Big Beers For The Braumeister

[stux]

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

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

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?

 

[Damien13]

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

Any issues with too much malt etc etc...

 

[Malted]

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.

 

[Thefatdoghead]

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.

 

[Mick Gramoit]

Hey Gav,

How did that Black IPA go?

 

[Nishlija]

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