# Braumeister V Biab Actual Results?



## Jonesy_sa (14/7/11)

Hi all,
Just curious who out there has used the Braumeister and compared it against BIAB?
What sort of benefits are obtainable over the BIAB method?
Will the circulation of liquid make much of a difference?
Will the temperature control make noticeable differences or at least the ability to step temperatures?

Cheers
Jonesy


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## bignath (14/7/11)

I don't own a BM and i am a 3V not BIAB brewer, but from what i can tell, the major selling points on the BM vs BIAB with an urn or particularly gas fired BIAB, would be automation of the brewing process (to a degree atleast) therefore increasing repeatability of results.

Comparing to a 3V (which your not), the obvious other one would be footprint size.

Interested to hear from others on this aswell actually.


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## stux (14/7/11)

Also, clear wort into the boil, which you don't get from BIAB.

Not saying clear wort is necessary, but BM's develop a grain bed which filters the wort during the circulation


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## Bribie G (14/7/11)

Historical Note: BIAB in its present form was an idea kicked about by the likes of Thirsty Boy, SpillsMostOfIt and Pistol Patch to name but three pioneers, who had looked at the Braumeister and concluded that a single vessel brewing system was not only clearly feasible, but how do we knock one up at home.

So the two systems have a lot in common. Main differences are the recirculation and accurate temperature control. This is facilitated by the "malt pipe" which if you think about it is analagous to a bag, but solid and with a false bottom. Therefore a true grain bed can be achieved with clear wort remaining in the kettle prior to boiling. 

With BIAB this is difficult to achieve because although you can do recirculation with a March pump and get the accurate temperature control using a PID and heat source (for example the existing element in an electric urn based system) you can't really get a proper grain bed happening as the wort drains out of the bag in all directions initially, taking the path of least resistance. So the sweet wort is cloudy.

Is this a problem? With a good boil and floccing compounds in the boil such as Brewbrite or Koppafloc or Whirlfloc I'd say no, as you can drop the trub quite quickly and get crystal clear wort into the cube / fermenter which is really what counts IMHO. I even now produce really clear fresh delicate lagers from wort that was cloudy to begin with. 





For example in the above photo the crud on the bottom is hot break, one of these two Schott Bottles is what I ran the first litre into, out of the urn. Then the rest was crystal clear runnings until I spotted a bit of gunk starting to come through so I collected the last litre into that second bottle. The concept of headers and tailers would be familiar to the practitioners of another drinks producing method that we don't talk about here. 
(The clear stuff from both bottles went into a starter which was fair hammering by the time the cube had cooled for pitching.)


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## Nick JD (14/7/11)

Vorlauf is German for arsehat.


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## Thirsty Boy (14/7/11)

I agree with everything Bribie said except the naming of me as a pioneer. I wasn't. I was a reasonably early adopter and have made some effort to rationalise the obviously successful (and initially unexpected) results of BIAB with some of the theory - but had nothing to do with formulating the concept in the first place.


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## MHB (14/7/11)

Nick JD said:


> Vorlauf is German for arsehat.


Were you making a point or just demonstrating that Nick JD is another term for arsewipe?
If you have nothing to contribute to a discussion that other members might find interesting why post shit.
MHB


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## Zizzle (16/7/11)

Gather around kiddies and let me tell you a story about the father of BIAB... Mr Pistol Patch... here is the thread that started it all:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=11074

AHB was a different place back then. Most posts were about brewing. And there was an imbalance in the force.

Pat had just started brewing AG and was writing massive excited positive essays nearly every night. Darren was still running around pissing on everything he could, but no one could keep up with the energy and volume of Pistol Patch.

In addition to his encyclopedic public posts, Pat was also PMing everyone madly, and I'm sure had both Ross and MHB on speed-dial and was hassling them continuously.

Lots of people were experimenting with the ideas. Most seemed to like the bucket with holes into the bottom scheme.

Without a doubt Pat was the most enthusiastic, and he seemed to be the one that thought up and went to the trouble of getting one of his neighbours to sew up a bag.

BIAB on AHB was born:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...11074&st=71

I went over to Pat's and tasted the BIAB success he had with Ross's Schwartzbier, and decided I had to do it too.

Pat had already declared it a perfect beer:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...c=11499&hl=

I splashed out $6 (which was lot in 2006 money) and made up a bag just like Pat's (only with Red thread to make it go faster), borrowed a pot from Pat and was a guinea pig for Pat's first iteration of the famous BIAB instruction manual.

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=149192

Fingerlickin_B was along for the ride too:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=150154

Not long after that the legend of the FNQ Bunyip and the burned bag got around:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=154589

Then I was onto electric BIAB:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=12282

which I stayed with until the first brewbot was conceived.

The good old days of AHB.

There were still doubters, and so BIAB beers had to go on to achieve some competition results before it had "made it".

Fast forward a few years and I'm in the US riding a motorcycle across the country, through the desert. I meet a girl. She says she brews. She brews in a bag. I say I know the bloke who invented that. And the rest is history.


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## Newbee(r) (16/7/11)

Zizzle said:


> Fast forward a few years and I'm in the US riding a motorcycle across the country, through the desert. I meet a girl. She says she brews. She brews in a bag. I say I know the bloke who invented that. And the rest is history.




For further reading, Zen and the Art of Brewing Efficiently is surely soon to be released. :icon_cheers: 

Seriously though, this bit of innovation is a game changer for the hobby. I know when I was keen to get more control over my K&K recipes the thought of sacrificing the garage and a whole day of a precious weekend brewing and cleaning meant 3 tier systems were not going to do it for me. Stumbed on a BIAB thread and I'm hooked. Can still get the V8 in the garage for buff and polish and make 2 cases of stone and wood pacific ale, a batch of punk IPA or whatever else I feel like for $25.

Thanks fellas!


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## Bribie G (16/7/11)

Game changer, as indeed is the BrauMeister. 

At the risk of being totally (as opposed to moderately) boring, and hoping that I haven't thrashed the subject to death but:

When home brew had its renaissance in the UK in the 1960s / 70s and a bit later in Australia, mostly due to legislative changes, the early AG-at- home pioneers unanimously agreed that the best way to make beer from grains was to look at how things were currently done in breweries and aim to make a scaled down version of:






And as pointed out by Zizzle it took a couple of guys to start thinking outside that particular box and the rest is history along with Zizzle's chick :icon_chickcheers:


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## Nick JD (16/7/11)

MHB said:


> Were you making a point or just demonstrating that Nick JD is another term for arsewipe?
> If you have nothing to contribute to a discussion that other members might find interesting – why post shit.
> MHB



Making a point. 

I've found the whole "clear runnings = better beer" thing is a load of crap. YMMV.

And find someone to give you a hug.


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## bigfridge (16/7/11)

Nick JD said:


> Making a point.
> 
> I've found the whole "clear runnings = better beer" thing is a load of crap. YMMV.




Hi,

It is very well established that there is nothing in the 'cloudy' part of the wort that adds to the beer's quality. It is full of lipids and fatty acids that either retard the yeast's performance or are metabolised by the yeast to form off flavours.

Can those who favour using turbid worts explain how they result in better beer flavour or stability ?

May all your worts run clear !

Dave


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## Deebo (16/7/11)

bigfridge said:


> Hi,
> 
> It is very well established that there is nothing in the 'cloudy' part of the wort that adds to the beer's quality. It is full of lipids and fatty acids that either retard the yeast's performance or are metabolised by the yeast to form off flavours.
> 
> ...



Somewhat off topic.. but has anyone noticed in their kegs that sometimes the first few pints that are cloudy with yeast have a bit more flavour? 
I have had beers that where nice when cloudy but tasted a bit bland once they cleared up (might also just be due to aging)?


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## Bribie G (16/7/11)

The discussion was not about cloudy wort _out_ of the kettle, but cloudy wort _into_ the kettle prior to boiling. Whether you had clear or cloudy wort into the kettle it is desirable, unless someone can tell me differently, to have clear wort out of the kettle into the cube or chilling device. Normal boiling and settling, with a floccing agent, should achieve that. Either way those lipids etc should be left in the kettle. Even the most crystal clear looking wort into the kettle would still produce break, including cold break in the fermenter. There's a study somewhere from Weihenstephan suggesting that breweries that strove for ultra clear wort into their fermenters could suffer from yeast health problems.


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## [email protected] (16/7/11)

bigfridge said:


> Hi,
> 
> It is very well established that there is nothing in the 'cloudy' part of the wort that adds to the beer's quality. It is full of lipids and fatty acids that either retard the yeast's performance or are metabolised by the yeast to form off flavours.
> 
> ...



A good boil and the use of whirfloc allows clear wort into the fermenter, thats all that matters to me.
Any stability issues can be helped with polyclar and filtering.

Are you saying that the actual boiling of a cloudy wort , even if it ends up clear into the fermenter will result in a beer with poorer flavour and stability
than one that was clear to start with?


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## Fourstar (16/7/11)

Bribie G said:


> There's a study somewhere from Weihenstephan suggesting that breweries that strove for ultra clear wort into their fermenters could suffer from yeast health problems.




I remember hearing somewhere (may have been the BN) there was a micro in the US that had a head brewer who was obsessive about having only bright wort in the fermenter at all times. He would goto the effort of dropping out beak from the cone of the fermenter as fermentation was kicking off. Consequently, during his reign almost all of their beers had attenuation problems and this disappeared once he left/the process was abandoned.


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## bigfridge (16/7/11)

Fourstar said:


> I remember hearing somewhere (may have been the BN) there was a micro in the US that had a head brewer who was obsessive about having only bright wort in the fermenter at all times. He would goto the effort of dropping out beak from the cone of the fermenter as fermentation was kicking off. Consequently, during his reign almost all of their beers had attenuation problems and this disappeared once he left/the process was abandoned.



Clearly the yeast is stressed, and is using the sterols in the cold trub to build the cell walls during reproduction.

A yeast cell typically buds 3-4 times before it dies and this results in the sterol content being reduced to 1/8 or 1/16th of the initial level. These sterols must be replaced in order for the cell wall to function properly, as it is the cell wall that allows the enzymes to pass out and wort sugars to be bought into the cell.

Sterol synthisis requires oxygen and this is the reason that the wort should be oxygenated before pitching. If oxygen is not available, then cold trub can be used by the yeast - but this is less desirable due to the other, unfavourable compounds in the cold trub.

Mashing does influence the amout of trub produced and as it is microscopic you will never see or remove all the trub. But all things being equal it is better to avoid forming the trub (through proper breakdown of protein and starch in the mash) rather than focusing on removing it during boiling.

HTH,
Dave


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## MHB (17/7/11)

Nick JD said:


> Making a point.
> 
> I've found the whole "clear runnings = better beer" thing is a load of crap. YMMV.
> 
> And find someone to give you a hug.


Had you posted that I for one would have known what you were talking about Vorlauf is German for arsehat is just a touch cryptic for me.
Having used a Braumeister and done a couple of BIAB brews I dont agree with your assertion. I like my Braumeister but freely acknowledge that it isnt the only option, nor is it necessarily the one that will suit everyone.

Making good beer isnt about any one step in the process; its a cumulative result of doing each step well. Having a bit of grist in the wort at the start of the boil isnt going to instantly make your beer crap, neither is it going to improve the beer, in fact there is no upside to having more crud in the kettle and several known well establisher reasons to have as clear a wort as possible, so we could argue that the less the better.
Apply the same thinking to each step in the brewing process and we make better beer.

Just to keep this thread totally OT as bigfrige mentioned what goes into the kettle influences what comes out of it. If your wort starts out rich in stuff we want to remove during the boil its certain that its going to be harder to get a good separation and that you will get more break material and ultimately less and/or lower quality beer.

Back OT Having done both types of brew, (BIAB and Braumeister) I going to say Yes, the Braumeister offers several advantages you get better cleaner worts, the step mashing options lets you explore some very fine beers (I dont care what anyone says an isothermal Pilsner never quite cuts it) the big one for me is the repeatability, with a Braumeister its possible to make the same beer over again, or to finetune a mash regimen until you are getting exactly the beer you want then make it again...

I think BIAB is a great way to get started in mash brewing, but lets face it if it cost the same to get started with a Braumeister as it does to start BIAB we wouldnt be having this discussion we would all have Braumeisters!
MHB


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## Nick JD (17/7/11)

MHB said:


> Had you posted that I for one would have known what you were talking about "Vorlauf is German for arsehat" is just a touch cryptic for me.



Returning the head to the tail, and all that. I thought that would have been right up your alley...


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## brett mccluskey (17/7/11)

bigfridge said:


> Hi,
> 
> It is very well established that there is nothing in the 'cloudy' part of the wort that adds to the beer's quality. It is full of lipids and fatty acids that either retard the yeast's performance or are metabolised by the yeast to form off flavours.
> 
> ...


http://www.scientificsocieties.org/jib/pap...06-1016-468.pdf​​


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## bigfridge (17/7/11)

toper1 said:


> http://www.scientificsocieties.org/jib/pap...06-1016-468.pdf​​



Thank you - I couldn't say it better myself 

But the article does point out how complex the situation is, with often conflicting results obtained for turbid worts.

From the conclusion:

"
During the 1970s and through the early 1990s, many
authors described the components of increased lauter turbidity,
mainly lipids and fatty acids, and to what extent
they originate from different lauter techniques. In this context
most of the authors pointed out the positive influence
of cloudy wort in terms of yeast metabolism and fermentation
performance. At the same time, however, the adverse
consequences of high lauter turbidity for the final beer
quality, particularly for flavour and foam stability, were
thoroughly discussed. Since the negative consequences
seemed to outweigh, this led to the preference of high
wort clarity, and this has been generally accepted among
brewers until today.

On the other hand, some authors
described fermentation problems and even an adverse
final beer quality when worts were very bright.

... 

Since a proper fermentation is a
premise for a high beer quality, it has to be questioned
whether the todays lauter turbidity may be too low to
provide a proper yeast nutrition. Therefore, it seems to be
worthwhile to discuss a new statement of preferring a
moderate lauter turbidity, within the range of lauter turbidities
currently observed, instead of the minimum turbidity
that is technically realizable today in order to provide
proper yeast nutrition and to minimise adverse quality
effects at the same time"


This is in effect what I have been saying ie the trub in wort (which makes it cloudy) can be good for yeast, but is bad for beer.

I would prefer to address the yeast nutrition directly by adding nutrient, and by ensuring adequate protein breakdown during mashing. Using an all malt wort also ensures that there is sufficient amino acids etc available for the yeast. This is why you need to read any research results carefully as what applies in commercial practice (where adjuncts are common) does not apply to small scale brewing at home. 

I really love how technical beer discussions force us to re-examine everything that we understood. After it was pointed out that it was the wort clarity prior to pitching that was important rather than the clarity into the boiler - I had another look at a few books.

What is 'clear' (ha ha) is that 90% of the trub removal occurs in mashing - the boil only influences 10% of the clarification process. To me this emphasises that it is better to reduce the nasties going into the boil, rather than trying to reduce them later.


But as MHB has pointed out the relative importance of all this is fairly minor compared with the other things that can go wrong.

HTH,
Dave


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## Jonesy_sa (17/7/11)

Jonesy_sa said:


> What sort of benefits are obtainable over the BIAB method?
> Will the circulation of liquid make much of a difference?
> Will the temperature control make noticeable differences or at least the ability to step temperatures?


Hi,
Thanks for the information thus far but to keep things on topic; the reason i ask is i have decided to start brewing again and found the BIAB process which looks great and produces great beers. With that said i could knock up a Braumeister with a bit of effort and was only made aware of the system recently.
This isnt a thread to dismiss BIAB its more to highlight the advantages of the Braumeister if any? By advantages i am refering to taste not so much clarity as that's just a can of worms ill skip 

Repeatable results, ability to easily adjust temperatures for future brews and testing, pretty good temperature control etc are some of the better points. I'm under the impression that as a whole the circulation of wort through the malt pipe etc doesn't actually produce superior results over the bag sitting in the wort, i thought it would or at least yield much greater efficiency but i haven't read anything in respects to clarify this? Im taking inconsideration that BIAB allows a finer mill which no doubt compensates a little.

Anyone agree/disagree?


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## Thirsty Boy (18/7/11)

I disagree with (what i think is) bigfridge's reading of the science... (edit - although on second reading, maybe i dont really)

I find very very little in the literature to suggest that turbid wort from the lauter tun leads to quality issues, the quoted article being one of the things that convinces me. i also fail to find very much at all in the literature to support the opposing view that turbid wort into the kettle has negative effects on quality - effects yes, negative effects no. And the effects are all in all, small. I find lots of brewers who will tell you its true.... But not so many who can show you any proof.

As far as i can tell and am concerned, the preference of brewers for clear wort is almost entirely because they have been told that it is better, usually when they themselves were learning to brew, and they simply take it as "well established fact" Clear wort is prettier and just seems like it should make for higher quality beer, and clear wort certainly doesn't make for worse beer - so going with what seems like it should be true works, and after a while it becomes "fact"

I'm happy to be proved wrong on this, but i have looked pretty hard in the texts and papers for evidence of cloudy wort (pre-boil) being bad, and just haven't been able to find anything aside from the raw assertion that it is so.


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## MHB (18/7/11)

TB is making some good points, but (and isnt there always a but in brewing) to put this into perspective the snip from the conclusion to the JIB article sited above (see Post 20 by Trooper1) is talking about worts with an EBC of 10, thats roughly 40 NTU so less turbid than the 50 NTU sample in the picture.



Some BIAB worts are opaque; we are talking vastly different amounts of trub. Whether or not this taken into account by the authors I have my doubts. Even older wort separation systems only produced worts with maybe 40 EBC (~160 NTU); Im just concerned that taking a bald statement from an article without putting it in perspective can be very misleading.

I dont think we need to be complete Nazis about wort clarity, or for that matter about many other aspects of brewing, just remember that each step in the process will affect your beer. I try in my brewing to do each step to the best of my ability, in this instance Im looking for clear wort not soup, if its a bit hazy going into the boil I can live with that.
MHB

Using
1 NTU/FTU = 0.245 EBC
1 EBC = 4.081 1 NTU/FTU
NTU and FTU are really the same and the conversion factor to EBC is approximate but should hold up fairly well across the range of values we are discussing.


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## Thirsty Boy (20/7/11)

Absolamutely - the article in question is "somewhat" relevant, but certainly not anything like a definative treatise on BIAB wort quality. I simply like it as a referrence becuase it challenges the stock standard assumption of many brewers, both home and pro that clearer wort is by definition higher quality wort. It isn't necessarily so, and therefore the very turbid worts that BIAb produces are not necessarily bad by definition. The only way to tell.... is to judge it by the beers. And the beers produced by BIAB while unfirmly coming from turbid wort are not uniformly faulty.

The turbid worts from BIAB behave in a very similar way to that described by the article... They start loaded with solids and protiens etc - the boil very much levels the differences out, but the levels of kettle trub are significantly increased and therefore efficiency suffers if you make the effort (that the article definitely suggests you should) to transfer clean and hot trub free wort out of the kettle.

Something else that article talks about is the presence of unconverted starch (high iodine numbers) in very turbid kettle up wort - and that is exactly why i generally suggest that people take care with mashing their BIAB brews, give it a 90min mash and a stirred ramp to a mashout type temperature. BIAB brews gelatinise and start converting faster than brews at lower L:G ratios & in combination with a careful and thorough mashing regime, that can more than make up for the more dilute substrate for the enzymes to work on and the lack of beta amylase buffering due to mash thickness. And actually end up with a considerably better "conversion efficiency" than you get in a regular mash. This is one of the reasons why BIAB brews can be more efficient than equivalent mash tun brews - and a reason why they dont get starch haze all the time.

That article talks about flavour stability issues. Even though cast wort from turbid brews is not very different than that from clearer wort - it is different, and that difference can manifest in earlier/more severe onset of aging. But we also need to remember that the article is almost certainly primarily addressing the production and flavour stability of light lagers, filtered, pasteurised and with the expectation of a 6month plus non refrigerated shelf life. And to be honest - the holes in the process of the average homebrewer as far as oxygen exclusion, HSA prevention etc etc are so vast, that i _think_ the effects of a turbid wort are likely to be well and truly lost in the mix. I grant - in fact i am pretty sure - that if you are producing filtered, kegged and CP filled light lager, you are already an absolute oxygen exclusion freak and perhaps you even add a pinch of sulphites to your beer as antioxident... Then you would notice that your BIAB beers aged faster than your mash tun beers.

Aside from that - pretty much all BIAB beer has in common, that it's made from what would be considered very turbid wort and yet there is no _common_ flavour issue with BIAB beers that i am aware of. If wort turbidity was much of a problem, there would be.

Me - i mainly brew on a RIMS and it pumps out startlingly clear kettle up wort, and thats one of the reasons I love it. I love the pretty clear wort going into the kettle. Its just that i am becoming convinced that me really liking it, is actually the only real advantage to that beautiful wort clarity.


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## argon (20/7/11)

MHB said:


> (I don’t care what anyone says – an isothermal Pilsner never quite cuts it)



Whilst not getting into the debate re turbity in the wort (leaving that to the more technically versed) and doing a big snip focusing in on one isolated phrase... i don't agree with this statement. As an example the champion beer at last year's AABC was a Bohemian Pilsner done as single infusion. So it can produce a great Pilsner (and or other style), greater than any other beer put up against in, in any other style.


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## bigfridge (20/7/11)

Thirsty Boy said:


> I disagree with (what i think is) bigfridge's reading of the science... (edit - although on second reading, maybe i dont really)
> 
> I find very very little in the literature to suggest that turbid wort from the lauter tun leads to quality issues, the quoted article being one of the things that convinces me. i also fail to find very much at all in the literature to support the opposing view that turbid wort into the kettle has negative effects on quality - effects yes, negative effects no. And the effects are all in all, small. I find lots of brewers who will tell you its true.... But not so many who can show you any proof.
> 
> ...




Hi TB,

It is great to see a calm, polite and friendly post - thanks.

Firstly I must say that I think that far too many words have been written on this as we all agree that this is a minor factor in overall beer quality - as TB says there is far greater perils that await the brewer.

The process from 'grain to brain' is one of compromise - many processes can both enhance and detract from the finished beer quality. As MHB often says 'everything you do affects the beer'.

My views on the avoidance of turbid wort being run-off into the kettle come from 30 years of reading and hence it is difficult to point to a single definative reference to 'prove' my opinion. But it is also been informed from discussions with Dr Simon Brook-Taylor, a Institute of Brewing Master Brewer and trainer, and co-founder of NNL Brewery Services. Simon has always emphasised the need for a course crush with minimal dough-in to give a oxygen-free floating mash and a long slow runoff in order to give the greatest wort clarity (and also to imporve the extract) into the kettle. This minimises the extraction and oxygenation of lipids which can reduce beer quality.

I can find some support for this in 'Essays in Brewing Science' by Lewis & Bamforth in section 4 "Foam".

"Although lipids are mostly eliminated from wort, and beer by deposition in spent grain, with trub, on yeast and by reaction with lipid-binding protein, foam-negative lipids might be extracted from malt and adjunct if they are excessively milled, mashed very hot with agitation and if the wort is agressively separated, especially if cloudy worts should result. Malt proteins are precipitated not only in mashing but also in boiling, and this is, therefore, potentially foam negative. However boiling makes the formation of new foam-stabilising complexes in wort relating to the denaturation of proteins, and reactions among groups such as polypeptides, polyphenols, hop acids and inorganic ions and even lipids in the highly reducing conditions of the wort boil."

The text then goes on to remark that the process of foam stability in the finished beer is a complex subject with many dimensions.

Lipids and especially fatty acids react with oxygen to form long-chain unsaturated aledehydes which are the origin of the stale flavour in beer. Fix (Principles of brewing science, p41) claims that long-chain unsaturated fatty acids "are typically found in wort trub, which can consist of as much as 50% lipids. Cloudy wort can contain anywhere from 5 to 40 times the fatty content of clear wort. This i simportant because unsatuated fatty acids can have a significant effect even at low concentrations." I must admit that it is 'unclear' ( ha, ha) if the above is referring to wort clarity into or out of the kettle.

For a final word, I can do no better than Malting & Brewing Science (Briggs, Hough, Stevens & Young. p273):

"A minor proportion of the malt lipids, usually less than 2% of th e total originally present in the grist, is dispersed into the wort. The remainder stays with the draff. Although some of the dispersed lipid is lost during further processing, being carried down with the trub for example, a little reaches the final beer. The actual quantities extracted vary with the means used to filter and sparge the goods. Rapid lautering techniques yield worts with enhanced lipid contents. Filtering reduces the level of fats. ... The beer brewed from 'defatted' wort had improved head characteristics. ... Unsaturated fatty acids and products of their oxidation catalysed by lipoxygenase may decompose in staling beer, giving rise to numerous aledehydes such as trans-2-nonenal, hexenal and hexanal, which contribute to the development of 'off flavours'."

Anyway, I have probably made it even more confusing, but all that I can say is that the above quotes confirm that turbid worts have increased fatty acid contents which can lead to poor head stability and stale flavours - particularly when finely milled grains and high oxygen ingress are present in mashing.

May your worts run clear ...

;-)


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## Nick JD (20/7/11)

bigfridge said:


> Anyway, I have probably made it even more confusing, but all that I can say is that the above quotes confirm that turbid worts have increased fatty acid contents which can lead to poor head stability and stale flavours - particularly when finely milled grains and high oxygen ingress are present in mashing.



So, probably more of an issue for commercial breweries than homebrewers? The success of BIAB in competitions either illustrates the lack of importance of clear runnings or judging incompetence. 

A question I'd like to raise: where is the fat in my no-chilled wort? In the hotbreak? All the literature shows the real difference between hot and cold break is the fat content. 

Should BIAB and no-chill be paired by necessity? Is it that the cold break of a BIAB brew has a higher fat content? I can eliminate cold break from my fermenter ... can commercial breweries?

Might one slack-arse method be fixing another?

This quote below leads me to believe that 10% of a little bit more, is very little.

_Ninety per cent of the lipids in the copper are deposited with the trub and spent hops
(Anness and Reed, 1985). _


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## Thirsty Boy (20/7/11)

I think you have it there nick, its degrees of degrees... And also what you find important. For instance, i am dead against the notion of no-chilling in the kettle, due to extended contact with the hot break - which i suspect will increase the lipid content of the wort and lead to off flavours. But i know that you do exactly that and aren't having any issues, and I'm also happy to use cloudy wort which some people are sure will do it too, some are sure that not separating your cold break will do it, while others are happy to tip all the goo from the kettle into the fermenter and go with that.

I think that as long as you are doing more right than wrong (screw you fermenting on all the trub guys... you're just wrong - so there) unless you are chasing mega brew levels of flavour stability, then its going to make maybe "10% of a little bit" of difference at most.

But the little stuff does add up - and threads like this are good for hamming out just exactly what the little stuff is, what it can mean and whether or not a particular "nit pick" is perhaps a bridge too far in any given brewer's process. I know I've learned things by reading this thread, hopefuly other people have too... So even though its strayed a way away from the OT, and maybe gotten a bit too technical and wordy - its a pretty useful sort of disussion to have IMO.

As for the actual OT - for some reasons of ticking off as many "little things" as possible and maybe a couple of other reason talked about in this thread - I would take the Braumeister in preference to BIAB any old day - but only if the difference between a few thousand dollars and a few hundred dollars isn't part of the consideration.


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## Bribie G (20/7/11)

Not generally broadcast on the forum as it's a subject of purely local interest, but our Florian with his mighty Braumeister took out one of the 4 spots in the Archive AIPA contest last week, the others being 3V. Interestingly another winner, Argon, has gone from BIAB to 3V, mainly so he can do bigger batches - interestingly his last BIAB brew later last year he entered at BABBs in the Belgians mini comp for feedback only, as he was not yet a member. If he had been a member he would have won the night, I think the score was around 43 IIRC.

In the context of home brewing, it's just another example of how the alternative methods, 3V, BM, HERMS, BIAB etc are just pushing and pushing the envelope all the time and the argy bargy we get in threads like this are very constructive and not at all negative in their effects. 
:icon_cheers:


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## seamad (20/7/11)

I BIAB , use whirfloc, whirlpool and wait for trub to settle, cube for 15minutes then chuck in pool.
Don't pour crap from cube into fermenter.
Chill to 0C, polyclar, filter to keg.

Keg might last 4-6 weeks (3 on tap).

I can't see that there would be a lot of difference in my beer and a braumeister. Need to have a taste off :lol:


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