[THEQMAN]

Returning to the fold after 20 years, at which time I was a partial mash guy with some pretty basic equipment. Further, back 20 years ago, I wanted to get into all grain brewing and cumulative advise at that time was-- sure you can do that if you want to dedicate half you garage to the process, and by the way break out your checkbook as it is not a cheap date.

Fast forward to today. money not an issue, and while not preferable, if necessary I am ok with dedicating half my garage to the process, if that is what is required to be able to meet the goal of producing the best beer that is possible from a home brewing perspective.

So far I am liking the Grainfather on a "buy" basis. However, kind of figuring the best way to judge quality of output is by how many competitions are won. On this basis, feedback I have been receiving is that people not aware of many if any competitions have been won by users of a Grainfather. Ok, so this begs the question I want to ask -- why is that. Is it because other setups are needed to produce better quality "wort" for fermentation, or is it more that those who have reached the level of expert or master, necessary to win these competitions, tend to be dedicated "purists", who have gotten there over time using other systems and prefer to be more "hands on" at each step of process, and view automation or semi-automation assistance to get them to the same quality output, as somehow being immoral? Kind of tittering on this as being a possible assessment and interested in feedback. thanks

[denny]

I think you're using the wrong metric.  The brewer makes the beer, not the equipment.  I use a Grainfather, a Pico, a Zymatic and several coolers and make pretty much equal quality beer with all of them.  FWIW, Zymatic beers have won NHC, so if that's what you want to measure by you should look at one pf those.

[Wilbur]

I haven't tried any of these systems, so take this with a grain of salt, but I switched to BIAB (No sparge) a few batches ago and love it.

1. Cleanup is incredibly easy. Rinse out the kettle, dump the bag in the compost and rinse that out. I'll deep clean everything every few months to be safe.
2. Almost no equipment is needed- I have a nice kettle, a bag, and a ratchet I use to haul the grains out of the put. And a turkey burner for heating, and immersion coil for chilling.
3. Less money on mashing equipment means nicer fermenters. I realized I didn't love sitting on 5 gallons of a beer, so I sold most of my equipment and spent it on some nice 2.5 gallon torpedo kegs and some SS brewtech mini's.

Good luck, in the end it's all great beer.

[theDarkSide]

If you're still in the market for a grainfather, Northern Brewer has a code they just released today, "BEER" that can be used on the GF.  Brings the cost down to $832 ($712 if you want the previous version that doesn't have the BT controller). 

[bayareabrewer]

If you're looking at grainfathers, Id suggest giving these guys a look, as the parts they use aren't proprietary and can be easily replaced if damaged, and their vessels enable you to do a no sparge 5 gallon batch which means you wont need an additional kettle and burner to make a standard batch of beer.

https://brausupply.com/collections/biab-systems