Braumeister - Tips & Tricks

[fraser_john]

<snip> o/night mashing <snip>

Man, this is such a good concept!

 

[Goose]

For my o/night I mash-out at 77C, never had a problem with astringency either. Mash-out nominally sits for around 6 hours.

tks Batz, good to know.

Not so keen on having the pump and elements running for 6 hours unnecessarily though.... wear and tear on the pumps and additional power bill not an issue ?

 

[Cervantes]

For my o/night I mash-out at 77C, never had a problem with astringency either. Mash-out nominally sits for around 6 hours.

I also use this method and the only difference that I can detect is a slight darkening in colour of the wort and a couple of point improvement in my mash efficiency.

 

[Batz]

.... wear and tear on the pumps and additional power bill not an issue ?

I may have worried once, but I've been doing this every brew day now for a few years. Never give it a second thought these days.

 

[lickapop]

After 6hours no sign of any sour smell and sour taste, has a slight fizz but could be air from the grain or the beginnings of fermentation. Will leave it go for a little while longer.

Any reason why you mash in longer razz or others instead of mash out longer?
Sorry if this has been covered. I can't remember reading about it anywhere

 

[razz]

The first o/n mash i did was with a long mash out, about 3-4 hours. There was a bit of discussion at the time about the long mash out affecting the finished beer and the brew I did was a dunkel. I thought at first that the flavour was't what it should be so I switched my o/n brew regime to what I do now. As it turned out the dunked tasted pretty good after a week or two in the keg. I've done a couple of brews since and left my process that way.
I've just filled the BM for a brew overnight and this time I thought "bugger it" I'm just going to dough in with the system switched off and get up at 7 and turn it on and start the mash.

 

[falcoah]

I overnight mash using a low temp mash (25C) for 6 hours. Last night I brewed a dortmunder export and found (for the first time) that the iodine test at the end of the mash showed incomplete conversion (black colour).

Other differences from my usual procedure includes a lower than normal sacchrification rest (66C) and an acid rest (40C) for 60 mins. I also used RO water with no salts added.

Despite the incomplete conversion I still nailed my predicted pre and post boil numbers and its fermenting away happily

 

[lickapop]

You need the salt.. Your ph was probably off
Just adding calcium would have helped your conversion

 

[Cervantes]

I've just filled the BM for a brew overnight and this time I thought "bugger it" I'm just going to dough in with the system switched off and get up at 7 and turn it on and start the mash.

My reasoning is that if I let the mash run overnight and sit at 77 until I get up, that's an hour or more saved in the morning. All I have to do is pull the malt pipe and go straight into the boil.


Edit: Fat Fingers

 

[Dan Pratt]

Ive done the overnight mash quite a few times and only recently got a couple of sour batches. I didn't have this issue out our old house, just since we moved.

I do the rest at 25c for 5-6hrs and then ramp up and I think the extended time at low temp in the new garage caused these off flavour, it happened on 3 consecutive over night mashes...... I should of tried the longer mash out method getting the wort temp hotter sooner to prevent spoilage range (25c -35c).

One thing I would do is set mash out at 74 to stop the colour changing but that was only for pale beers.

 

[dicko]

On another forum many members there are from England and they use the cold extended period for overnite mashing due to the ambient temp being very cold <15c.
Ambient in my brauhaus can be 25c during summer.
When I overnite mash I do the extended rest at 76c generally

 

[Goose]

On another forum many members there are from England and they use the cold extended period ............

Well nobody can be bothered to answer on the "other" forum and perhaps my question there was a little vague but will try my luck here instead with a more detailed question.

I'm new to this kit and plan to give it a run after I've done my homework and modded my outlet valve after parts arrive. My objective is to get 44 litres of wort into my fermenter. I am trying to calculate how much sparge water I need to use.

The reverse engineered calculation goes like this:

Target volume: 44.0 l (into fermenter)

add loss to Trub (loss in BM) 4.0
add loss to chiller 1.0
add cooling shrinkage 2.0
add boil loss 5.0 (1 hour, 8.9%)

Total to boil: 56.0 l

now, if I fill the BM to the standard 53 litres (just reading instruction manual) and conduct the mash, assuming a 9.5 kg grain weight bill;

grain absorbtion 9.5 l (@ 1 kg/l)
volume of wort before sparge 43.5 l

sparge volume required: 12.5 l (to take me to 56.0 l boil volume)

Am I right ? if I am, then this becomes a 2V system because I now need to go out and buy a mega sized pot and sit and watch it till I heat up and retain water at 76 degrees C for the sparge. Arrggh. :huh:

 

[razz]

I think some of us are running an urn to do sparge water. The other thing you can do is add your total water required to the BM and do a no sparge. Your figures look okay to me. After your first couple of brews you will be able to fine tune your numbers and get them bang on. Sorry for not being on the other forum, i was in the shed brewing. :chug:

 

[zoigl]

I weigh all my water additions, and leftovers. Don't forget that the malt tube with wet grain comes into the equation, (like I did as a beginner.) My plastic jugs are not accurate with the volumes marked.
A traveller's hand scale is helpful. 1kg = 1 litre
Top line = 52 litres
I lauter with 10 litres @78c but there seems to be a lot of room with this temperature, don't go over 78c seems the rule to avoid excess tannins. I use an urn with a temperature control, plug in variety, see Keg King catalogue.
With 10 kg grain @ mash in, I end up with around 37 kg as trub/wet grain in the tube.
The original tap on my mark 1 model about 6 years old works really well, I do not understand why any one would want to change it, MHB seems to have started this move, I couldn't see how he could have cleaned his tap, so I stayed with the original and am very happy with it. Silicon hose will clamp onto it. Use a simple clamp with the plastic finger turning attachment.
hope this helps, cheers

 

[Goose]

I think some of us are running an urn to do sparge water. The other thing you can do is add your total water required to the BM and do a no sparge. Your figures look okay to me. After your first couple of brews you will be able to fine tune your numbers and get them bang on. Sorry for not being on the other forum, i was in the shed brewing. :chug:

This one interests me. When you say total water, you mean during the mash I presume. So the malt pipe would be submerged during the process ? Are there any efficiency differences vs sparging ?

 

[Goose]

I weigh all my water additions, and leftovers. Don't forget that the malt tube with wet grain comes into the equation, (like I did as a beginner.) My plastic jugs are not accurate with the volumes marked.
A traveller's hand scale is helpful. 1kg = 1 litre
Top line = 52 litres
I lauter with 10 litres @78c but there seems to be a lot of room with this temperature, don't go over 78c seems the rule to avoid excess tannins. I use an urn with a temperature control, plug in variety, see Keg King catalogue.
With 10 kg grain @ mash in, I end up with around 37 kg as trub/wet grain in the tube.
The original tap on my mark 1 model about 6 years old works really well, I do not understand why any one would want to change it, MHB seems to have started this move, I couldn't see how he could have cleaned his tap, so I stayed with the original and am very happy with it. Silicon hose will clamp onto it. Use a simple clamp with the plastic finger turning attachment.
hope this helps, cheers

Tks zoigy. Top line is 52 l or 55 as per manual ?, or is this your measured (weighed) vol ?

 

[Cervantes]

This one interests me. When you say total water, you mean during the mash I presume. So the malt pipe would be submerged during the process ? Are there any efficiency differences vs sparging ?

Yes with a submerged malt pipe. Bring all the water up to your required mash in temperature, then drain enough out into a bucket to allow you to insert the malt pipe and add your malt. Once this is done re-introduce the water from your bucket and mash as normal.

I've only done this a couple of times and don't recall the exact figures, but I'm pretty sure that there was no loss of efficiency.

 

[zoigl]

I weighed it, I have some commercial, shop counter, digital scales, from eBay, which weigh up to 35kg. (Not forgetting to tare the bucket first.)
I usually brew Pilsners and use 30 L of rainwater and 22 L filtered tap water so I have a check on the BM quantity, I also lauter with 10 L of rainwater. My Pilsners are very OK to me.
The tube with saddle, filters, rubber seal and my patented drip tray comes in at 43.95 kg with the wet grain mash when I haul it out with an overhead hoist.

 

[bullsneck]

Well nobody can be bothered to answer on the "other" forum and perhaps my question there was a little vague but will try my luck here instead with a more detailed question.

I'm new to this kit and plan to give it a run after I've done my homework and modded my outlet valve after parts arrive. My objective is to get 44 litres of wort into my fermenter. I am trying to calculate how much sparge water I need to use.

The reverse engineered calculation goes like this:

Target volume: 44.0 l (into fermenter)

add loss to Trub (loss in BM) 4.0
add loss to chiller 1.0
add cooling shrinkage 2.0
add boil loss 5.0 (1 hour, 8.9%)

Total to boil: 56.0 l

now, if I fill the BM to the standard 53 litres (just reading instruction manual) and conduct the mash, assuming a 9.5 kg grain weight bill;

grain absorbtion 9.5 l (@ 1 kg/l)
volume of wort before sparge 43.5 l

sparge volume required: 12.5 l (to take me to 56.0 l boil volume)

Am I right ? if I am, then this becomes a 2V system because I now need to go out and buy a mega sized pot and sit and watch it till I heat up and retain water at 76 degrees C for the sparge. Arrggh. :huh:

Today I brewed using the Brau without my urn to heat some sparge water. I usually sparge with 8-10L.
What I did was boil our 1.8L kettle 4 times. Each time I would add 200mL of cold tap water which would get me down to 75c. Perfect.
Perhaps that is an option for you.

 

[dicko]

Yes with a submerged malt pipe. Bring all the water up to your required mash in temperature, then drain enough out into a bucket to allow you to insert the malt pipe and add your malt. Once this is done re-introduce the water from your bucket and mash as normal.

I've only done this a couple of times and don't recall the exact figures, but I'm pretty sure that there was no loss of efficiency.

Over on the other forum it has been quoted on several occasions by many brewers that a full volume mash does not lose any efficiency percentage points.

I had a s / steel pot with an element and a PID controller to perform my sparge....now that vessel is a Sous Vide. :lol:

This method negates the need for a second vessel, but if it was me I would try both ways just to satisfy my doubts and curiosity.