Braumeister - Tips & Tricks

[tavas]

I had this happen the other day when cleaning and thank god only had about 10 litres of water in the BM.

The poor design of that tap is the only thing I don't like about the BM. I'm going to get parts for a new tap on friday, no way am I going to risk that happening on brew day, and no ******* way with 50l of wort.

Has anyone replaced the tap on a 50l? I think the female thread is bigger than the 20l and I have no idea what parts to get cause I am absolutely hopeless at plumbing/building stuff.

I replaced mine with a 3 piece ball valve. You need a 3/4" to 1/2" reducing nipple. I think it is BSP. Make sure you use stainless.

Edit: bit about stainless

 

[Florian]

Hi Florian,

I just re-read the post and you boil for an hr to get pre-boil gravity - then boil for another hr = 2 hrs boil......

Shouldnt the preboil gravity be....well, pre-boil?

Yes, normally pre-boil is pre-boil, and normally I sparge with 8L. This time I sparged with 12L, but I left all my settings in Beersmith as if I was sparging with 8L as that's how I've set it up and know that it works.
So obviously now with 4L extra sparge my real preboil gravity will be different (lower) from the one beersmith is telling me, so to not mess up hop additions etc I boiled until I reached the preboil gravity beersmith tells me. From there on in it's as normal.

So as you can see it was only a once off as I decided to sparge more to get better efficiency for this big beer.
If I would do that on a regular basis I would probably set up a separate profile in beersmith.

 

[Matty3450]

HI would someone with a 50 ltr braumeister that's a beersmith user mind posting their system
parameters?

Thanks

Matt

 

[syl]

50L settings here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5-wh6ZSlhqIc3RrdV9qZXh2Yk0/edit?usp=sharing

 

[syl]

Ok. So I am normally cubing 40L of beer from my 50L braumiester. Next operation is to cube 60L per brew.

Was thinking of the following, looking for feedback:

Boil up 20L in the beer robot
Cube it
15kg of grains
55L hop boil
Add cube at flameout

Or:

Boil up 20L in the beer robot
Cube it
15kg of grains
Sparge with it
75L hop boil

Can I just do the first one? Or should I do a massive boil?

 

[Malted]

50L settings here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5-wh6ZSlhqIc3RrdV9qZXh2Yk0/edit?usp=sharing

You could try setting your Mashtun Volume to 85L and the Mashtun Specific Heat to 0.120 for stainless steel* (you have yours set close to Ally, why is this so?).

I have the weight of my vessel set to 8kg and yours is 24kg. The higher the mass of steel, the more heat it will require to heat it (more important for stepped infusion mashing). I can't remember where I got 8kg (might have weighed it) but I should think it certainly does not weigh 24kg. *Being a programable electric brewery: weight and specific heat is not really an issue.

The 60L vs 85L will have beersmith yelling at you sometimes though. ~440mm wide x ~560mm deep = ~85L

Trub and chiller loss varies depeding upon things like crush and composition of the grist and amount of hops. Likewise large amounts of dry hops will change how much loss to the fermenter there is. I'd question things like only 5L boiloff over 90 minutes but it depends on quite a few factors that might be specific to you and your location.

All the rest of the parameters are up to what works for you.
So at the end of the day, 80L or 85L Mastun Volume might stop beersmith getting upset with you sometimes.

Edit: so if your mashtun volume is 60L how would you do the 75L boil you propose?
Edit #2: Maltpipe volume is ~350mm x ~370mm = ~35L in total grain volume.

 

[syl]

You could try setting your Mashtun Volume to 85L and the Mashtun Specific Heat to 0.120 for stainless steel* (you have yours set close to Ally, why is this so?).

I have the weight of my vessel set to 8kg and yours is 24kg. The higher the mass of steel, the more heat it will require to heat it (more important for stepped infusion mashing). I can't remember where I got 8kg (might have weighed it) but I should think it certainly does not weigh 24kg. *Being a programable electric brewery: weight and specific heat is not really an issue.

The 60L vs 85L will have beersmith yelling at you sometimes though. ~440mm wide x ~560mm deep = ~85L

Trub and chiller loss varies depeding upon things like crush and composition of the grist and amount of hops. Likewise large amounts of dry hops will change how much loss to the fermenter there is. I'd question things like only 5L boiloff over 90 minutes but it depends on quite a few factors that might be specific to you and your location.

All the rest of the parameters are up to what works for you.
So at the end of the day, 80L or 85L Mastun Volume might stop beersmith getting upset with you sometimes.

Edit: so if your mashtun volume is 60L how would you do the 75L boil you propose?
Edit #2: Maltpipe volume is ~350mm x ~370mm = ~35L in total grain volume.

its from another site. not mine.

I will alter accordingly. new to beersmth and may just go back to pen and paper

 

[Malted]

its from another site. not mine.

I will alter accordingly. new to beersmth and may just go back to pen and paper

No harm, no foul. Google Docs didn't indicate to me where it originated.
For example of parameters being set to what works for you: Speidel says you should be able to crank out 50L of finished beer; that is a batch volume that equals 50L of 'finished beer' plus losses to fermenter + losses to the kettle. This could be a batch volume of 55L or more. Perhaps you would want 47 L of finished beer (two x 19L corny kegs + 1 x 9L keg), so you might set it for a batch volume of 50L. Maybe you only want two corny kegs filled so you might go a batch volume of about 43L? At any point, set the batch volume to account for losses above the volume of beer you want.

Beersmith is a useful program but you need to give it good information. Don't get disheartened. It will take some tweaking (observing what happens so you can plug those values in for next time).

Ok. So I am normally cubing 40L of beer from my 50L braumiester. Next operation is to cube 60L per brew.

Was thinking of the following, looking for feedback:

Boil up 20L in the beer robot
Cube it
15kg of grains
55L hop boil
Add cube at flameout

Or:

Boil up 20L in the beer robot
Cube it
15kg of grains
Sparge with it
75L hop boil
Can I just do the first one? Or should I do a massive boil?

What gravity of the 60L are you aiming for?

 

[syl]

1050 is all.

 

[jimmysuperlative]

... I should think it certainly does not weigh 24kg....

That number comes straight out of the destruction manual ..."Weight: 24 kg including internal fittings and lifting bows" ...so you're right , the stainless weight would be far less.

...and that beersmith profile was posted by snow from this forum. It's pretty much what I used to dial in my BM50L. For a typical brew I can get 55L of wort at knockout with about 4-5L lost to trub etc. I sparge with 1L/kg. Probably 85% efficiency.

Last beer was a IPA at 1061. (12.5kg grain bill)

 

[syl]

Sweet well I can definitely do the beer I want then. Just want to get 3 cubes of 1050–1055 wort for some smash session ales.

 

[stakka82]

Yeah you will be able to get 3 cubes of 20l 1050 no worries.

On saturday a mate and I punched out 55l at 1060 (enlgish IPA) with room to spare.

That was 13.2 kgs at 80%.

 

[syl]

Ok, here is my new Braumeister profile - a bit closer Malted? https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5-wh6ZSlhqIUjRKSWFBSzV0OEU/edit?usp=sharing

Also, just purchased beermsith and will have a go at it, instead of using it as a guide and doing the rest manually!

 

[Batz]

You have seen the stainless bench I have for my Braumeister, today I built this to take my Hop Rocket and chiller.
It looks like it will work well, brew day this week so I'll see.

Batz

 

[Smokomark]

You have seen the stainless bench I have for my Braumeister, today I built this to take my Hop Rocket and chiller.
It looks like it will work well, brew day this week so I'll see.

Batz

Looks great Batz

 

[Matty3450]

That's awesome batz I'd like to setup a hop back and start chilling my wort,
to date I've only no chilled with my 50 ltr braumeister thanks for the inspiration

 

[Thefatdoghead]

That number comes straight out of the destruction manual ..."Weight: 24 kg including internal fittings and lifting bows" ...so you're right , the stainless weight would be far less.

...and that beersmith profile was posted by snow from this forum. It's pretty much what I used to dial in my BM50L. For a typical brew I can get 55L of wort at knockout with about 4-5L lost to trub etc. I sparge with 1L/kg. Probably 85% efficiency.

Last beer was a IPA at 1061. (12.5kg grain bill)

I put 12.5kg of grain in my 50L Brau and efficiency drops to 68%. What do yo do to get those volumes and 1061? I find mashing for a longer time increases my efficiency heaps....maybe 1.008 on occasion.

 

[jimmysuperlative]

That number comes straight out of the destruction manual ..."Weight: 24 kg including internal fittings and lifting bows" ...so you're right , the stainless weight would be far less.

...and that beersmith profile was posted by snow from this forum. It's pretty much what I used to dial in my BM50L. For a typical brew I can get 55L of wort at knockout with about 4-5L lost to trub etc. I sparge with 1L/kg. Probably 85% efficiency.

Last beer was a IPA at 1061. (12.5kg grain bill)

I put 12.5kg of grain in my 50L Brau and efficiency drops to 68%. What do yo do to get those volumes and 1061? I find mashing for a longer time increases my efficiency heaps....maybe 1.008 on occasion.

What's your mash schedule look like?

I'm using a 90 min stepped mash ...roughly 30mins @63°C, 25mins @65°C, 30mins @70°C, 5mins @76°C and then mash out @78°C.

Playing around with your crush can be helpful also.

 

[Matty3450]

Hi all,

So when using a counterflow chiller with their Braumeister what are some of the methods people are using to filter trub and break material, I like Batz setup above but after researching it seems most hopback type units are designed for whole hops. Unfortunately I live in a fairly remote area and pallet hops are much easier for me to acquire and store. What are peoples experiences

Thanks Kindly

Matt

 

[syl]

What's everyones crush? 1.5mm is lowering my efficiency heaps. Going down to 1.2 or 1.3 I think!