After brewing BIAB for a couple of years, a colleague and I recently bought a 110v Grainfather (GF). We have done 3 nice but not perfect brews already and wanted to start here a thread for everyone to share their preferred GF recipe.
The GF website has plenty of them but I miss the discussion part, where one can share experience and extend a bit on their brewing and fermentation process.
I am for example looking for a nice winter beer, any type, but not above ABV 6.5% that can ferment happily in my 16C basement.
Welcome to the Montrealers Forum! I’m pretty sure you’ll find fellow Homebrewers using the Grainfather like yourself. I don’t have one myself but I do have a Holiday ale recipe. You will need to scale it for your set-up though. Enjoy!
This was actually a double batch when I brewed it, meaning I got two 5-gallon batches out of a single brew day (double the ingredients you see in the recipe). I’m not sure I’d recommend doing that while you’re getting used to the GF, but I point it out to say that it can be done (especially if you’re adding something like honey that can bump up your O.G. without adding grain to the mash). I also fermented each batch with one yeast, not a mix of both.
The end result was on the sweet end, but on par with what I remember the original commercial beer tasting like (Jackie O’s Chomolungma from Athens, Ohio, U.S.). In my own biased mind, it was a great fall/winter brew for sipping after raking leaves or shoveling some snow.
Thanks a lot, Eric.
I brewed your recipe today. Could not find some items (M2, WLP036) and had to complement with some DME to reach 1.050 OG.
I used Safale K-97 dry yeast in the end which I have never tried. Optimal temp is between 15-20C, which is perfect for my colder basement.
Looking forward to try the other recipes as well.
Cheers.
