Recent content by becks41

yeah off topic a bit, but to be clear, I'm not German, I just live in Germany. The Germans make great beer, but lack any creativity, it is often times very hard to distinguish a difference between their beers (eg. most Helles taste quite similar), and it's their lack of ingenuity that is...

You mean that little black O-ring in the barley crusher that comes with it when you first buy it broke? I took that thing off immediately, it doesn't serve any purpose that I could see other than to get chewed up while you're milling. That crush looks good, and it sounds like you got some...

it's hard to say what your efficiency was without all of the specifics, but off the top of my head, with nearly 7kg of grain and 29 liters of water and a post boil (?) gravity of 1.058, it sounds to me like your mash efficiency was closer to 54%. I just brewed a batch with 6kg of grain, 25...

Hey Obliviousbrew, thanks for the tips. I haven't been stirring as it seems like a bit of a pain, but I suppose if it helps increase my efficiency I could do it. I agree that my mash schedule was too long, I was just testing out the system to see if i could squeeze any more sugar from the...

It's interesting to see that there are other people out there with efficiency issues on the braumeister system. I have a 50L and have starting using the short malt pipe for some smaller experimental batches. I'm also using beersmith to calculate my efficiency - mash efficiency - as beersmith...

Thanks for the tips guys! Just ordered the Barley Crusher - was eyeing it earlier and decided to go for it. I like the idea of being able to adjust it - Obliviousbrew - what gap do you use and what efficiency do you get? I'd be very curious to know. Rico567 - that looks great! If it wasn't...

We crushed the grain with the Corona Mill, I know I should have taken some pictures, but I was a bit hungover Saturday morning while we were doing this, so pictures wasn't one of my top priorities. We starting by trying to attach my drill to the corona mill, however this just created a huge...

Redstag/Village Idiot I do live in Munich, originally from California. I actually travel out to Stuttgart on a regular basis for work, and if you look that up on the map you'll see its fairly close to where Speidel produces their lovely Braumeisters - though I have yet to stop by and I'm not...

Yeah, in my ice chest mashing system I was able to hit some pretty decent numbers with a fairly fine grind - no problem there, never a stuck mash or sparge. But on the Braumeister I've read that it doesn't handle the finer grinds very well, I'm sure there is a balance in there somewhere. We're...

Sorry, I didn't take pics on the first batch, will do it this weekend when we brew again. Does anyone have advice on the crushing the grain? I used my Corona Mill and adjusted it to be fairly coarse as suggested but the efficiency went down to around 65% on 11kg of grain - I double mashed so...

Just thought I'd post something really quick before I start my first brew with the braumeister in about half an hour. I picked up the 50L from Speidel right before Easter, then I went to Belgium for the weekend and am now more inspired than ever to brew some more awesome beers! Big thanks to...

Thanks for the comments all, hops were fresh out of an unopened bag (different bags) from a good source. I'll post some more notes after these sit in the bottle for a while. I'll probably crack one open on Friday to compare and see where it's at, give it a few more weeks at 19 degrees C and...

Actually, I'm judging this beer against the same recipe at the same stage with my previous brew and the hops have disappeared. I think the best explanation I received is the following: You can only impart so much bitterness into the wort before your hop additions start only having an...

I would purge said mason jar with some CO2 if you can to prevent the wine from oxidizing as well as sticking it in the fridge, ever have wine that's been open for a while and been sitting out on the counter top? - not always very pleasant after a few days and I'm sure you don't what that in your...

Hi, below was my hop schedule: boil 90 mins 50 Magnum leaf 12.7 boil 60 mins 35 Magnum leaf 12.7 boil 45 mins 15 Magnum leaf 12.7 boil 30 mins 20 Amarillo leaf 9.7 boil 15 mins 70 Amarillo leaf 9.7 boil 15 mins 30 Willamette leaf 5.5 post-boil 5 mins 55 Amarillo info leaf 9.7 post-boil 5...