Dedicated Braumeister Guide, Problems & Solution Thread

[doon]

I have thermal jacket and homemade hood and seems pretty reasonable. If its a cold day it can drag out

 

[danestead]

Ive personally ducked out to the pub whilst the mash was going and come back to it sitting at mash out for a few hours. Ive read of guys mashing in at room temp at night and programming the brau to start mashing early in the morning so that when they wake up it is at mash out and ready to boil. During the mash you can pretty much let it do its thing however I usually give the grain 2 or 3 stirs. This is not required though. Heating time is a bit less than 1 degree per minute up towards boiling temp. Brew day takes me generally 6 hours including all the cleanup, cracking grain etc. Im sure that could be cut back to about 4 hourw though if you were cubing and had cut the boil/mash times back a bit.

 

[dicko]

You can quite comfortably walk away during the mash however the boil will depend on the hop additions.
If you have one hop addition at 60 minutes and don't want to add anything else and you no chill, then you can leave it as well if you like.

 

[Dan Pratt]

Can anyone tell me the actual time taken for their brewday with the bm and is it the sort of thing you could walk away from to do other things during mash and or boil times? Looking at buying one.

Hey Malty,

I often leave my BM for the mash cycle and head out somewhere and only need to be there for the sparge, boil and hop additions etc, everything post mash..... Even while the boil is on I can take a seat on the lounge inside if there is not additions from the 90 or 60min until the last 10mins. My brew day is averaging about 7hrs with 3-4step mashes, a 90m Sacc rest and a 90min boil plus 20+mins whirlpooling. Having it automated for the mash cylce and since the 1st beer I made on mine its always been mash in and go do other things, literally leaving the house to return to it beeping at mashhout temp

I can streamline the teh brewday to about 5hrs if Im doing a 45min mash + mashout and then a 30min boil and chilling right after boil, but that is only on small <4% golden ales that Ive been working on.

 

[reddog]

Anyone Tried the new model yet?

 

[Spiesy]

Anyone Tried the new model yet?

Yes. I have done two brews on my 50L.

One brew on the big malt pipe and did my first brew with the short malt pipe yesterday.

It seems a lot of the functionality of the new control system isn't there yet, and will be coming in a subsequent firmware update (prob around March).

You can still brew no problems, but saving recipes isn't as it should be just yet.

I'm still learning the system, so it's hard for me to comment just yet. Very disappointed with my efforts with the short malt pipe yesterday. Ridiculous limits on that thing.

 

[lael]

Yes. I have done two brews on my 50L.

One brew on the big malt pipe and did my first brew with the short malt pipe yesterday.

It seems a lot of the functionality of the new control system isn't there yet, and will be coming in a subsequent firmware update (prob around March).

You can still brew no problems, but saving recipes isn't as it should be just yet.

I'm still learning the system, so it's hard for me to comment just yet. Very disappointed with my efforts with the short malt pipe yesterday. Ridiculous limits on that thing.

I'm curious, what are the limits/ what's frustrating about it?

 

[Spiesy]

I'm curious, what are the limits/ what's frustrating about it?

Due to the way the system works, there is a maximum of grain you can add to each malt pipe as well as a minimum and maximum amount of water.

For the short malt pipe in the 50L, the published limit is 5.5kgs of grain. There are ways around this apparently.

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

Due to the way the system works, there is a maximum of grain you can add to each malt pipe as well as a minimum and maximum amount of water.

For the short malt pipe in the 50L, the published limit is 5.5kgs of grain. There are ways around this apparently.

The new software cares about the amount of grain and water?

 

[Spiesy]

The new software cares about the amount of grain and water?

Not as far as I know. No mention of software in what you quoted.

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

Right, so your comment was just in regards to the general limitation of the small malt pipe? I think it helps to think of it as a 20l malt pipe.

 

[reddog]

My 2015 model arrived yesterday very impressed with the build quality and the new controller is nice.

Not sure how they are going to implement the WiFi as for what I can tell there is no signal coming out of the unit.

Anyone thinking of getting the new model because of the WiFi option might want to hold off until we are sure it available.

 

[Blind Dog]

I'm curious, what are the limits/ what's frustrating about it?

only limit is your imagination in getting to a solution, or your ability to coopt others ideas

 

[NT.Thunder]

Picked up my 2015 Braumeister a few weeks back and after finally getting all the other gear together I kicked it in the guts on Sunday and made my first AG brew.

Now I haven't AG brewed before or extract for nearly 10 years so I was a little nervous about brew day, but the BM made the day enjoyable and relatively simple.

Made a IPA SMaSH with Cascade hops just to keep it simple. Was supposed to be 5kg of JW pale malt and .5kg Caramalt, but the bill grain was slightly under so I guess we see how it turns out. The recipe (beersmith2) had a OG of 1.062 and I measured 1.060 right on 20l.

Mashed in with 25l and sparged with just over 6l using a 90min boil so quantities seemed to add up right on target. I think efficiency was somewhere around 77% which hopefully improves with experience.

Only real concern I has was the amount of trub after the boil and the fact that even after trying to whirlpool I dropped it straight into the fermenter.......Ooops! Maybe I'll rack it into a secondary fermentation vessel to clear it up.

I was pretty impressed with my wort chiller I made, standard immersion coil but had about 40l of chilled water and 2 bags of ice in 60l bucket with submersed pond pump and dropped it to 22 in 15minutes.

Everything seemed to go well, have been doing a lot of reading and asking plenty of questions from those in the know which helped and looking forward to the next brew day.

Currently sitting in the fridge (STC1000) keeping temp around 20 degrees and hopefully it's happy.

Only thing I'd like to know is what peoples preference is for sanitising, currently using Proxitane which smells a bit potent. Might look for some StarSan. Also, what do people use to clean their BM. I gave it a good rinse and then ran some pink TSP through it, just a slight dose and then gave it a good rinse and flush through the Pp.

 

[Ckilner]

I use Starsan which I mix with distilled water and store in a sealed bucket. As long as the pH is below 3.0 then it's fine and can be re-used many times.
I've tried a few methods to clean my BM and the best one is to rinse it after use and wash out as best I can and then fill with hot water to the brim and add 75g PBW then leave overnight. Empty, rinse and a quick wipe round with a sponge does the trick.

 

[reddog]

I use Starsan and absolutely love the stuff, for many years I used iodaphore but with Starsan I don't have to worry about all my equipment turning brown.

I purchase the cheap 4l bottles of distilled water and mix it straight into the bottle then I fill my spray bottle from that using distilled water it lasts for months.

It is a no rinse sterilizer and in the several years that I have been using it I have not had an infection.

 

[Spiesy]

I use PBW and hot water to clean, StarSan to sanitise.

I was cleaning with sodium percarbonate, wasn't getting the results I wanted. Grabbed some Five Star PBW, mixed with water, heated the water in the Brau and ran the pump for a while, giving it a bit of a wipe with a soft cloth throughout. Spotless.

 

[doon]

Yeah pbw with hot water for 30 minutes comes up sparkling. I upped temp to over 70 and it worked great

 

[Sean_72]

New 50l arrived couple weeks ago, I brew beer for the office we have a kegerator in the kitchen at work and have semi regular Friday beers, boss gave it to me as a bonus, happy days :super: .

Finally got my 15 amp power point in and had a play Monday just gone. Day was longer, mainly due to my screw up below, but being able to step mash and with more automation there are no complaints from me.

Lesson one - don't forget to put the base filter in the malt pipe before adding grain.............was kicking my arse around the shed for 10 minutes until coming up with a recovery plan, probably only put in about a kg of grain if that but what a pain in the arse. Several buckets filled with all the water and grain from within the machine, gave her a clean out, including pumps, put the cleaner water in first then the malt pipe THEN the base filters and gently refilled her with the rest of the water and grain. Adjusted the sparge water with he additional water I used to get the bits of grain out of the buckets.

In the end, still hit my numbers, so very lucky, but not so clever. Think I will ensure the filters are in clear site of the Braumeister next brew, not that I will forget again.

My only problem is I only have room for two fermenters in my fermentation fridge and only so many kegs, limits the amount of times I can brew, which is why I wanted the 50l but as with all new toys, I want to play

 

[Crusty]

Am I reading this right?
You brew for the lads at work & have a few on Friday's, you have a kegerator in the work kitchen that was given to you by the boss???
Holy cow! Boss of the year. Who is this man? Where the **** do you work man, at the facebook office or what? You are one lucky employee.
Great that you rescued the brew & I've recently forgot to add my fine top screen but aborted just as the liquid was starting to flow over the malt pipe.
It's a mistake you'll only make once after giving yourself an uppercut. Happy days ahead & enjoy the new rig.