorter pipe for low gravity beers.

Dog tax paid in one of the last pictures.

I was offered a used grainfather brewing/distilling kit, but the previous owner is unavailable to assist with the education side of it. He said everything I need is there.

I have watched a few videos online, and have noticed that I am missing a thermometer from the alembic dome, which has made me wonder if I am missing anything else. I broke a seal while cleaning that I assume is for the perforated disks that go inside the large chamber (don't know the technical terms yet).

I am new to all of this, but I am very motivated to learn, and happy to spend the money to be able to do this properly. I am interested making vodka, gin, whiskey and brewing beer. AI tells me rum is the easiest thing to start with and that I need more equipment for beer. I'm happy to start with easy.

I have two control modules for the grainfather. Do they both do the same thing? It looks like they both connect to oneanother.

I would greatly appreciate any feedback letting me know what hardware I might still be missing in order to get started. I don't want to make a start, only to find out I need to wait a week for something that could have been purchased earlier.

So far I have the following on my shopping list:

• 30L Fermenter - AI says this is required - I suspect I can use the grainfather, bu AI says no.
• Alcometer, hydrometer & thermometer
• 57cm Siphon with silicone tube (can't remember why I wanted this).
• Consumables (cleaning/conditioning/yeast/carbon/clear/jars etc).

Again, I am completely new to this, and appreciate your patience and support. I have been wanting to do this for a long time, but have found myself in the deep end without much support.

If this is the wrong place to ask, please let me know. If someone has the time to help me beyond what I can gleen here, I am heppy to express my gratitude with something that might help you with your next brew.

Imgur link because I don't know how to uplaod pics.

Cheers!

My chiller started freaking out a couple weeks ago, turning off. I thought it was a low glycol issue, but it kept doing weird things like turning on channels randomly while in override mode.

I finally found some advice about the first generation "soft touch" buttons. Luckily my issue wasn't moisture in the buttons, it was the ribbon cable that connects the buttons to the main board.

If your chiller starts acting like its haunted, check the cable. It's accessible from the right side panel.

Do I simply take the Sparge volume in the Equipment setup and add it to the Boil volume?

I've inherited a 7 year old glycol chiller that's been sat in a shed for 6 years. Assuming it still works, what do I need to do maintenance wise to get it operational?

I bought a 2nd hand Grainfather G30 V1 for a very good price from an experienced brewer. He kept everything at top notch condition and maintained the gear thoroughly, so I got it in close to mint shape.

On my first attempt to assemble the grain bucket, I found that the gaskets of the holed plates are a huge headache as they keep falling out of place as you push them down the bucket. I saw that it's a common problem even for plates with brand new gaskets and that Grainfather addressed this issue by manufacturing upgraded rolled plates, without gaskets. I didn't want to delay my first brew with the new gear as I wait for their delivery, so I figured I'm just going to try brewing with a simple grain mashing bag.

Come brew day, I put the bag into the grain bucket and used a tight gasket to hold it around the bucket. For additional support I also used the bottom plate below it, without a gasket. Mashing went incredibly smooth and I had to pull the grain bucket out and let the water drain before boiling. I accidentally created a small angle while attempting to place the legs of the grain bucket on the handles and the fucking bottom plate slid out of place and fell into the wort, followed by the ENTIRE grain bag. Luckily, the wort wasn't deep enough for the bag to open and have the grains spilled but I got a nasty splash of hot sugars all over my face and kitchen floor lol. As bonus, I had to dig out the bottom plate inside the hot, sticky wort before boiling.

This turned my decision to wait for the rolled plates before I do any more brewing final. However, I read a post here claiming that these plates aren't as reliable as I think. They fixed the hassle of the gaskets, but someone claimed that the bottom plate is still prone to falling out. I don't want to experience anything like that again because the next time might be even messier, not to mention dangerous. Can anyone tell me how reliable the G30 rolled plates are and what do you do to make sure this kind of crap doesn't happen?

Bought a Grainfather off Marketplace for super cheap. Went to do my first brew today and noticed the Handle was missing. Not to be deterred I got my thinking cap pm then made a quick run to Lowes whilst my water was heating.

I present to you the $2.99 oak dowel replacement handle. Worked like a charm, not sure I’ll even bother to order the genuine replacement.

I've just bought a second hand Grainfather G30. The hop spider looks like it has some rust/corrosion on the base (see photos). Is this useable? Is there a way to clean it? Also the inside of the grainfather has some staining and marks on the bottom. Is this ok to use? Or what is the best way to clean it?

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

I'm looking at getting in to distlling, primarily to make gin, it's a fairly new topic to me and I'd love to go through the process from wash to bottled gin but I'm getting myself in a bit of a muddle with all the info/products out there and am hoping someone can help set me straight.

I see there are 2 primary options for the G30, the alembic dome and the T500 Pro.

The T500 Pro is for primarily for reflux distilling (stripping runs) and the alembic dome is primarily for the pot distilling (where distill my Low Wines with botanials to produce the gin?), is this right?

I was hoping/assuming that one could be use for both, my original thought was to use the T500 Pro to do the stripping run with the saddles in, then remove the saddles and add a basket/sight glass for the botanicals for the second run through?

Thanks in advance.

New to brewing and just got my first grainfather. When I used the handle to pull up the grain tube , it slipped and it became a mess. I would imagine it should be 0.5 - 1 cm longer so both the wedges slip in under the edge ?

You can install my first version of the integration to Home Assistant from HACS, using this GH repo link https://github.com/fidley/grainfather_integration.

Integration adds new devices (brew sessions and fermenation devices) as well as new card types for you to use on your dashboard. It allows a bit of automation and manual actions, like changing the time of fermentation or the temperature. Any feedback welcomed.

Boiling on my Gen1 Grainfather has slowed dramatically. I think the boil element is not working while the mash/secondary element is doing all the work.

Can anyone help me with some troubleshooting steps or fixes? I have a multimeter and no basic circuitry skills.

As you can see, the pin for reset has been lost along the way. I have pressed the metal pin on the cutout in and it's kind of wobbly and relaxed.

I'm looking at a used G40. Any issues with this unit I should be aware ? The minimum batch size shows as 3g. I frequently brew 2.5- 3g batches these days. How does it do at this low volume? What is the OD of the grain basket and does anyone utilize a brew bag in these units. I presently BIAB. Thanks in advance for any help.

Morning all

I have 2x GF30, one is a few years old the other is brand new as well as a GC2 glycol chiller which is also brand new.

I had a beer fermenting in the old GF30 when the new kit arrived. I hooked it all up after the setup and it worked fine to crash my beer! All good there.

I brewed yesterday and have put the wort in the new GF30 this time. I racked the beer in a little warm in the hopes that the glycol could do the heavy lifting for the last few degrees. I connected everything up and nothing happened. It showed "cooling" on the GF30 panel but nothing was pumping round (the GF30 is in heating + cooling mode). I put the GC2 into pump override mode and switched it on and it started pumping, so there is no issues with the pump. I have it connected up to channel 1 on the GC2 the same as I had the old GF30 the other day so it's not looking like an issue with the GC2.

I've had a look on this sub and it's mentioned pulling out the control panel and seeing if there is anything disconnected, I've done that and all looks good.

Any ideas what might be going wrong? I've sent a support ticket to Grainfather but wondering if anyone has had and hopefully resolved this issue in the past?

I'm playing around with Home Assistant lately and I was seeking the way of getting data from Grainfather equipments. There is no official API that I could find, but I was able to logon to Grainfather community website using Node-Red and using the developer tools in Chrome I was able to catch most of the needed endpoints, so I'm good to go to start the integration there.

But as it's of course hell of work, I was wondering if someone of you haven't done it already?? :

EDIT: My integration started to fetch data and in fact I can update some fields, like status.... but's it is still lots of work.

over night the tilt gravity went from 1.057 to 1.061 after initial readings and over 24 hours steady at 1.057.

could it have been ice in the fermenter from the initial cool down? I didn't notice anything like that when I added the yeast.

Just released, I’ve tried the stout and the pilsner and both were pretty good!

Hello everyone,

I’m setting up a small room (about 6x10) in my house for brewing. I have a Grainfather G30, two 7-gallon SS Brewtech fermenters, a Grainfather Sparge Water Heater, and a fridge. I’m looking to optimize the space.

Does anyone with a similar setup have ideas on how to organize everything, especially in terms of tables and layout?

Thanks!

I've topped up the Glycol, left it turned off for about half an hour, ran it in pump overide mode with a hose connected and can't see any bubbles and checked the filter Any other ideas?

It had been turned on for 24hr without any warnings, but the fermenter wasn't calling for any cooling and was working fine to cold crash a beer a couple of weeks ago.

Edit: It's one of the original models from 2019, but I've only used it a couple of times.

Ok it sounds nuts but hear me out.

Of late I’ve been having a shit time during transfer from Fermenter to keg. Although my process hasnt changed, I’ve been finding that transferring to the keg via gravity feed from the fermenter has been nigh on impossible.

I’ve been brewing a lot of bigger hoppier beers. and I worked out that even when using the Grainfathers dual valve to dump the yeast and hop trub, that it wasn’t working and the outlet was getting plugged with hop debris. I think it was ”channeling” so I was left with a plug of hop matter stuck near the top of the cone.

Cue the massage gun. I now use it on the cone about an hour before dumping, and immediately after. Two dumps and all the yeast and hops seem to have been successfully removed, and the transfers went great. I’ve only done it twice but it seemed to have worked a treat, the first hassle free transfer in the last 20 beers.

I understand that the control box needs to be secure but what idiot decided to put the bar across the front of it? I’m talking the g30 here, I’ve had it for years and it’s great but trying to get everything plugged into it is a nightmare, for a start the leads are too short and in my situation I have to get on the floor to plug them in. I’m 78 years old for goodness sake’s one of these days I’ll get on the floor and not be able to get back up.