Grainfather G30 Connect All-in-One Brewing System with Counter Flow Wort Chiller 30L

Working well, simple to use

I've had a Grainfather for more than a year. it works really well the only thing I would say is it consists of lots bits so until you really get used to it there seems to be bits everywhere. I have made more than 50 brews with it and everyone thinks the beer is great. Only thing you have to watch is your waistline!!! I would say yes go for it!!!

In 2015 I bought a Grainfather. I brewed 54 35 pint beer batches. On brew 54 the Grainfather fizzed/buzzed/short circuited. The Grainfather heating element wiring had failed unrepairable. The 2 yr warranty didn't apply.After much research I bought a replacement bare bones Grainfather shell for £299 and will continue brewing on this superb consistent system.The biggest problem that annoys many Grainfather users is the circular silicon rubber gasket that surrounds the mesh filter plate. To insert the plate I put the plate & gasket in the fridge for an hour before putting it into the Grain basket. Once chilled it shrinks making it is EASY to put in place without dislodging the silicon Gasket.

I have been looking at this via youtube and various review site for some weeks, having started brewing again after a break of some years. As I look through recipe books for craft and traditional ales I have come to the conclusion that all grain brewing is essential to the best quality homebrew. Anyhow, a week ago I took the plunge and bought one, together with a seperate water heater for sparging: this is not essential, but it is not a bad thing to have either and it can act as a second mash bin if you really want to go to town of a brew or two. Watching the videos I can see how it all works and will update this review later about brewing a traditional English ale, but this part of the review is about the basics of putting it together, It comes with a comprehensive manual which you do need to follow in the assembly and in the use of the Grainfather. Check you have all of the bits before starting as they are not all where you expect them to be and take time to do the task, which is fairly sraightforward, but needs care. One case in point is when attaching the plastic overflow pipe: the plastic is soft so heat it in hot water before attaching it; I didn't initially and split the end. Luckily, it was not harmful to the operation, but is a bit disconcerting to think that you might break something at the outset. The other tricky thing is fixing in the bottom sieve to the mash cylinder, which I tried to do several times before I got it right. However, 10 minutes to go over the manual and abouty 30 minutes to get everything ready thereafter, doesn't seem too painful to me. the Heat exchange hoses come with different fixing for a garden hose type conection, mixer tap thread and one other, but the mixer tap was the one I needed: remover the threaded mixer hesd from the tap and screw in the heat excahange fitting. In some ways this is the most important part of the kit, providing a quick and efficient cold break to the brew and making it ready to pitch the yeast in 20 minutes or so. The convenience of an all in one brewing system was the thing that appealed to me - there are some others, with the Braumeister being the best, but costing three times as much, so this is good value for money that will repay you over time, even though it is not exactly cheap. However, the Grainfather is well made, stainless steel and, by all account, good at what it does: I certainly look forward to better brewing. Look around for the best prices, as they do vary.Pt.2: Before you can use the grainfather you need to put it all together, fill it and boil it up to clean away any residual oils used in manufacture. I used the chiller pipework to fill the the boiler with the mash bin in place. The chiller, cold water feed has a number of fixtures to connect to taps including one for a mixer tap that I used. Over filling for the purpose of cleaning I set the initial temp for 67c which is the mash temp. with more than twice the amount of water that you would normally need for mashing and at a starting temp of 19c, it took almost 3 hours to get to 67c and a further 40 minutes to reach boiling temp. using the pump to recirculate hot water from the bottom to the top, from time to time, will probably help to move things along a bit, but this is not a quick process. After boiling for 10 mins or so, I connected the chiller up and ram boiling water through the system to clean it all out and to sterilise. I then ran cold water until it ran cold into the sink and stated the pump to pump the hot water into a Fermentation vessel. It ran cool the whole way and finished off at about 26c, a bit hot for the yeast, but not far off. I could have regulated the flow rate at the start and probably got it down to 24/25c and I will do this part with more care for the last part of this review, later. Cleaning out, as in this process, gives a good idea about how long a brew will take to do. With prep and cleaning, I reckon you will need no less than five hours.Brewing: prep all of the parts by sanitising and assemble all of your ingredients. Using the mash water calculator and using 6 kilos of grain, I put 19.7 liters of water into the grainfather and started to heat the water, adding the grain when it came up to temp. You turn on the pump and recirculate water from below and back through the grains and, basically leave it for 90 minutes. While it is mashing, you need to heat the sparge water to 75c in a separate vessel: again using the given formula, I heated 13.1 litres of water to sparge the grains when the mash was finished. This process is not hard: lift the inner lining of the grainfather allowing the mash to drain and slowly drizzle the grains from above with the heated sparge water. Next, set the grainfather to boil and wait until it comes up to temperature, waiting for the hot break and stirring the wort to avoid a boil over. I placed my hops in two hop bags and hung them over the sides and into the wort, boiling for 90 minutes. Ten minutes of so before the end of the boil, set up the wort chiller and run boiling wort through it to steralise it. The chiller has a connector for mixer taps, so I set this up and ran cold water through the chiller counterflow with waste water going into the sink. When ready I ran the hot wort through the chiller and out into my fermentation vessel. This should have colled the wort to 25c or just below, but I got the flow tap wrong and allowed it to run out too fast, requiring me to pour it all back and run it again. No matter, it ran cool the next time at 24.5c; I checked the OG and it was 1057, and giving the cooled wort a vigorous stir, I pitched the yeast and sealed the lid on the FV. Clean up took half an hour and the who;e job, start to finish took 5 1/2 hours. As usual, I tasted the cooled wort and found it to be wholly different to that of a kit beer - sweeter, hoppy but not at all unpleasant and not flat and slightly sour as kit beers are prone to be. I expect to be drinking this beer in 5 weeks, when I can finally say whether it is worth all of the effort. At this stage, I do believe that it is, although it takes far longer than making a kit beer and is not significantly cheaper than a good kit. I enjoy the process of crafting the beer, rather than just assembling pre-prepared bits and I have a wealth of recipes to draw from that are not available through kits. No doubt it is easy to make mistakes and to make a poor brew, but I feel experienced enough to get the hang of this kit and make a decent beer that has more depth of flavour, but time will tell.Last word: After fermenting and racking into a pressure barrel, a friend and I finally bottled the beer today. It was put into a barrel to allow it to clear and sat there for just over two weeks. It is not 100% clear, but pretty good. We tried some of the draught beer and it was excellent: drinkable now, but probably better in a week. I will allow the bottles to mature for 3 to 4 weeks. I used about a 1/4 of the sugar I would use at barrelling and the rest for bottling. The draught was well flavoured, clean but robust and a good colour for a Ruby Mild, finishing at around 5.7%. I am convinced that all grain brewing is the way to go, even though it takes more time and effort than producing beer from a kit. Nevertheless, there is a lot to learn and it does require some different techniques. I would have liked to added photo, but can't for some reason.