Grainfather Unboxing and Assembly – Serious Distilling with Brewcraft, Still Spirits & Grainfather
Hi and welcome to episode 548 with Whats4Chow.com and the next episode in our short course, Serious Distilling with Brewcraft, Still Spirits and Grainfather.
Up until now we have covered everything with regard to the Still Spirits equipment and products. Today we move on to look at the Grainfather brewing and distilling system, as we find out what comes in the box and how it all fits together.
The core of the system is an excellent quality brushed stainless steel boiler, the cooler coil, the computer controller, all the necessary flow pipes and filters, and the stainless steel boiler sleeve.
Step 1 in assembly… attach the hose to the recirculation bridge. Also make sure that the silicon seal is seated correctly on the threaded side of the bridge. Put this aside for now.
Unwrap the ties from the power cable and thermometer probe attached to the computer controller. On the back of the controller you will find 2 large studs. Feed the power cable and thermometer lead through the cage on the side of the boiler.
Insert the studs into the face plate and lower the computer module into the cage to secure.
You will notice that the lid has a built-in self closing mechanism which is a nice touch.
Unwrap the cables that emerge from the pump housing and the base of the boiler. The cables are clearly marked… plug these into their corresponding inputs on the underside of the computer module.
Insert the thermometer probe into the thermometer housing near the base of the boiler.
Next up is the recircultion system. This pipe rising from the pump module is the riser for the recirculation system.
Make sure the end-cap is securely fitted to the filter. Press the silicon T-connector from the filter onto the nipple that leads to the filter located next to the thermometer receiver inside the boiler.
Make sure that all of the shipping packaging has been removed from the boiler before doing this.
Take one of the perforated filter plates and the internal flow drainage pipe.
Make sure the silicon seal is seated correctly on the surround of the plate.
Insert the plate into the boiler sleeve. It is a fairly tight fit, but with a little patience, it does go in. Push this all the way to the bottom of the boiler sleeve.
Unscrew the threaded nut from the one end of the overflow pipe, insert the threaded end of the pipe through the plate from the inside of the boiler sleeve and secure this with the nut.
Place the extendable riser onto the overflow pipe and cap this off with the end stopper.
Insert the boiler sleeve by rotating it until the little triangular feet at the bottom of the sleeve fit past the sleeve rest at the top of the boiler. We will only insert the second perforated once the grain has been added to the boiler, which will be covered in consequent episodes.
Place the glass lid on the boiler, screw the recirculation bridge onto the recirculation riser pipe, with the flexible hose dropping the hole in the center of the lid.
Please take heed that the spring clips are not used to secure the glass lid. They are only used when distilling with the alembic dome lid.
To attach the cooling coil for cooling the mash, unpack all of the tubes from the center of the cooling coil.
The blue tube attaches to your cold water tap and a collection of different fittings is supplied to achieve this.
The top clear tube attaches to the recirculation riser pipe, while the bottom clear tube runs the mash back through the glass lid into the boiler.
The red tube runs the waste water to the sink or drain.
Unscrew the recirculation bridge from the riser pipe.
Run the lower clear tube up the outside of the cooling coil and drop it through the center hole of the unit.
Place the cooling coil on the lid of the boiler making sure to run the clear tube through the lid.
Attach the upper clear tube to the recirculation riser.
Attach the blue tube to your tap, and place the red tube in your runoff and you’re done.
Just note before we close, the recirculation bridge is used to circulate the mash during mashing or cooking, and the cooler is used to cool the cooked mash. This will be covered in episodes to come.
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