1st Brew With The Braumeister

[Thefatdoghead]

I just bought a Braumeister 50L and my 1st batch ill be doing 45L final volume of the Robust Rye Porter. As far as I can see from the manual it says to fill 20mm below the upper marking. This is for a grain bill of 9-11kg. So 20mm below the upper marking would be the 50L mark. My grain bill works out to around 12kg without the dark grains which i'll cold steep overnight and add at the end of the boil. I'm not sure how much boil off i'll get yet but im guessing around 6-7L per hr on the boil. So my question is do you just check your gravity after lifting the malt pipe and add water or rinse the grains to make up the preboil gravity? Any help would be very much appreciated because i'll be brewing on Thursday coming.
Cheers
Gav

 

[davewaldo]

Hey Gav,

One quick note, I would be adding the steeped liquor from the dark grains with at least 10mins of boil left if not all of the boil to sanitise it all (the BM has loads of room for a big boil).

I measure pre and post boil gravity and work out my efficiencies. I usually boil off around 8L or so in 60mins I think, however I'm still sussing out volumes on my system.

Any water you add may as well be sparged through the lifted malt pipe to increase efficiency.

More experienced BM users might like to add to these suggestions.

Cheers,

Dave.

 

[Thefatdoghead]

Hey Gav,

One quick note, I would be adding the steeped liquor from the dark grains with at least 10mins of boil left if not all of the boil to sanitise it all (the BM has loads of room for a big boil).

I measure pre and post boil gravity and work out my efficiencies. I usually boil off around 8L or so in 60mins I think, however I'm still sussing out volumes on my system.

Any water you add may as well be sparged through the lifted malt pipe to increase efficiency.

More experienced BM users might like to add to these suggestions.

Cheers,

Dave.

Dave,
I will add the dark liquid from the steeped malts at about 15-20mins left in the boil as talked about in Gordon Strongs book "Brewing better beer".
I'll adjust my boil off for 8L per hr as you say and see how she goes. Thanks again Dave

 

[TidalPete]

Gav,

I know nothing about the Braumeister but a boil is a boil & IMHO you can easily work out your boil-off rate by doing a dry run (boil-off) with water & then add the results to your brewing software. Works with BeerSmith anyway.
Must have a quick flick through your "Brewing Better Beer" book when I turn up.

TP

 

[Bribie G]

Pete's spot on. A Braumeister is not a complete beer making machine, it's a wort production facility, just as Pete's HERMS and my Bucket-in-urn, and after its mashing and sparging step is complete then comes the boil, which is the same physics in any pot depending on the wattage, depth and area exposed to the atmosphere. Definitely do a wet run.

 

[Thefatdoghead]

Yeah I agree and I will do a Run with water to work out boil off but I'm just trying to figure out my volumes. So I guess I'll do as Dave said and sparge with X L/kg of grain to make up my Pre boil volume.