Braumeister - Tips & Tricks

[mckenry]

And for anyone who is still having grain in the wort, post hoisting the pipe, I bought 250mm of SS braid. After the bottom plate and fine mesh filter goes on, the braid goes over the rod. Grain in, top plates etc. When you lift the malt pipe. the braid acts as a barrier and no grain can 'collapse' in on itself.
Works a treat.

 

[mckenry]

This will show it better. Braid sits over the sleeve of the large filter plate, after you've placed the fine mesh on. Braid squashes down and creates a perfect barrier/tunnel once the malt pipe has been lifted. If youre a sparger, this stops any grain collapsing into the void created by the rod.
Crystal clear wort.

These photos are on their side, but its easy to understand.

 

[ibu]

Good idea! I've been using some rubber around the edge of the bottom mesh which helped but hasn't stopped all the grain getting into the wort.
This may help further with that and also aid with sparging as you said. Well done; thanks for putting it up.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Something I have been thinking about with the 20 litre is an extended malt pipe, I bought a second seal and use that on the top and did away with the factory fitted perf plate and mesh made my own mesh and plate to fit on the top. The pressure from the pump could lift the first p/ plate I made, about 1mm thk, so the pump can get a fair amount of pressure up ended up with 2 mm p/plate.
So now I have 2 pieces of s/s tube same dia as the malt pipe but longer (will only need one but they were free) so my thought is put a stud box on the connecting rod and fit maybe a 25 cm stud to lengthen the connecting rod, I can easily cobble up a filter plate and mesh top and bottom, before I get to work on this anyone see any problems?

 

[Dan Pratt]

If your chasing higher gravity without double mashing it sound like a good option.

Pics of the malt pipe add on?

 

[wide eyed and legless]

That's what I was thinking about, not often I do a reiterated mash but it would be easier to do a higher gravity beer in one go, the pump can manage it and as it is a mag drive wouldn't do any damage if it couldn't.
The tubes I got are the burned out outer shell's of the opposition.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

So today I tried the new maltpipe but it was just a tab to big, made the stud box, shortened the malt pipe to 220 mm (not the original) made a fine mesh and a thick perf plate and all ready to go will give it a try on Wednesday when the kids go back to school.


Could probably have made it shorter.


When I give it a try on Wednesday will be just doing a regular grain bill just in case the pump can't handle it, will be no trouble to dismantle and carry on.

 

[Dan Pratt]

What will be your starting volume of water?

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Started with 25 litres of water and a 5.25 kg grain bill, before I started I shortened the malt pipe extension to 170 mm but the poor little pump struggled to get the head needed to push the wort through the sieve.
Interestingly G&G have a demo with the 20L Braumeister this weekend with a false bottom on the top of the malt pipe, that was my first and only modification I did years ago.

 

[BKBrews]

OK I'm brewing on a BM 50L this weekend, with a mate. a few questions:

where do we find the water calculators? Searched everywhere.

And anyone using beersmith have comments on the braumeister profile?

 

[Brew Matt]

OK I'm brewing on a BM 50L this weekend, with a mate. a few questions:

where do we find the water calculators? Searched everywhere.

And anyone using beersmith have comments on the braumeister profile?

When you say water calculators, do you mean to work out the volume of water to use in the Braumeister? Are you using the full or short malt pipe?

 

[BKBrews]

When you say water calculators, do you mean to work out the volume of water to use in the Braumeister? Are you using the full or short malt pipe?

Yes. We want to know the total mash water required + sparge water. My mate seems to think its 55L mash water + 1L per kg of grain for the sparge. I am assuming it's the full malt pipe. We're going to brew an NEIPA with roughly 11-12kg of malt.

 

[Midnight Brew]

Total mash water required = batch vol + loss to kettle + boil off + loss to grain absorption (I use this figure as my sparge)

so say you want 50L
you lose 3-5L in the kettle but lets go with 3 because we all know how to tilt a kettle
60min boil = 5L boil off
I find I lose about 600ml wort to each kg grain. So 12kg of malt * 0.6L= 7.2L

50+3+5+7.2= 65.2ish L

I actually sparge half the grain absorption figure. Just to 'rinse' through the sugars and I find its sufficient. I would almost argue to full volume mash and forget the sparge all together but that has been covered elsewhere.

How I like to do it is fill the BM up to set water amount. Drain off until you hit 55L marked on the centre rod. Mash in, put on the mesh filter and flasie, add the remaining water back in except for your sparge figure. Have a beer.

 

[Crusty]

Total mash water required = batch vol + loss to kettle + boil off + loss to grain absorption (I use this figure as my sparge)

so say you want 50L
you lose 3-5L in the kettle but lets go with 3 because we all know how to tilt a kettle
60min boil = 5L boil off
I find I lose about 600ml wort to each kg grain. So 12kg of malt * 0.6L= 7.2L

50+3+5+7.2= 65.2ish L

I actually sparge half the grain absorption figure. Just to 'rinse' through the sugars and I find its sufficient. I would almost argue to full volume mash and forget the sparge all together but that has been covered elsewhere.

How I like to do it is fill the BM up to set water amount. Drain off until you hit 55L marked on the centre rod. Mash in, put on the mesh filter and flasie, add the remaining water back in except for your sparge figure. Have a beer.

Cheers for this bit of info.
I've been having some dramas with final volumes & lower than expected gravities for a while with BeerSmith so I followed your calculation. BeerSmith was telling me to sparge with 3 more litres than this calculation. I overshot my gravity but my volume was bang on. So, the final piece of the puzzle is to up my BH efficiency to bring the OG back down to what I was aiming for.

 

[Thefatdoghead]

I brewed a Helles yesterday on the 50 litre brau but did it a little different. I dont know if its anything new or if anyone has tried it but I had great results so I thought I would share.

Basically all i did different was, i filled the braumeister up to 69L to begin. I mashed in. The water was about 20mm below the top of the malt pipe once i had 9.5kg of grain mashed in.
I then went about brew schedule as normal except for sparge.
I didnt sparge at all as I had 60 litres after pulling the malt pipe. Boiled for 1.5 hours and ended up with 49 litres (roughly minus trub) of 1.048 wort. Still maintaining my usual 80% efficiency.
The whole point was to get around having to sparge but still maintaining the same efficiency and it looks like its worked.
Ill now try an ipa or something with a higher gravity and more malt to se if this method will still work.

Happy brewing

 

[mckenry]

I brewed a Helles yesterday on the 50 litre brau but did it a little different. I dont know if its anything new or if anyone has tried it but I had great results so I thought I would share.

Basically all i did different was, i filled the braumeister up to 69L to begin. I mashed in. The water was about 20mm below the top of the malt pipe once i had 9.5kg of grain mashed in.
I then went about brew schedule as normal except for sparge.
I didnt sparge at all as I had 60 litres after pulling the malt pipe. Boiled for 1.5 hours and ended up with 49 litres (roughly minus trub) of 1.048 wort. Still maintaining my usual 80% efficiency.
The whole point was to get around having to sparge but still maintaining the same efficiency and it looks like its worked.
Ill now try an ipa or something with a higher gravity and more malt to se if this method will still work.

Happy brewing

These numbers mean (by my cals) that you should have flooded the malt pipe. The spreadsheet that I have says that if using 9.5kg the max water for strike is 61.9L.
Did you flood the pipe, no sparge and still get 80% eff?

I'm always interested in the methods people use that get 80% and above. My method only gets 62% BH eff (68% mash eff) - but every time. I'm happy with consistency. The actual cost of grain to go from 62-80 is SFA anyway.
My method is what sounds like you just did, bar removing some strike water (see below) so wondering how you got 80% with no sparge.

I use the spreadsheet to get my volumes for strike v grain quantity, but normally I'm around;
10kg grain, so that means:
61.5L strike water to temp
Remove about 6L to get back to roughly 55L on the rod
mash into 55L, plates on etc, then return the 6L and that wont overflow the pipe.
75 min boil
No sparge
Hoist and let drain.
68% mash eff - 62% BH eff after losses.
Yeah, I used to get more by sparging, but why do I have a single vessel for >$3k and then need an urn...?
But 80% with no sparge? I'm keen....

I use a mashmaster mini mill with the fluted rollers set at 1.2mm
For those playing at home I adjust my town supply with Ca and Mg to achieve a mash pH around 5.2-5.4

Still, I'm very interested to know how you mashed into 69L water with 9.5kg grain and had 20mm below the overflow?

 

[Black Devil Dog]

Pretty much the same as my method and I usually get around 80% Mash eff, 75% BH eff.

My strike vol is in the vicinity of 65 litres and I always drain off 5 litres before I mash in. I tip that back in after I've secured the malt pipe.

If I didn't drain it off, the water would be overflowing the malt pipe after the grain is added.

Did an IPA yesterday that had 10.47 kg of grain + 100g of rice hulls and 65.5 litres strike water.

Started using a small amount of rice hulls recently to see if I get a better flow through the mash. Probably does SFA.

Mash in at 40 raise to 64, 60 minute rest @ 64 - 20 minute rest @ 72 - mash out 78 for about 20 minutes.

No sparge.

90 minute boil.

Aim for 48 litres into cubes.

 

[Thefatdoghead]

These numbers mean (by my cals) that you should have flooded the malt pipe. The spreadsheet that I have says that if using 9.5kg the max water for strike is 61.9L.
Did you flood the pipe, no sparge and still get 80% eff?

I'm always interested in the methods people use that get 80% and above. My method only gets 62% BH eff (68% mash eff) - but every time. I'm happy with consistency. The actual cost of grain to go from 62-80 is SFA anyway.
My method is what sounds like you just did, bar removing some strike water (see below) so wondering how you got 80% with no sparge.

I use the spreadsheet to get my volumes for strike v grain quantity, but normally I'm around;
10kg grain, so that means:
61.5L strike water to temp
Remove about 6L to get back to roughly 55L on the rod
mash into 55L, plates on etc, then return the 6L and that wont overflow the pipe.
75 min boil
No sparge
Hoist and let drain.
68% mash eff - 62% BH eff after losses.
Yeah, I used to get more by sparging, but why do I have a single vessel for >$3k and then need an urn...?
But 80% with no sparge? I'm keen....

I use a mashmaster mini mill with the fluted rollers set at 1.2mm
For those playing at home I adjust my town supply with Ca and Mg to achieve a mash pH around 5.2-5.4

Still, I'm very interested to know how you mashed into 69L water with 9.5kg grain and had 20mm below the overflow?

Yes you are corect, I fucked the volume up in my last post. I dont know how I missed it.
What I did was go 60mm above the top mark on the rod which should be close enough to 65 litres. That last post was my mistake as I always think the top mark is 60L. Sorry about that. So i was 5litres down and that explains why i had to squash the last cube.
I used 9.5kg of grain milled on a 3 roller crankenstein with a 1mm gap. I used lactic acid and calc chloride and sulfate for a mash ph of 5.1.
The malt pipe was not flooded and at this volume I could have got another 2kg of grain in I would assume. Before it was an issue.
I was brewing a Helles so my mash schedule was
10min @ 52
70min @ 62
30min @ 68
15min @ 78 mashout

In my experience the only time i suffer from low efficiency under 80% is when I dont have enough time mashing at amylase rest. I try give at least 30min at the higher end of 60 deg and also a good 15 to 20 for a mashout.
Or if I start using more than 11kg of grain in the pipe
Or if my mash ph is up to shit ie above 5.3, 5.4.

Or if I had not sparged. This is why I wanted to see if I could get the full volume without sparging and maintain efficiency.

To point out my mistake from earlier my efficiency will be lower than 80% becuse I ended up with less than the 50 litres I was going for.
Im new to beersmith and cant work out what my actual efficiency is after realising the **** up.
Anyway 45litres (roughly, dont know exact cos I cubed into 2 different size cubes and forgot to check volume on rod before i transfered) is what I had at 1.048 with 9.5kg of malt with a 1.5 hour boil and assuming 1 litre per kg of grain absorption. 7.5 litre an hour boil off

Im still happy with this no sparge result because i only care that the efficiency stayes the same and 45 litres of 1.048 wort off 9.5kg of grain is good enough for me whithout sparging.
I dont know if that helps make it clearer and thanks for picking up my volume mistake mckenry.

Cheers

 

[mckenry]

My stubbornness to no-flood, no-sparge is waning. Today I made an ESB, hit all my expected numbers. This time though I hung onto the malt pipe and collected the remaining runnings. A couple of litres at 1.045. A real shame.
I could add that back to the boil and increase eff, but...
What is annoying me more is the output, without flooding the pipe. The bigger the grain bill the lower the volume. Had to knock it back to 43L in a 50L brau...
So, I am going back to sparging, to at least hit 50L after losses including fermenter loss.
I'll see where I can get to. Currently running 62% BH eff. Every single time which is nice.


Edit - forgot to ask my question.
What are the rusted-on brau fans sparging with these days?
I know G&G go 2.5L/kg - I dont even think that is possible on the small units i.e. Not enough strike water.

So, 1L/kg, 2L/kg (I think this is possible) something in between?
Fixed amount and work backwards?
Max strike water, then whatever it takes to reach pre-boil?
Min strike water then as above?

 

[razz]

Fixed amount and work backwards mchenry. Dough in is always 55lts. I always work to end up with 45lts post boil so when I spare I just do enough to get the kettle to 55lts, sometimes that is 8 lts, sometimes it 5 lts. The only thing that really varies is the amount of grain so the sparge has to change with it also. My efficiency generally stays about 75% if I slowly raise the malt pipe over about 15 mins. If I pull it out quickly the sparge water doesn't seem to stay in the grain as long.