How much time does it save?

[DeadFall]

I'm debating getting a Grainfather or Braumeister. How much time do these shave off a brew day?

I have a few things I want to get and want to work out my priorities and I value my little free time quite highly. I'm leaning to the Grainfather for now as it's cheaper and there is a possibility of upgrading to a 50L BM in a few years time as I might be moving to a place with a garden (currently in a flat) when some investments mature.

[Wezzel]

You can probably shave at least half hour off each end of the brew day in setting up, cleaning and putting away but the real saving is while mashing and boiling. You can just forget about it and do something else while it does it's thing.

[Matt12398]

The time from start to finish is about the same, but as mentioned it does also save on set up and clean up. The real time gain is that you can do other things as some of what you'd usually be doing with a 3V setup is being looked after by the BM.

[Mr. Dripping]

Pretty much agree with what has been posted.
I save just over an hour or so using the BM.....most of which is cleaning time having only used the one vessel.
With a 3V system, you have to be constantly monitoring the sparge.........not so with a BM.......this frees up another 45-60 minutes to do other things.

[WallyBrew]

With a 3V system, you have to be constantly monitoring the sparge.........not so with a BM.......this frees up another 45-60 minutes to do other things.

Not true.
This depends on your methodology. My sparge runs for 130 minutes and I can walk away from it for the entire period.

[Mr. Dripping]

With a 3V system, you have to be constantly monitoring the sparge.........not so with a BM.......this frees up another 45-60 minutes to do other things.

Not true.
This depends on your methodology. My sparge runs for 130 minutes and I can walk away from it for the entire period.

With my methodology it is true. I could leave it for 10/15 minutes or so, but I am limited in what I can do with my 3V system.

[DeadFall]

Thanks,

Sounds like I might have to get one. My set up is quite fiddly in places especially during the sparge and cooling process. I work from home so it sounds like it would enable me to brew during work hours and free up weekends. I find out if I get a promotion tomorrow so it might be a little celebratory present to myself if the accompanying pay rise is nice. SWMBO isn't too happy at the idea but she might be won over when I stop leaving my brewing equipment in the bathroom after I get distracted half way through the clean (usually by her demanding I do something else! )

[GrowlingDogBeer]

I can fit a brew in while I am WFH on a Braumeister. For that alone I think it was a worthwhile investment as I don't have to brew at weekends.

[Wezzel]

Ah. So that's what my colleagues do when they are "working from home"

[Waffty]

As stated the actual start to finish times, are within an hour of when I brewed with a 3V system. The difference as stated is in the automated process, that is, the time to heat the strike water is the same, as my 3v system but once the malt tube is in place, then no matter how complex my mash profile is, I can sit back and let it get on it. Once I remove the malt tube, I pace it on the upturned dome lid and let it run into a cleaned bowl, to be added into the boil later. The boil takes a bit quicker to heat up than my 3v system but once the protein break has happened and the bittering hops added, then you're free again until the late hop addition. In the meantime, the malt can be simply placed in bag/bin/bucket, as the malt tube is enclosed, so no need to dig it out of a Thermo pot or similar and since it's a hollow tube, a quick blast with a garden hose, will get most of the gunk off it. Then as I use a hop filter, there's little material to worry about post boil. Once the wort is in the FV, then I clean out the BM with a quick wash around, before filling it with clean water and a cleaning agent. I then put the BM in manual mode, set the correct temp for the cleaner and once it's reached the desired temp, I turn on the pumps (mine is the 50L version) and let it run for 15/20 mins, in the meantime, I hose down the dome lid and hop filer, pitch the yeast etc. Once cleaning is complete, I drain it off, loosen the pumps to get the last of the water out and give the impellors a check over, dry it off and put my feet up, job done.

So as a process, there is deffo nigh on an hours saving in actual brew window BUT as per the above, there's at least an hour of free time during the brewing window, even taking into account FV cleaning and tidying up as you go.

With my old 3V system, I'd have had to watch it almost constantly (even with a PID controller), plus the Mash Tun/manifold, boiler, transfer pot clean up and FV prep, would have resulted in very limited free time during the brewing window.

[DeadFall]

Ok, pay rise came in £1k higher than expected and I scored a very good rating, so I have a few extra £100s in my bonus. So I'm about to order it whilst SWMBO is excstatic about the extra money coming in Before I do however, what is the deal with cleaning? I'm in a soft water area, can I just use oxi?

[Matt12398]

I'm also fortunate to have water without much in it. I give everything a bit of a scrub and/or brush then fill with water, heat to about 60C with PBW and run the pumps for a while. I don't see any reason why you cant use oxi if you don't want to pay the extra for PBW.

[DeadFall]

Cool, PBW looks to be very expensive. I suppose I could order a tub and run it through every 2-3 brews.

[Wezzel]

Mine comes clean with just hot water, a little washing up liquid and a non scratch washing up sponge. I'll only run PBW through it every few brews or if the element looks discoloured.

[DeadFall]

So far it's not going well. It took ages to get up to 66 (I doughed in at 50 to avoid burning my fingers) and I'm constantly adjusting the flow rate of the pump to stop too much wort going down the overflow pipe. I think the latter is due to a too fine crush not allowing good flow through the grain bed. I can get away with 0.7mm on the rollers on my old setup but I think I'll have to dial it down a bit for this one. Next time I'll dough in closer to 66 so I can use the 2000w setting to get more temp.