Braumeister - Tips & Tricks

[Engibeer]

Finally joined the Braumeister club.

Got my 50L BM a couple of weeks ago.

Did my first brew on her last week, DIY DOG #120 Electric India Saison.

(Also got some beef ribs cooking in a 72hr Sous Vide there on the bench )

 

[Engibeer]

Oh, the Sous Vide doubles as a great sparge water heater BTW

 

[Goose]

Thats the place I'm reading it Wobbly.
Maybe I'm making this too difficult to understand.

Using the default settings I should lose 9.87L as my grain weight is 9.85kg. - thats in the Mash tab. Cant change that.
By default in advanced it is actually imperial but it doesnt matter. 1:1

I'm using 9.85kg grain.
If I go off the marked rod - Mashed with 55L, sparged with 15 (70 total) and still had 64.5L preboil. Thats a loss of only 5.5L/9.85kg

If I go off the calculated volume using V=pir^2 - Mashed with 57L, sparged with 15 (72 total) ans still have preboil 66.5. Still only a loss of 5.5L/9.85kg

I agree with grain absorbtion at around 0.6 l/kg of grains.

But I must admit I am a bit concerned about the differences people are coming to for water volume at the 55l mark. maybe every BM build is different I don't know. Admittedly it does not matter if you are tuned to the pre boil SG and post boil SG and volume.

For all other anal (ysts) out there, I weighed in 55l and took a pic with and without the malt pipe in (see below). Maybe German Engineering got it right in my case because I measured the top marking at 55 litres spot on with the malt pipe removed.

I figured important to know the volume with malt pipe out for the sparge method, so I can sparge a necessary volume up to preboil target volume.

But for the no sparge method the malt pipe has to be in while the total required water volume is measured. I am trying to be as accurate as possible because a litre or two can make a significant difference if I have to increase the boil time to achieve target pre boil SG. I learned that lesson when I overestimated my grain absorbtion figures on the first run.

So I have now marked the side of the BM tun for my target pre boil volume (in my case 57.1 litres for a target sized batch) which will tell me where to stop sparging. For the no sparge method, volume is grain weight dependent, but I have nontheless marked another line for reference at 63 litres , measured with malt pipe in, for later no sparge trials.

No Malt pipe, 55 litres weighed in

with malt pipe, 55 litres weighed in

 

[wobbly]

On the Braumeister Forum there is a topic "Braumeister 50L Volume Calculator"

Not having a 50lt machine I decided to develop a similar spread sheet for the 20lt Braumeister when using both the 20/10 litre Malt Pipes as detailed in the attachment.

I don't have a 10lt Malt Pipe so the numbers etc have been constructed based on the physical dimensions and knowing some of the limitations with the 20lt malt pipe wrt to amount of grain etc.

The spread sheet has been cross checked with BeerSmith as far as predicted SG for a given Volume into the fermentor (batch Volume) and kg of grain and is within 0.001 so near enough

The purpose of the spread sheet is not to bypass the various development programs which deal with colour, bitterness and flavour but rather provide a quick check to determine if a particular Beer (SG and Volume) can be accommodated/brewed

Dicko has previously posted on brewing "big beers" and this started me thinking.

Once you open the excel file you will need to "Enable Edits" to be able to "Play" with the settings etc.

I welcome feed back on any issues you find

Cheers

Wobbly

Edit Incorrect file attached the first time all good now!!!!!

View attachment Braumeister 20 10lt malt pipes Volume 1.xlsx

 

[Coalminer]

Need to take into account the different volumes of 50L of water at room temp compared to the volume at 40 C. Maybe the Germans took this into account when they marked the center rods

 

[Goose]

Need to take into account the different volumes of 50L of water at room temp compared to the volume at 40 C. Maybe the Germans took this into account when they marked the center rods

Insofar as rod markings are concerned, the water density difference between a temperature range of 4 and 30 is not so much.

At 4 C, 50 kg of water occupies 50.0 litres, at 30 C it occupies 50.2 litres volume, fwiw.

This does actually get significant at higher temperatures for those calibrating for grain absorbtion figures, ie at 80 deg C, 50kg of water occupies 51.5 litres volume.

 

[wobbly]

Need to take into account the different volumes of 50L of water at room temp compared to the volume at 40 C. Maybe the Germans took this into account when they marked the center rods

The issue with expansion of water can be overstated because if your initial fill is at say 20C and you then chill back to 20C post boil the volume is basically the same (minus grain and hop absorption) other than a very slight increase due to higher density from the sugar content.

The issue with expansion during the mash phase only becomes an issue (about 1.5 litre increase in volume from 20C to 78C) if you are attempting a full volume no sparge mash and your predicted mash volume post dough-in (after accounting for both grain displacement and grain absorption) was close to 39 litres as this could make the total volume 40.5 litres which is very very close to the maximum calculated volume of 41.37lt.

Wobbly

 

[wobbly]

The following was posted on the Braumeister Forum

"Braumeister recommend for the 10lt malt pipe in a 20lt Braumeister min water 12lts and not more than 14lts, Grain not less than 2.3kg and 3.0kg is OK"

I won't change the spread sheet at this stage unless some one who uses the 10lt malt pipe can confirm these valves are the min and max and not just the manufacturers conservative advise

Cheers

Wobbly

 

[Coalminer]

I have used my 10L pipe twice.
Once with 2.7kg and next with 2.8kg and I reckon I was on the upper limit.
Had to turn the top plate over to give the grain room to move and settle on pump breaks

 

[razz]

One of my favourite parts of brewday. Taking a pic of the kettle as it empties and the cloudy softness of the break appears.

 

[Thefatdoghead]

I got everything setup. Had the 114L ss kettle side by side with the 50L brau.
The goal was to brew 100L of IPA. I used 27kg of malt and ended up with 120L of 1.060 wort. Lost 15L to hops because it was a Meantime IPA and there are megger amounts of hops.
The plan was to use the brau to control a step mash in the ss kettle but i was short on fittings for running 2 pumps so I ended up doing an infusion in the ss and just used the brau as normal.
If i had of done the usual 50L in the brau and 100 in the kettle I could easily end up with 150L for brew day.
Im stoked with my new upgrade.

 

[evildrakey]

Just picked up a 50L Braumeister (I call her Brunhilda)... Expect loads of daft questions from me

 

[angus_grant]

Expect loads of daft answers. h34r:

 

[Black Devil Dog]

Something I've just started doing after getting the idea from another post somewhere else on this site.

When I'm transferring the wort and it's getting near the elements, I put my malt pipe back in without the rubber gasket. (Cleaned and sanitised)

It works really well at trapping the break material, so that you can draw nearly all the wort out.

 

[Black Devil Dog]

It also helps if you put a block of wood under the back leg.

 

[Engibeer]

Awesome looks like it would work well with a whirlpool too

 

[Black Devil Dog]

Yeah definitely do a whirlpool.

 

[Black Devil Dog]

Did another brew yesterday and used the malt pipe to trap hop and break material.

Normally I use a hop spider, but yesterday I threw the hops straight in.

150grams of hop pellets and the malt pipe stopped pretty much everything except for the liquid, from being transferred.

 

[Goose]

Something I've just started doing after getting the idea from another post somewhere else on this site.

When I'm transferring the wort and it's getting near the elements, I put my malt pipe back in without the rubber gasket. (Cleaned and sanitised)

It works really well at trapping the break material, so that you can draw nearly all the wort out.

This is a very good idea.

However I find that the whirlpool I can generate using a large wooden spoon and a silicone glove does a pretty good job of confining the trub in a stable cone at the center, just needs a bit of TLC with the tilt at toward the end to max the volume out.

I hate cleaning and while I think your idea is great there is no way I am cleaning (and sanitising) that malt pipe twice.

 

[mckenry]

I measured the depth of wort with a ruler as 435mm

I measured today the radius as 221mm

pi *r^2 * 370 gives me 56.8L at the 55L marker. close enough to 57L
pi *r^2 * 435 gives me 66.5L
If I use the formula for my wort volume it is 66.5L preboil
If I use the marker as 55L, then the preboil is 64.5L

Total water using the formula at 57, plus 15L sparge, measured by urn, gives 72L
Total water using the marker at 55 plus 15L sparge, measured by urn, gives 70L

In either case - I only lose 5.5L to 9.85kg grain.
Thats not a problem, but if I sparged with less water I would have got less into the fermenter.
My losses were easily measured and are accurate.
This is where I dont know what to do.

This is something Ive been measuring over and over. Today I weighed my water.
The 55L mark is exactly 55kg of water.
I think its better than trying to measure diameter etc.
For anyone who really care 55kg at 630m ASL @ 15°C
I'm calling it spot on.