1st Brew On Braumeister - Pics

[SJW]

Me to Batz, I love lifting the lid on a pump break and watching the wort rise up and spill over.

 

[banora brewer]

+1 I love my braumeister

 

[Batz]

Batz - I live in Perth

Bugger!

 

[Batfink]

Uuuh yeah! Just payed for my 50l Braumeister yesterday and it will be shipped to me week 12, also got the 20l maltpipe and chiller. Can't wait to get my hands on it! Allready started designing the first brew wich is gonna be a 10,5% DIPA with about a 100 IBUs.

 

[Malted]

Uuuh yeah! Just payed for my 50l Braumeister yesterday and it will be shipped to me week 12, also got the 20l maltpipe and chiller. Can't wait to get my hands on it! Allready started designing the first brew wich is gonna be a 10,5% DIPA with about a 100 IBUs.

Maybe try something a bit easier for your first brew with the Braumeister? 10.5% ABV might have to be a 50L batch boiled down to reduce the volume and thus increase the gravity? How long will you have to boil it, who knows, I have done similar and it can be lots of hours. 100 IBU could be a lot of hops which could possibly mean you will lose more liquid to trub (thus less into the fermenter) and get you all confused with volumes? It is all very exciting but I think an easier brew might be a good idea.

 

[Batfink]

Maybe try something a bit easier for your first brew with the Braumeister?

I dont know, I like to start at the deep end. Infact, I dont think there's a single thing I know to day that I haven't learned through a mistake. I was thinking a 25-30l batch, should there be a problem with that?

 

[Malted]

I dont know, I like to start at the deep end. Infact, I dont think there's a single thing I know to day that I haven't learned through a mistake. I was thinking a 25-30l batch, should there be a problem with that?

There is no problem with you wanting to do that and it can be done with a Braumeister without adding extract. You will just have to plan ahead.
Have a read of this thread, you may find it useful in planning your brew: Big Beers for the Braumeister LINK

Let us know what you decide on brewing and how it goes, maybe in the thread I linked to. If you make some mistakes let us learn from them too.

 

[Batfink]

Tnx for the link. After reading a bit I might just take your advise and start with my flagship IPA on 1.065. Could be a little too much working the BM for the first time and keeping track on everything else. I'm shore I will find a way of brewing 1.100 beers (without adding extract of course). Even if i dont belive it cant be done just using the right ratio of grain, water and sparge, before i tried it myself. Those double mashes seems like too much work and i'm afraid it also will effect the consistency when brewing the same beer twice, when there's too many changing factors.


I will keep you updated on what scale of catastrofy the first brew was.

 

[Batfink]

So did my first brew today on the 50 litre with the following recipe:

Batch size 25 l

Original Gravity (OG): 1.066 (P): 16.1
Final Gravity (FG): 1.017 (P): 4.3
Alcohol (ABV): 6.48 %
Colour (SRM): 6.7 (EBC): 13.2
Bitterness (IBU): 70.9 (Average)

80.6% Pale Ale Malt
10.45% Vienna
5.97% Crystal 20
2.99% Wheat Malt

1.2 g/L Centennial (11% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
1.6 g/L Simcoe (14.2% Alpha) @ 20 Minutes (Boil)
1.8 g/L Columbus (16.7% Alpha) @ 7 Minutes (Boil)

0.5 g/L Irish Moss @ 15 Minutes (Boil)

The total amount of water was 39 litres from which i saved 7 litres for sparging. I'm not sure where I went wrong but my OG was way of, hitting 1.046 instead of of my planed 1.066. I used the preset mash schedule but reduced the boil lenght from 90 => 60 minutes. Maybe I should have used the smaller malt pipe for this size of brew? The water/grain ratio was 4,8l /kg.

 

[SJW]

So did my first brew today on the 50 litre with the following recipe:




The total amount of water was 39 litres from which i saved 7 litres for sparging. I'm not sure where I went wrong but my OG was way of, hitting 1.046 instead of of my planed 1.066. I used the preset mash schedule but reduced the boil lenght from 90 => 60 minutes. Maybe I should have used the smaller malt pipe for this size of brew? The water/grain ratio was 4,8l /kg.

As previously stated it takes a few brews on these things to get up to speed. I have been brewing for many years on a 3v system and done 100's of brews and while my first couple on the BM were fine it takes a couple of brews to work out boil off volumes, trub losses ect. One thing that caught me out recently was when I sparged I just dumped 9 litres straight in on top of the malt pipe, and what I must of got was some type of channelling as most of the water went straight through without washing the grain properly. Gravity reading of the wort pouring out the bottom of the pipe was near 1.005, but then when I took the malt pipe off to drain onto a bucket with the BM's lid upside down, the runnings slowly moved back up over 1.045. So I nice slow mash rinse/sparge is still essential. Other than that day I hit 85% every time.
Also I find 90min mash and a 90 min boil is the go too.

STEVE

 

[Florian]

Hey, did you shovel all that malt back out of the malt pipe?

Save yourself some work and just remove the top filter plates, then place the malt pipe upside down in a garbage bag or where ever else you want it and remove the pipe.
You then have a perfectly round malt cake, ready to feed to chooks or children.

 

[SJW]

Also the 4.8 to 1 water to grain ratio is fine. Basic Brewing Radio have done talks on this and found with a 90min mash ratios up to 10:1 still convert fine.

 

[Malted]

You then have a perfectly round malt cake, ready to feed to chooks or children.

Here kiddy, kiddy, kiddies! Er I mean, here chook, chook chook!

 

[Batfink]

Did a second 20 litre batch on the BM yesterday, a Porter with a 5,1kg grain bill. 25 litre strike water and five for sparging and got an OG of 1.065 with a 60 min boil, wich means my efficiency was at 81%. My goal was 1.063 so I was real happy. I stopped the program once by pressing the two arrows simultaneously at the beginning of the maltose rest to stir the mash, but while trying to proceed I somehow f#*ked up and had to start the mash schedule all over again. I guess the 20l malt pipe would have fit a kilo or so more grain, so in my oppinion 20 litre batches of 1.085ish wort shouldn't be a problem.

 

[alfadog]

Did a second 20 litre batch on the BM yesterday, a Porter with a 5,1kg grain bill. 25 litre strike water and five for sparging and got an OG of 1.065 with a 60 min boil, wich means my efficiency was at 81%. My goal was 1.063 so I was real happy. I stopped the program once by pressing the two arrows simultaneously at the beginning of the maltose rest to stir the mash, but while trying to proceed I somehow f#*ked up and had to start the mash schedule all over again. I guess the 20l malt pipe would have fit a kilo or so more grain, so in my oppinion 20 litre batches of 1.085ish wort shouldn't be a problem.

Hey Batfink

Do you have the 50L or 20L model?

 

[mwd]

Hey Batfink

Do you have the 50L or 20L model?

He has the 50L see post #129 furthur up the page.

 

[alfadog]

He has the 50L see post #129 furthur up the page.

Cheers Tropical!

 

[ChookWA]

WOW! Just tasted my first BM brew and I'm impressed. I wasn't expecting the BM to significantly improve my brewing as I thought I was doing a good job of controlling processes on my 3v system. I was mainly wanting consistency from the BM.

But my first brew (a Golden Ale) is the best pale beer I have brewed! It has some great malt flavour I had never managed to achieve in the past, and it also lacked a certain flavour (twang) I have been trying to get rid of for some time (would appear in all my pale beers)!

I don't know why, but this first brew tastes great! Significantly better than my previous attempts and its still very green. The BM is the only process I have changed. Its such an easy drinking, tasty brew. It could do with some more hop flavour / aroma but at the moment it is a very balanced beer which is what I like. Its fallen nice and bright with the aid of polyclar and cold crashing.

I'm a very happy camper!

Sorry the pic is so bad, bloody iphone.....

Hey Dave. Was it a JS Golden Ale clone? Care to share the recipe? I have a BM50 as well and am planning a brew day next weekend and contemplating the Golden Ale.

 

[Mearesy]

This may help:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...&recipe=502

 

[Thefatdoghead]

Did a second 20 litre batch on the BM yesterday, a Porter with a 5,1kg grain bill. 25 litre strike water and five for sparging and got an OG of 1.065 with a 60 min boil, wich means my efficiency was at 81%. My goal was 1.063 so I was real happy. I stopped the program once by pressing the two arrows simultaneously at the beginning of the maltose rest to stir the mash, but while trying to proceed I somehow f#*ked up and had to start the mash schedule all over again. I guess the 20l malt pipe would have fit a kilo or so more grain, so in my oppinion 20 litre batches of 1.085ish wort shouldn't be a problem.

I haven't used my 20L maltpipe in my 50L braumeister yet but I can tell you if I put more than 10.6kg of grain in the 50L braumeister maltpipe my efficiency goes from 84% down to 65% or there about's, and there is a really slow circulation through the malt pipe.
I actually forgot about the braumeister the other night while it was going through it's mash and it must have been sitting beeping after mashout for a good hour or so, I dont know why but my efficiency went up to about 87% (efficiency in kettle that is not in fermentor) strange.