Braumeister Mash Schedule

[cpsmusic]

Hi Folks,

A while back I bought a 10L Braumeister. It's been sitting in storage for a while as I've been a bit busy lately. Last weekend I finally got the chance to give it a run.

In my previoius setup I used an esky for mashing and to keep things simple and controllable I only used one temperature rest. Now that I've got the Braumeister up and running I was wondering about how many mash rests are needed - what would people regard as a "miniimum" mash schedule?

The default Braumeister schedule has about seven steps (I don't have it in front of me so I can't remember exactly) - should I stick wil all of these? Palmer recommends a 40/60/70 (30 mins at each) - would that be OK?

Cheers,

Chris

 

[wide eyed and legless]

I set mine in accordance with what I am brewing and the grains involved, if its a bitter or IPA I generally do a single infusion mash. I think I have read the different mash regimes on the Braumeister Users site.

 

[MHB]

All of the above will make beer, it's just when you are doing something special that manipulating the steps becomes an advantage.
A single temperature (65-67oC) mash followed by stepping up to mash out at 80oC or just a bit under is great for Ale brewing.
Remember that BM come from Lagerland, the default profile is a pretty good Lager mash profile, probably a bit more intensive than is required with really good German malt.

Otherwise, research the beer you are brewing, if you are doing a saison/farmhouse with lots of adjunct it will be worth looking at both protein and glucan rests... like I said research the style.
Mark

 

[EalingDrop]

The programming is quite intuitive, and you can add new ones if you don't want to mess up the 6 (?) pre-programmed schedules.
7 steps is a lot and I've never needed it (yet).

Must've been very busy to leave a new BM in storage for that long....

 

[Black Devil Dog]

I run my water through a carbon filter when filling my Brau and the filter manufacturer recommends a maximum temp of 40 degrees, so once my Brau is filled to the required level, and the temp hits 40, I mash in.
I'm always mashing in at 40 and letting the temperature rise from there.

I always run with my own variations of a Hochkurz Mash.

 

[Blind Dog]

Depends on the beer you're brewing, which you probably knew already. Personally I like to mash in at around 50C as it seems to eliminate the dreaded wort fountains.

From there it's beer dependent. English ales tend to get an hour at 67C or 68C. Everything else is style specific and usually has multiple rests

Always end with a mash out around 78C

 

[Dan Pratt]

one thing to keep in mind is when doing step mashes, say you do a 52/66/78 rests for 20/60/10 for example, the final gravity will be about 2 or 3 points lower like you mashed at 64/65.

the reason is the raising of the temp through 60c - 65c may take about 10mins which creates some easy fermentable chains for the yeast.

 

[manticle]

Minimum is one step - saccharification.

I love step mashing (not a brau owner - would be easier if I was) but unless you are using malt from ye olde days, using loads of adjunct or somehow using six row, do it for a good reason.

You can acid rest (most sources suggest several hours is required so acid and salt additions are easier if target pH requires it)

You can protein rest (sources and some of my personal experience suggest long protein rests and/or lower temp protein rests can negatively affect body and head retention). They also suggest that unless using undermodified malt, etc as outlined above, that it is unnecessary to make beer. A high, short protein rest though can positively affect head formation and retention.

You can step the sacch/ amylase rest by targetting both alpha (higher temp/dextrin/body) and beta amylase (simple/short chain sugars/fermentability/attenuation/dryness/crispness). This is certainly not necessary in any way, shape or form to make beer - most rests between 60 & 70 will target both while favouring one over the other. However optimising the two in terms of both temperature and time is something I love doing and love the results since I started. I do beta for 10-15, beer dependent, then alpha for about 40-50. I like full bodied beer but I like decent attenuation - those are the results I get from this.

You can step to favour glycoprotein production which can lead to great head formation/retention - 10 mins around 71-712. Works especially well as a bookend to a high temp, short protein rest - 55 for 5 mins. Totally unnecessary, results are great from where I stand.

Then you can mash out around 78-80 and stop all enzyme function. Again, entirely unnecessary to make beer - sparging hotter will do a similar thing or you can just run to the kettle and let the boil build up take care of it. I do it because I do step temps for a particular profile and I want to fix that profile in place. Mash out is much quicker than raising temps in the kettle.

There are dozens of other enzymes with different optimum temps but these are the steps I use.

Simplest thing though ifyou want to experiment; start with a hochkurz rest on a German lager or altbier. Read, experiment, play around but don’t just do it ‘cos you can.

 

[cpsmusic]

Thanks for the info - very useful!

Cheers!

 

[cpsmusic]

Further to my original question, for my AG brews I've been working from "Brewing Classic Styles". Just had a look at the mashing section and it states that "all mashes are assumed to be single-temperature infustion mashes...".

So what's a good source that relates style to the different mash processes?

Cheers!

 

[wide eyed and legless]

You can have a look at John Palmer's 'How to Brew' its on line he gives rests and what they are for throughout a mash, though as stated above, most are not needed, but always good to know just in case.

 

[Bridges]

Speidels own website has some recipes which cover off ale, lager, wheat, IPA etc and the suggested mash schedule for each recipe. Not a bad place to start if unsure.

 

[Black Devil Dog]

There was a discussion here about it a few years ago.

As with many threads on here, it starts off great and then goes a bit sideways, then straightens up a bit, then shudders to a halt.

 

[cpsmusic]

For those interested I found some more info here:

https://forum.braumeisters.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=974

and here:

https://forum.braumeisters.net/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=59

 

[Batz]

cpsmusic if you want some mash schedule's send me a PM. I've been doing a few years now.

 

[hooper80]

cpsmusic if you want some mash schedule's send me a PM. I've been doing a few years now.

Hey bats what % do u have your hop utilisation on? The bm50 we use is set on 100% in beer smith?

 

[MitchDudarko]

Dunno if this is the right place or not, but here goes...
For the guys who are using beersmith, which mash schedule are you using in the software?

 

[Dan Pratt]

Dunno if this is the right place or not, but here goes...
For the guys who are using beersmith, which mash schedule are you using in the software?

Ive got BS software but I created my own mash profiles based on Braukiser and experience