Braumeister - Tips & Tricks

[wide eyed and legless]

Well the only time I have had a fountain is when I have adjuncts in the mix, I have never had a fountain just using malted barley,
as for the least amount of grain you would have to work back from the least amount of water, which would be around the 20 litre mark. What is it you are wanting to do?

 

[Coalminer]

Wobbly,
I done 2 mashes today in a 20L BM both 3.05kg with no problems

 

[GoodDuck]

Another method G&G have experimented with (not sure if this is what WEAL was referring to) is using a false bottom (dome side up) as the top screen - I have used this method successfully myself, but I was fortunate to have a false bottom handy.
Depending on what equipment you have handy, you can also used the upside down top screen method to get 7Kg in (a very tight squeeze).
Something that I found helpful was to heat your strike water in another urn (I also had 30L urn handy), then mix your grain in the urn before you transfer to the BM.
This accomplishes 2 things:
1. It is easier to mix this amount of grain in a 30L urn than in the malt pipe.
2. it washes some of the sugars from the grain, so the grain is less demanding of malt pipe space.

 

[Black n Tan]

Wobbly,
I done 2 mashes today in a 20L BM both 3.05kg with no problems

It has been sometime for me, but my recollection is 3kg is no problem.

I seem to recall either on this site or the Braumeister forum site that it was something like 3.0 or 3.5kgs.

my current plans are to do a double mash of something around 3.5 kgs of grain for each half but want to make sure before I do it that I wont end up with the dreaded "wort fountains"

So 3.5kg should not be a problem but it probably depends on how you mill your grain. If I was to experience a wort fountain, I would just turn down the pump: I have Laing pumps and they are set at the maximum (7) so I would just dial it down. I think the alternative BM pump, Lowepro??, would be similar.

 

[wobbly]

[QUOTE=" What is it you are wanting to do?[/QUOTE]

What I plan on doing/brewing is something like a Sierra Nevada Torpedo and want 24/25lts into "my fermenting vessel" with an OG of around 1065. Now I understand that around 7kgs of grain will get me close but efficiency becomes an issue. As you increase grain vol/kg much over 6kgs efficiency drops requiring an increase in grain and so you chase your tail to the point that you can't get the required grain into the malt pipe.
Sure I can reduce the target vol into "my fermenting vessel" however that is defeating the purpose of what I want to do which is bottle around 22/23lts of finished beer from a single brew/mash/ferment
Where as if I can do a reticulated mash with about 3.5kgs of grain in each mash half I shouldn't loose out on efficiency and based on Coalminers post above it should all work out fine

Cheers

Wobbly

 

[wide eyed and legless]

I think I bought my 20L BM about 2010, at the time I wondered why Mr Speidel had fitted a more expensive custom valve to it instead of a bog standard ball valve. I never changed it so every now and again I still have puzzled over it until now, since I have been playing around with the lauter helix I did wonder why the BM worked better with the helix than the Guten.
The simple answer was the 8mm orifice on the BM valve and the slower drainage was to leave most of the trub in the kettle, so simple when one realises. With the Guten I now only open the valve 1/2 way and it works much better, so those who have bought the lauter helix and have replaced the original valve have a play around with how far to open up the valve.

 

[Brewman_]

I think I bought my 20L BM about 2010, at the time I wondered why Mr Speidel had fitted a more expensive custom valve to it instead of a bog standard ball valve. I never changed it so every now and again I still have puzzled over it until now, since I have been playing around with the lauter helix I did wonder why the BM worked better with the helix than the Guten.
The simple answer was the 8mm orifice on the BM valve and the slower drainage was to leave most of the trub in the kettle, so simple when one realises. With the Guten I now only open the valve 1/2 way and it works much better, so those who have bought the lauter helix and have replaced the original valve have a play around with how far to open up the valve.View attachment 107099

The BM is definitely well engineered.
The comment you make about not opening the valve all the way up is a good point. But that point is also true for every system and I find rarely considered. Just because it is possible to Fully Open a valve it is not always the best way to operate the gear.

It's like driving a car, most, I do know some exceptions, do not push the accelerator to the floor every time they accelerate, nor jump on the brakes as hard as possible. Cars give you much better feedback on the risk you put yourself at by doing those things, but not so much the brewery.

Thats the skill of the brewer.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

The BM is definitely well engineered.
The comment you make about not opening the valve all the way up is a good point. But that point is also true for every system and I find rarely considered. Just because it is possible to Fully Open a valve it is not always the best way to operate the gear.

It's like driving a car, most, I do know some exceptions, do not push the accelerator to the floor every time they accelerate, nor jump on the brakes as hard as possible. Cars give you much better feedback on the risk you put yourself at by doing those things, but not so much the brewery.

Thats the skill of the brewer.

There is another post where I clarified the working of a ball valve, the ball valve has two positions open and closed, they were never intended to be throttled. In the other post I explained that instead of throttling the flow I fitted a stainless washer with an id opening of 8mm. Just for giving longer life to the PTFE seals while giving the flow needed for the helix.