# Big Beers For The Braumeister



## Thefatdoghead (1/12/11)

Hey Guy's,

I have quiet a few recipes that require more malt than the malt pipe can hold in my 50L braumeister. It says 10kg max in the book but I have squeezed in 12kg before. Efficiency drops to shit though. Anyway I was thinking of doing a Baltic porter and it has maybe 15kg of grain that need to be mashed. All the rest (spec malts) i'll either cold steep or steep after mashout. 
I thought I could either make up the extra 5kg with malt extract or if I wanted all grain just start with 35-40L and boil down to a single batch. Second option not the best because it's kind of a waste of malt. 
Has anyone else thought of ways around making the biiger style beers with the Braumeister? 

:icon_cheers:


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## Florian (1/12/11)

Third option would be to do a mash with about half your grain bill as normal, then drain malt pipe and refill, and that way you will mash the 2nd round with your wort from the first round as liquor. 
Haven't tried it myself yet, efficiency will be crap too, but isn't it always with big beers?

Fourth option (and maybe best, depending on if you have sold your old boiler) is to do a mash with half your grist, run wort off to another boiler, then do another mash with second half of grist and run to boiler too and boil there. Obviously you need to work out the right water volume here if you don't want to boil down too much. I'd try to use as little water as possible to just get circulation going. 
A variation of this could be to run the wort from round one to a cube to store, then mash round two and transfer wort from cube back to the BM for the boil.

hope that helps.


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## Wimmig (2/12/11)

Florian said:


> A variation of this could be to run the wort from round one to a cube to store, then mash round two and transfer wort from cube back to the BM for the boil.



That sounds the goods


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## Florian (2/12/11)

Wimmig said:


> That sounds the goods



Again, you obviously have to watch your volumes to make sure it all fits into the BM at the end, and I'm not sure how good the elements will bring it to a boil when you've filled the thing to the brim. 

If you have the small malt pipe maybe try to do two 'short' mashes, or one 'short' and one 'long', or whatever works best. Or run off to the good old kettle if all else fails...


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## Wimmig (2/12/11)

With things like this, not being a BM owner myself (as yet)..are these owners tips / user experiences central anywhere? Or just a mess on ahb / the net? Is there a central, ongoing BM thread?


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## Thefatdoghead (2/12/11)

I see what your getting at. Only thing is that you might run into problems if you have not got enough grain in the pipe. Maybe the pumps would burst water through the bed if you only had say 8kg in the pipe? Just a thought not sure if that would happen though.


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## Thefatdoghead (2/12/11)

Wimmig said:


> With things like this, not being a BM owner myself (as yet)..are these owners tips / user experiences central anywhere? Or just a mess on ahb / the net? Is there a central, ongoing BM thread?



There are a couple on the BM but none on this subject that I can find.


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## Florian (2/12/11)

Gav80 said:


> I see what your getting at. Only thing is that you might run into problems if you have not got enough grain in the pipe. Maybe the pumps would burst water through the bed if you only had say 8kg in the pipe? Just a thought not sure if that would happen though.



mmhhhh... now you got me thinking. 
I once had a wort fountain shoot out of the malt pipe, and I'd always put it down to 50% wheat and possibly a too fine a crush. But yes, it was also only a 3%ABV beer, so not too much malt in the pipe. Might be easier for the water to channel if the grain bed is thinner. 

Not sure though, but worth keeping in mind.


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## wobbly (2/12/11)

> With things like this, not being a BM owner myself (as yet)..are these owners tips / user experiences central anywhere? Or just a mess on ahb / the net? Is there a central, ongoing BM thread?



Thats what I had in mind when I started this thread but it never really took off



> Braumeister - Tips & Tricks, Braumeister Brewing



"One Day Maybe"

cheers

Wobbly


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## ticinglese (2/12/11)

mash the recommended max and increase the boil time to ?hours ?


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## Thefatdoghead (2/12/11)

Florian said:


> mmhhhh... now you got me thinking.
> I once had a wort fountain shoot out of the malt pipe, and I'd always put it down to 50% wheat and possibly a too fine a crush. But yes, it was also only a 3%ABV beer, so not too much malt in the pipe. Might be easier for the water to channel if the grain bed is thinner.
> 
> Not sure though, but worth keeping in mind.



How about if you did a standard mash with the 50L malt pipe (10kg of grain) and run off wort like you say into a cube. Then do another batch with the small malt pipe with 5kg of grain then blend the 2. Then you would end up with roughly 55-60L in the kettle after blending. That would get you 15kg of grain and a fairly high gravity.

EDIT: No sparging would be done either. Efficiency would be high as well.


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## kymba (2/12/11)

would you need to get the first batch to mashout so the enzymes aren't working away while you are waiting for the 2nd to finish?


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## Thefatdoghead (2/12/11)

kymba said:


> would you need to get the first batch to mashout so the enzymes aren't working away while you are waiting for the 2nd to finish?



Yeah I'd finish the whole schedule to mashout for the first batch then do the next. Your not going to maximise the extract because there wont be a sparge/malt wash but at least the efficiency will be high and you will end up with a double batch or 50L anyway. I'm getting about 84% efficiency that I calculated for my last batch but that was with sparging about 7L.


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## MHB (2/12/11)

I find that with 10 Kg of malt in the Braumeister and only starting with 40 L of water, and no sparge, you can knock out about 30 L of 1.070 wort giving you about 70% efficiency.
Frankly thats reasonably comparable to what you would get on most systems, the option of doing a small flood sparge and extending the boil time can push the yield up.
Im planning to brew a single malt Belgian triple next brew using this method, will get you the exact results when I do.
I think we just have to accept that there will be a loss of efficiency as wort gravity goes up.
MHB


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## mikk (2/12/11)

I'd be basing my calculations on 12kg in the malt pipe. I generally scale my recipes to always use between 11.5-12kg. A few stirs during the mash cycle helps too, if you notice the wort not running as freely as it it normally does.

As an example, i did a belgian dark strong last month, 12.19kg grain, 45L mash in, 9L sparge giving 42L post boil @ 1.072 (90min boil), which is in the mid-range for a baltic porter SG (1.060-1.090). Efficiency was calculated at 75%, & slightly better than this was achieved.

A longer boil (2.5hrs) to bring the final volume down to 35L would get your FG up to approx 1.083 without the hassle of doing much different to your normal brew day, which i imagine can only be a good thing?! Also, a baltic porter would probably only have bittering hops used, so if you figured on throwing them in at -90, it wouldn't be too critical if your boil was a bit longer/shorter than the projected 2.5hrs as it wouldn't change the bittering significantly anyway.

Being able to (easily) crank out beers exceeding 1.080 is probably not what the BM (lager drinking) designers were thinking when they made it, but the fact it can be done is pretty cool.


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## mikk (2/12/11)

Obviously, my 1.072 was without the use of sugars. Just thought i'd better make that clear since we're talking about belgian beer here! 1.04kg dark candy sugar syrup adds approx 8 points, taking the SG up to 1.080.

yum.


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## Bongchitis (2/12/11)

Re-iterated mash has been mentioned in the other BM threads. It is something I would like to try with my BM 20L.

Just mash as normal (1/2 grist, no mash out) then lift the malt pipe, get rid of the grain and replace with the other half of the grist and chuck it back in for another mash. Saves mucking around with another vessel and longer boil etc but have no idea on the extent of efficiency loss for the 2nd mash.


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## Thefatdoghead (2/12/11)

@ MHB- Would be good to hear your results on extract and efficiency. I am going to do one of Strong's recipes with OG-1.075 but I want ot end up with 50L as I have kegs this size and want to get them full. I'll post my results on this thread soon.

MiKK- My next brew i'll try the stop and stir method maybe 3 or 4 times during the mash and try with the 12kg again. See how my efficiency turns out. 75% is reasonable so i'll set it to this and if I get more then happy days.

:icon_cheers:


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## zoigl (2/12/11)

My Braumeister is a 50 litre and

I have been using beer smith to scale my recipes aiming to mash around 10 kgs. It's easy if your recipes are shown in % 

I have had a struggle trying to match OG and FG with Beersmith and final volumes as well.


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## Thefatdoghead (2/12/11)

zoigl said:


> My Braumeister is a 50 litre and
> 
> I have been using beer smith to scale my recipes aiming to mash around 10 kgs. It's easy if your recipes are shown in %
> 
> I have had a struggle trying to match OG and FG with Beersmith and final volumes as well.


If I use 10kg of grain everything works out spot on if I set my efficiency to 84% and boil off of 7.5Lp/h. It's when I start working with more than 10kg I start getting lower efficiency. 
As MHB said:
I think we just have to accept that there will be a loss of efficiency as wort gravity goes up.

Not sure why your struggling to hit your targets?? OG will depend on malt quantity, how much your going to sparge with, efficiency and boil time and your fg will depend on your OG and attenuation %. You should be able to work out what the boil off will be and your efficiency firs brew then adjust in your beer program.


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## Florian (2/12/11)

Gav80 said:


> How about if you did a standard mash with the 50L malt pipe (10kg of grain) and run off wort like you say into a cube. Then do another batch with the small malt pipe with 5kg of grain then blend the 2. Then you would end up with roughly 55-60L in the kettle after blending. That would get you 15kg of grain and a fairly high gravity.
> 
> EDIT: No sparging would be done either. Efficiency would be high as well.



Yep, that's what I meant with 'short' and 'long' mash earlier, might have not been clear enough.

Another thing to consider with a re-iterated mash in the same vessel is your mash temp. Obviously if you go all the way up to mash out and then want to start your 2nd mash with a protein rest, you would have to wait until it cools down. 
Would probably be easiest to stick to one or two steps somewhere in the sixties, or add some cold water or even ice before the 2nd mash.


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## Ross (2/12/11)

Gav,

I'd just be adding some dry malt to get the gravity you are chasing, it's a common practise commercially & cartainly makes hitting your targets easy.


cheers ross


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## Thefatdoghead (2/12/11)

Florian said:


> Yep, that's what I meant with 'short' and 'long' mash earlier, might have not been clear enough.
> 
> Another thing to consider with a re-iterated mash in the same vessel is your mash temp. Obviously if you go all the way up to mash out and then want to start your 2nd mash with a protein rest, you would have to wait until it cools down.
> Would probably be easiest to stick to one or two steps somewhere in the sixties, or add some cold water or even ice before the 2nd mash.



I was thnking after mashout dump the first batch of X L into a vessel then start the next mash with the 20L short pipe.


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## Thefatdoghead (2/12/11)

Ross said:


> Gav,
> 
> I'd just be adding some dry malt to get the gravity you are chasing, it's a common practise commercially & cartainly makes hitting your targets easy.
> 
> ...


Gday Ross,
It's a good idea and would save a fair bit of stuffing around. Just have to try it and see how the flavour comes up. If I used liquid munich extract instead of DME to replace the 3kg of munich in my recipe would the the flavour be the same. I have Weyermann munich 1, do you have the equivalent malt extract?


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## lickapop (4/12/11)

I did my first brew on a 20L yesterday.
It was a belgium tripel and was a bit of a learning curve
La chouffe clone i tried to scale from here- http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic....f=4&t=54087

5.5kg of boh pils
500mls belgium candy syrup
500g sugar (yet to be added in a couple of days)
30g Cascade @75min 
25g Saaz @15min
15g Coriander @15min
WL3522

I started with 20L in the BM

Anyway lol I added 1/3 malt before I remembered to quit the pump on mash in, so I lost a bit of grain over the sides. I took the MP out again and scooped out the grain that was lost in the main vessel and started again.

I then had a couple of wort fountains which I left because at the time I was busy mowing the lawn and washing my hair..and couldnt figure how to pause it at the time...
and then I dont know WTF i was thinking but I did a 7L grain rinse??

Long story short... I got an OG of 1062 and still have to add the sugar but next time I do this brew, I think it will be better if I use MHB idea and start out with 5kg of grain into 20L and do maybe a 2-3 litre rinse which should get me about 20L preboil and a OG of 1070-80 in 18L into the fermenter....i think  

It will be interesting to see how your tripel goes MHB

Dr smurtos classic in the BM today...how easy is it??  I can wash my dogs and brew at the same time


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## MHB (4/12/11)

Guys

Something Ihave been meaning to post every time the term Fountain appears.

Just loosenthe wing nut a bit.

A bit of thewort will bypass under the malt pipe seal, after 10 minutes or so the malt willhave mover around and you can nip it back up.

Mark


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## lickapop (4/12/11)

nice one...but you should have posted that snippet like 2 days ago..lol


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## dmerrick (4/12/11)

Now he tells us!


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## Droughtmaster (10/12/11)

Gav80 said:


> Hey Guy's,
> 
> I have quiet a few recipes that require more malt than the malt pipe can hold in my 50L braumeister. It says 10kg max in the book but I have squeezed in 12kg before. Efficiency drops to shit though. Anyway I was thinking of doing a Baltic porter and it has maybe 15kg of grain that need to be mashed. All the rest (spec malts) i'll either cold steep or steep after mashout.
> I thought I could either make up the extra 5kg with malt extract or if I wanted all grain just start with 35-40L and boil down to a single batch. Second option not the best because it's kind of a waste of malt.
> ...



me personaly i own a 20 ltr braumeister if i wanted a heavy beer i would just add some DME to the boil the other 80% of the grain bill would take take care of any taste deficencies just my thoughts :0 hop it up
drought :icon_chickcheers:


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## Malted (10/12/11)

I pumped out a batch of 1.081 from my 50L BM. To be honest I was aiming for 1.100 though...
I used the short malt pipe with about 4kgs of grain and 25L of water. I did a five step mash and did not sparge.
Then I pulled the grain out and added ice to the wort to pull the temp down.
I then reloaded another 4kgs of grain into the short malt pipe and skipped the mash in and protein rests and went straight to the maltose rest. 

Things I learnt. 
I should have sparged the first lot of grain as I had to top up when the second lot of grain went in (grain absorbtion loss x 2). 
I should have sparged the second lot of grain because I wasted sugarz by not doing so. 
Water is easy to get rid of but you can't create more sugarz, just less volume of water with those sugarz.
I reckon it would be easier to do a 50L batch with the normal malt pipe with a sparge to get all the sugarz and then boil it down to a 25L batch. 
It all went to shit and consequently I didn't take good records. I reckon my efficiency could not have been any higher than 50% (probably much lower). It may have been higher if I had of sparged  .

I'd say adjust your recipe to fit in the regular 50L malt pipe and reduce the output volume by boiling down to the desired gravity. I don't know what volume you'd get but it may be something whacky like 22.5 etc. 

As MHB keeps saying, you can manually adjust the boil temp when it is in that cycle simply by pressing the up arrow key. 102 is a much more vigorous boil than 100. 

I do not know what calulations are needed to estimate how much of a volume A at gravity A needs to be boiled off to reach a volume B at gravity B. Anyone?


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## RdeVjun (10/12/11)

Malted, with MaxiBIAB where MT volume is quite limited and grainbill relatively high, for decent efficiency we've learned to do something constructive with every water addition, adding any plain water is basically a handicap and it is far better used as a sparge, even as a small one. I guess you've learnt that now though, so good luck with the next one.

WRT the calculations, its a straight dilution:
InitialSG / FinalSG = InitialVolume / FinalVolume
Eg. If you have a 30L of 1.060 and want to predict what SG (FinalSG) it is boiled down to 20L:
60 / X = 30 / 20
Solving that is
X = 30 / 20 * 60
X = 90
Therefore the expected SG at 20L would be 1.090. You can do the same with volume as the unknown.

Hope that helps! :icon_cheers:


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## Malted (10/12/11)

RdeVjun said:


> do something constructive with every water addition, _That's a good way to phrase it.
> _
> Hope that helps! :icon_cheers:



Yes it does help, thank you. (Maths is not my strong point :blink: )
Cheers!


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## stux (10/12/11)

I also was going to suggest not to forget to replace the absorption of the first batch with a sparge, but you worked that out now


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## Thefatdoghead (21/1/12)

After a lot of thought on brewing a big beer with the 50L BM I think i'll go down the easy road to start with and just add some LDME to the boil. I'll have to use 2kg in my recipe but I honestly dont think i'll notice the difference. I'll be making the massive IPA The hop hammer out of "brewing classic styles" so it comes in at about 1.080, 9%ABV and it's got 1kg of hops in a 55L batch. 

One thing I have learned with the Braumeister is that when I rinse the grain with about 22L of 80deg water my efficency climbes to 84% everytime. I always assumed it would come down because the original wort is being diluted with a lower SG wort but the last 3 batches it's been the same rising from about 77% to 84% after the sparge. 

Anyway i'll post back on here after tasting the "HOP HAMMER" if im still alive and haven't died from hoppenitis :lol: 

:icon_cheers:


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## alfadog (21/1/12)

RdeVjun said:


> Malted, with MaxiBIAB where MT volume is quite limited and grainbill relatively high, for decent efficiency we've learned to do something constructive with every water addition, adding any plain water is basically a handicap and it is far better used as a sparge, even as a small one. I guess you've learnt that now though, so good luck with the next one.
> 
> WRT the calculations, its a straight dilution:
> InitialSG / FinalSG = InitialVolume / FinalVolume
> ...



Cheers for that one, will remember this one


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## stux (21/1/12)

Gav80 said:


> One thing I have learned with the Braumeister is that when I rinse the grain with about 22L of 80deg water my efficency climbes to 84% everytime. I always assumed it would come down because the original wort is being diluted with a lower SG wort but the last 3 batches it's been the same rising from about 77% to 84% after the sparge.



Sparging will never reduce your efficiency. It might increase your pre/post boil volumes which means your OG will be off, but it will never reduce your efficiency.

The only thing which can reduce your efficiency is spilling your sweet liquor, or leaving it behind.

And sparging can only ever add sugars, you can't take them away

Is that 84% Into Boil or Into Fermenter?


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## Thefatdoghead (21/1/12)

Stux said:


> Sparging will never reduce your efficiency. It might increase your pre/post boil volumes which means your OG will be off, but it will never reduce your efficiency.
> 
> The only thing which can reduce your efficiency is spilling your sweet liquor, or leaving it behind.
> 
> ...


So I have learned. Setting efficiency to 84% and using the amount of kg of grain beer tools pro states gets my pre boil O.G spot on, so into the boil.

You can see why I would have thought that sparging would decrease my efficiency though..... The wort circulates in the grain constantly in the Braumeister and a sparge is really just a rinse of the grain. What im saying is I'm surprised at how much sugars are still left in the grain after mashout. Next batch i'll check the s.g of my sparge runoff just out of interest and log it. 
If you see Malteds post he said he used the 20L malt pipe and did not sparge. So really if he had of sparged he would have had a higher preboil O.G and more wort for the next lot of grain as he had stated. Good effort on Malteds part for trying and great to see the results and what was learned.


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## wobbly (21/1/12)

Posted this under the "Braumeister Tips and Tricks Topic" a couple of months ago


```
[i]11. Lifted malt pipe and let it drain for about 10 mins and then moved to a separate bucket so as to be able to check sparge running SG

12. First sparge was flood with 2lt 78C water and SG of runnings was 1034

13. Second sparge was flood again with 2lt 78C water and SG runnings were 1024

14. Did a third flood sparge again with 2lt of 78C water and SG was 1020

15. Vol in Braumeister now 27lt and SG was 1047 at the start of boil which is indicative of (depending on how you do the calculation) of between 81 and 84% mash eff.[/[/i]code] 

Cheers

wobbly
```


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## Malted (21/1/12)

Gav80 said:


> So I have learned. Setting efficiency to 84% and using the amount of kg of grain beer tools pro states gets my pre boil O.G spot on, so into the boil.
> 
> You can see why I would have thought that sparging would decrease my efficiency though..... The wort circulates in the grain constantly in the Braumeister and a sparge is really just a rinse of the grain. What im saying is I'm surprised at how much sugars are still left in the grain after mashout. Next batch i'll check the s.g of my sparge runoff just out of interest and log it.
> If you see Malteds post he said he used the 20L malt pipe and did not sparge. So really if he had of sparged he would have had a higher preboil O.G and more wort for the next lot of grain as he had stated. Good effort on Malteds part for trying and great to see the results and what was learned.


He he I am having a great time learning from my mistakes!

Did another little number with the short malt pipe in the 50L. Only about 4kg of grain (not another high gravity), started with too much water and for some reason I sparged with 11 L of water (8L then 3L) - think I'd best check the markings I put on on that bucket! Not surpisingly I was under gravity preboil...

Used the volume/gravity formula RdeVjun posted to check what volume I would be aiming for to hit the desired gravity. Try a 4 hour boil to get down to desired volume & gravity! The wort has darkened a bit... 

So after the 8L +3L rinse I set the malt pipe over a bucket and later checked the gravity of the bucket runnings - 1.016. I was quite surprised given the high volume of rinsing (sparging). So yes my experience too is that there is quite a lot of sugarz left in the malt pipe.

So I made a(nother) mistake but used what you guys have said to fix it. Cheers guys.

I also recorded heating times to be able to figure the ramp rates. A bit better than 1oC per minute, generally speaking but I'll have to go through my notes.

I reckon the next high gravity I do will just be with the 50L malt pipe and a long boil to get down to desired gravity, seems to work well if you make time for it.


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## pmastello (7/3/12)

There seems to be lots of talk about doing long boils to increase gravity, but does anyone use a smaller amount of initial mash in water, with the max grain in the tube? 

Eg- with a 20L BM, Instead of mashing in with 25L of water, you only put in 20L. Then you sparge and boil as in a normal grav brew. Then, instead of 20L out of 1.060, you might get 16L of 1.075. 

I suppose you would getting screwed with your efficiency though? Although, when I think about it, my current 3v esky system uses a water to grain ratio of 2.5L/kg and gets a good efficiency, and on a 6kg grainbill for the BM wouldn't that only be 15L? 

Anyway, I am very excited about my BM. I ordered it on the weekend from MHB and can't wait. Hurry up Germany and ship it over!


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## stux (7/3/12)

Gav80 said:


> What im saying is I'm surprised at how much sugars are still left in the grain after mashout



Its all to do with the Real Absorption of the grain. Grain in braumeister probably absorbs about 1.56L/KG of liquid. This is not the same as apparent absorption.

So, 10KG of grain holds about 15.6L of liquid.

And the percentage of sugars retained in the grain is about equal to the percentage of the total liquid in the batch.

The total liquid is equal to all the water added to the batch and ALL the converted extract present in the batch.

10KG of grain will give you about 8KG of extract which will contribute about ... umm... think its 0.61L/KG, so 4.88L

So, if you add 40L of strike you end up with 44.88L of liquid in the mash.

Then you take out 15.6L of that liquid, which is roughly a third. Since theoretically the extract is equally mixed, you remove a third of the sugars too when you pull the malt pipe.

Now, if you sparge you are then extracting a percentage of that removed sugar back.

Ideally, if you did a perfect batch/dunk sparge (fly sparges are more difficult to model) you would be diluting the 15.66L of absorbed liquid with the sparge water... for arguments sake, lets say another 15.6L of sparge water.

That means you dilute the retained sugar by 50%, and then the grain still absorbs 15.6L.... so you end up recovering 50% of the missing third of your extract...

So, now you're up from 66% efficiency to 66% + (33% * 50%) = 66% + 16.5 = 82.5%

Which is roughly in the ball park of your into boil efficiency


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## Mr. No-Tip (15/7/12)

I thought I might give this a go. My first two batches were pretty bad efficiency-wise, so I had a bit of trepidation approaching something that was by its nature low eff, but....nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I shot for a pliney the elder clone. 21l at 60% efficiency - 1087 off 9.2kg of grain. Two mashes in the small malt pipe on a 50l bm, using a much finer crack than my first attempt (don't know the actual measurement on my second hand mill).

The first mash went fine and allayed my concerns about the pump and the finer crack. Second mash....not so good. The pump just couldn't get going. 

I did my first mash with 20l, sparged on top that, but only went back to 20l for the second mash. It was steaming off while I waited for it to cool back to 63, so maybe that took a bit off beyond that. Once the grain went in, it absorbed enough that the elements weren't covered. No good. I banged another litre or two in, but that was kind of wasteful as that could have gone through as a sparge...oh well. 

Even with the volume right, though, no pump love. After a few stirs I was getting the feeling that there might be something in the pumps, so I had to pull out the malt pipe, stick the wort into a bucket and open up the pumps. There was a small amount of crud in each, which I cleared.

On the second attempt at the second mash, it was still very slow, but at least pumping. I did a couple 'efficiency stirs', mainly due to some small wort fountains, but kept it to a minimum to avoid stressing the pump. The sparge on that second mash was insane. It was so slow that I could even dump a whole litre straight on in one go and it would just sit there, slowly draining through the sticky grain bed...nothing like the speed of my first mash. Maybe that's normal? I am a BIABer and never tried a beer this big before.

Boil went well, though the time I stuffed around with the second mash mean it was now 9:30pm, and I'd started prepping mid morning! I boiled down to about 20 and then took a grav reading. I was impatient to get the no chill cube closed so I rushed that reading and ended up blowing the thermometer in my hydro. Damn. Managed to figure it out as a 1.100 wort, but I wasn't sure how much got into the cube after trub. Grav was way too high, but I also started boiling with less volume than I expected (was sick of that slow sparge) so I topped it up with a guestimate amount.

Today I found 20l of 1090 wort going into the fermenter. I am happy with that.

*Some lessons learnt:*
Be very careful with loose grain if doing a second mash.

Don't try to mash with a low amount of liquid in the name of efficiency - or at least don't go too far with it.

The one 'super brew machine' feature that the BM is missing (apart from a chiller) is automatic water detection. If it could do that, it would save guessing the volume as you sparge and the malt pipe obscures your vision.

When Ross says use malt extract, put away the all grain pride and listen to him. It was an almost 14 hour day from prep to all clean.

*Question: *
That OG gets me at 59% efficiency. No better than my first two brews, but this is a much higher grav beer and I undestand it to be expected. That's 59% efficiency with 3/4l of water that could have arrived via a sparge, if I was thinking straight. What efficiency do you guys get on beers like this?


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## Damien13 (18/12/12)

Hey anyone try and do 60L batches from their 50L braumeister?

Any issues with too much malt etc etc...


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## Malted (18/12/12)

Damien13 said:


> Hey anyone try and do 60L batches from their 50L braumeister?
> 
> Any issues with too much malt etc etc...



Are you suggesting 60L of high gravity wort from a 50L BM? If so it is a bit of a silly question. There is only so much grain you can get into a malt pipe, you have a minimum amount of mash in water (i.e must have enough to fill the malt pipe and cover the elements) and efficiency drops with high gravity brewing (efficiency is related in part to volume). So, sure add more water and malt extract to the boil = 60L of high gravity wort. If you don't like malt extract then:

Option two for high gravity brew of 60L, make a 50L batch of medium gravity brew, boil it down to high gravity. Repeat & combine the two worts = 60L of high gravity, all grain wort. 

Option three is not about high gravity but is more about volume, is to make a medium gravity brew of 50L and dilute with water to 60L of slightly lower gravity brew.


Edit: Big beers for the Braumeister refers to High Gravity Beers, not a big volume.


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## Thefatdoghead (9/6/13)

Going to go for a 1.090 Black IPA soon, using all malt. Post back when im done. It's going to be a long brew day anyway you go about it.


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## Mick Gramoit (28/11/13)

Hey Gav,

How did that Black IPA go?


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## Nishlija (22/5/14)

Hi everyone,
just thinking, is there possibility to make some pressing device to drain rest of wort out of malt pipe?


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