Braumeister NEXTGEN Build

[angus_grant]

Thanks for all the comments about the pumps I guess I didn't look through all 60 ages closely enough to see photos of people's builds with the pumps. It surprised me when I noticed the Braumeister 50L did not have ball valves. I guess they must use 3/8" inch tubing like Matho or have purchased a specific pump with a specific flow rate.

I am thinking I might try and plum in some cam-locks so I can remove the pump and give it a clean easily. Having it totally hard-plumbed in might be a bit of a pain and a barrier to good cleaning routines. h34r: I always re-circulate PBW + hot water through my system when cleaning it but would be nice if it was easy to pull pump out of system and break it down every so often. Like I don't do with my current little brown pump.

I have lots of software mods to do. At the moment my mash control, and boil control are separate forms so I have to put them onto the main form and integrate them. So probably 4 hours work or so

 

[Malted]

It has been said before and I'll say it again. Fitting pumps into your system could use a stainless pipe union like this:

It is sort of hard plumbed and sort of not. No worries about leakage as it is sort of hard plumbed but easy to get out because it isn't exactly hard plumbed. It makes bolting into place and unbolting rather easy. MaleMale, MaleFemale or FemaleFemale is your choice.
Speidel use them on the Braumeister.

EBay have some 304 SS, for example: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NPT-1-2-304-stainless-steel-Malleable-pipe-fitting-Straight-Union-coulping-F-F-/130664787250?pt=AU_Business_Industrial_Farming_Agriculture_Farming_Agriculture_Equipment&hash=item1e6c3a6d32
and specialist stainless shops have them too, for example ProChem: http://www.prochem.com.au/stainless_steel_piping_products/

 

[Malted]

 

[angus_grant]

That looks like a nice compromise between rigidity of hard-mounting and ease of removal with "soft-mounting". Thanks Malted.

And will be easier to install than what I was thinking of.

 

[lael]

Thoroughly recommend the union fittings! I put the on the bottom of both skin fittings; one going onto the pump, and then on the outlet of the pump. Means I can take the whole plumbing section of the Brau off easily, or just the pump. Really happy with flexibility it allows

 

[Yorg]

Forgive me if in these 61 pages this has been answered, but does anyone know what the connectors/sheilding are on the element terminals that come out the bottom of a braumeister?
The photos i've seen are a little obsucure, the terminals look like they are covered in heat shrink or some such, but how would that sort of thing pass electrical standards? So what are they then?
Ta.

 

[MastersBrewery]

Forgive me if in these 61 pages this has been answered, but does anyone know what the connectors/sheilding are on the element terminals that come out the bottom of a braumeister?
The photos i've seen are a little obsucure, the terminals look like they are covered in heat shrink or some such, but how would that sort of thing pass electrical standards? So what are they then?
Ta.

Some people have done as you say and covered with heat shrink , some have the terminals protrude into the control box.

 

[angus_grant]

My smaller pot with element installed: element wiring protrudes into box on side. The element electrodes are covered in heat shrink from the manufacturer

My brau-clone has pretty much the same setup. Again, the element electrodes are covered in heat shrink from the manufacturer

I can't tell you about the bottom of the braumeister though.

 

[Dxxxx]

Hey everyone, I've just about got all parts necessary to put together my own brauclone but I have one question about the filter plates. My brother in law can cut stainless plates for me which are quite thick and very strong. I use one at the moment as a sort of "false" false bottom to keep the bag off my element in my keggle. My question is, what size holes should I have him make in the plate? I'm not sure what kind of filter material to use either. I see people going with ikea splatter guard mesh, but there is no ikea here, a $2 shop here sells "Stainless Steel" splatter guards which I originally tried in my keggle but it rusted after one use, so I'm not really keen to try that again. Is there any reason I couldn't use some fabric similar to a BIAB bag?

 

[Edak]

Maybe one odd those other major retailers such as Kmart might have better splatter guards. Biab material is also fine for the job, but not as strong.

Photos?

 

[Cavemanbrew]

hello Guys and Girls,

getting my system together now and have a question

What is the best pump to go with????

LBP or March

need to make this decision before i continue!!!

 

[angus_grant]

It's untested as yet but I bought a chugger pump with stainless head from the Aus retailer. Cheaper than March pump and it even includes the mounting bracket in the purchase price.

That's a little gripe I have with the march pump: who is going to buy a pump and then not need to mount it? I suppose you can zip tie it, but really throw the bracket in and bump your price up a little.

 

[Cavemanbrew]

where you get the chugger from?

 

[angus_grant]

http://www.chugger.com.au

New Aus distributor.

I will be working on the plumbing this weekend. Not sure if I will get the pump plumbed up and working but there are other people on the site who are using the chugger

 

[PeteQ]

hello Guys and Girls,

getting my system together now and have a question

What is the best pump to go with????

LBP or March

need to make this decision before i continue!!!

I had 2 LBPs burn out on me after 3 brews each, I would highly suggest to steer clear. I have a kaixin pump now which I can highly recommend. Thread - http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/67670-kaixin-pumps/

The chugger pumps look the goods with the stainless head though!

Good luck

 

[Cavemanbrew]

cheers

 

[QldKev]

hello Guys and Girls,

getting my system together now and have a question

What is the best pump to go with????

LBP or March

need to make this decision before i continue!!!

LBP are hit an miss, they work out expensive if you buy one and then end up getting a better pump anyway as you have spent the initial $ on something that is not needed.

March have a long term reliability record; I use one on my 3V.
Kaixin are a fairly new player to the market but I have not heard of any units playing up; I run one on my 1V (the mp20 model). There are a lot of users on here.
Chugger are the newest to the Australian market and from my understanding are fitted with a different motor to the US version. I like the idea of the stainless head. I'm aware of one unit already failing, but can't find the thread on it to see the outcome.

QldKev

 

[Cavemanbrew]

THX, Qldkev

 

[Sam England]

Hey everyone, I've just about got all parts necessary to put together my own brauclone but I have one question about the filter plates. My brother in law can cut stainless plates for me which are quite thick and very strong. I use one at the moment as a sort of "false" false bottom to keep the bag off my element in my keggle. My question is, what size holes should I have him make in the plate? I'm not sure what kind of filter material to use either. I see people going with ikea splatter guard mesh, but there is no ikea here, a $2 shop here sells "Stainless Steel" splatter guards which I originally tried in my keggle but it rusted after one use, so I'm not really keen to try that again. Is there any reason I couldn't use some fabric similar to a BIAB bag?

Dxxxx, I use a coarse voile on my clone and haven't had any issues to date after 20 + brews. I support the plate off the outside rim and don't need a hole through the voile which might mean the difference between it working or not. Here's the link to a couple of pics in the gallery. http://aussiehomebrewer.com/gallery/album/957-blue-baggers/ Let me know if you have any questions.
Cheers,
BB

 

[Cavemanbrew]

your elements, what are they (kettle elements), how do you place the malt pipe on , is it over the elements

sorry so many questions

 

[Sam England]

Sorry Cavemanbrew, missed your post. My rig is a bit different in that I push the water up through the spigot in the base of the BigW pot, through a false bottom with voile to spread the flow and then out a top filter plate also covered with voile. I stole a fair few ideas from ArnieW's BrauBushka rig. http://arniew.wordpress.com/ . Seems to work pretty well for me. The elements are from ebay and were around $13 each from memory. I've mentioned it earlier, but to keep the Watt density down I've got 4 x 3kW elements wired in two pairs in parallel to give 3kW but with 4 times the area. I've also wired it with two SSR's so if I ever want to run it on a standard power point I can run it off two different 10A circuits. They're not the easiest elements to clean, but serve their purpose for me and the two other units my mates have built/building.
Cheers,
BB

 

[Cavemanbrew]

Your a champ thanks for the info, i like it and i may steal a couple of ideas from you.

Cave man :chug:

 

[aamcle]

what could I make in this?

I have potentilay two pots to make a malt pipe and outer vessle.

malt pipe - 28 cm diameter 39 cm height aprox 24 litre
main vesstle - 33 cm diameter 45 cm height aprox 38.5 litres.


I should easily be able to get 5 kg of grain in the pipe, could I reasonably expect to do 25 liter into the fermentor?

Atb. aamcle

 

[Edak]

aamcle, I think that you might have a little trouble fitting everything in, especially if you want to put heating element, fittings, temp sensor and tap. The diameters are 5cm apart so you have 2.5cm space around the entire vessel. I have a 19L malt pipe in a 50L pot and let's just say that it's not feeling very spacious in there.

25L into fermenter means that you will need a pre-boil volume of about 33-35L, which means also that you are at the boundary of your outer vessel and will probably experience boil-over.

Get a 50L pot and you should be good to go.

my 2c.

 

[aamcle]

Thanks, still a bit small but getting the bits in would not be a problem with the design I had in mind.

What do you think of working it MaxiBIAB style and adding water to the fermenter?

Or what about going for 5US gallons/19 litres? This would give me the chance to do more styles

I'll try to draw it out in the next day or two and post the drawing so I can get some expert comment, my design might not be feasible.

Thanks again. Aamcle

 

[aamcle]

Playing around with Beersmith I think I would have trouble even if I go for 19 litre batches, I would have just 5 litre ( or so) of space about 6cm to the rim.

oh well there goes another cunning plan....


Aamcle

 

[angus_grant]

Will be putting in a big weekend of fabrication this weekend so have not actually used my malt pipe yet.

I have a 40L outer pot and BIAB'ing in this pot has been comfortable. I have not gone close to boil-overs. Mashing NickJD's 8.5% Belgian Triple was very close to the top of the pot. It had 8kg's of grain in the mash but you wouldn't be able to fit 8kg's of grain into a 24L malt pipe once taking into account filter volume loss and grain volume loss.

I have 10cm difference in the pot diameters and everything comfortably fits, but I wouldn't want the gap to be much smaller.

You should be able to fit 5 kg's in that malt pipe. My spreadsheet calculator has the Big W 19L pot maxing out at 5kgs, but that is dependant on filter design. I won't lose much volume with my filter design.

 

[aamcle]

Angus it you were aiming at 25 litres into the fermenter then I can reinstate my 'cunning plan'.

Aamcle

 

[angus_grant]

Ahhh, my mistake: I have a 50L outer pot. :blush:

With the BIAB, I was getting about 21-22L into the fermentor after evaporation, loss to grain, trub, etc, etc.

Seeing I haven't even built my malt pipe and recirc system yet, I can't give you any real-world figures for the brau-clone. But I get a vague (and completely uncalculated) feeling you would be pushing your system to produce 25L of 1050 wort.

 

[Sam England]

Arvo Aamcle,
I used to BIAB in a 32L pot, mash in 23L, batch/dunk sparge 2x5L and get 23L 1.050 into the fermenter without any issues so you should be right volume wise. Full volume boil used to start at 30L and you had to watch it like a hawk when it came to the boil, but I was brewing inside on the stove wok burner and it took forever to get to the boil and didn't really have the guts to boil over unless I forgot to take the lid off.
Brauclone wise, the most I've mashed in with to date in a single Big W pot is 6.15kg, but I've got a slightly different setup to everyone else. I have to turn the pump on and underlet some wort at the start of the mash to mix it up and make sure there aren't any dough balls, but other than that there weren't too many issues. I'm actually going for 6.25kg this weekend for a 1.065 IPA so that could be interesting!! If you're prepared to sparge (with the added benefit of better efficiency) I can't see why a 40L pot wouldn't work. Even without sparging I think you'd nearly get away with the pot as long as you can get around the physical installation side of things. I'm using a 50L keg as my outside vessel which is probably about the same diameter as your pot, but my setup has the elements located under the malt pipe. Check out my AHB gallery or the ArnieW link at the top of the page. I stole a fair few ideas from here.
Cheers,
BB