Mash efficiency on a speidel braumeister

Having been brewing with a 50l braumeister for a few months using the same recipe i was wondering if anyone could check over the figures...

Grain payload - 11kg organic lager malt

Water in - 53 litres

Sparge - 12 litres

Wort to fermenter - 53 litres

Gravity - 16 Plato (i use a brix refractometer)

mash efficiency - 85% ??

The fermentation runs for 10 days down to around 7 Plato and then stops (fermenter is set at between 15 - 16 deg C.

ABV 5.5% ??

Hows it looking

interested to know also.. Wonder why no one responded to this thread

Nobody responded because no one has a Speidel Braumeister.
What was your mash temperature? It seems like you should get more alcohol out of 16 Brix wort... with a 1.065 gravity wort I would expect at least 6.5% with a poor FG of 1.015. Are you using a correction for alcohol in your final gravity? Also, what type of yeast are you using? 15-16°C may be too cold for an ale yeast, or too warm for a lager yeast.

There is a large contingent on this board with the Braumeister, myself included. No one responded because they likely missed this topic. Might consider posting this question in the main braumeister thread rather than a separate thread Prost!

Hey All,

I'm more than happy to try answering questions about the Braumeister that you may have. I have brewed on the 50L twice, the 20L once, and the 200L twice. When viewing the original post, I'm not certain exactly what you're looking for unfortunately. The mash efficiency is a little on the high side (I generally get 79-80% efficiency), but I also don't sparge, so that might be what adds the extra 4-5%. The 5.5% ABV is pretty low, so I'm not certain what might have been the issue there. I think pdxal is onto something when he asks about your mash and fermentation temperatures. What were these, and what yeast did you use?

Let me know if you have any other specific questions and I'll try to help however possible.

Cheers!

Jipper,you guys are driving me nuts! B3 was supposed to have the 20l SBM's in stock a over week ago!! I missed ordering earlier because of stupid xmas and stupid wife and stupid kids and.........

Hey lylo,

Yeah very sorry about that. We should be receiving some shortly, but this shipment from Germany has hit just about every delay possible unfortunately. If you'd like to place an order for one to make sure you'll receive one from this shipment, just give us a call and we'll get one on back order for you. There's a limited number available, so my recommendation is get one ordered ASAP!

If you have any questions please let me know and I'll gladly help you out with those.

Cheers!

Jipper, I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I have a couple questions. You can answer via PM if you'd like, but... Have they released a version for the American market, i.e. temps read in Fahrenheit and voltage 240/v? Also, screens and grain coming through the screens and damaging the propellers on the pump, has this been addressed in the latest versions?

Thanks,
Jim

Hey Jim,

Good questions! The temperatures will still read in Celsius, and they will be wired for 240V. The screens have remained the same on the 20L and 50L models, however have changed on the 200L to be a circular perforation rather than slotted. The pump issue is a strange one that we're still trying to figure out, as not all of our customers have experienced this, yet some have experienced it more than once. I have used the 20L and 50L models a few times and have never burnt out a pump or noticed the grains slipping through, so am wondering what might be causing these issues. What I'll do is schedule time to brew on one of these again, and will really pay attention to my process of setting up, doughing in, recirculating, etc. to see if there are any steps in the process that might be causing this problem. If I find out what may be causing it, I'll make sure to post that up here on HBT and will send you a PM regarding what I did to prevent it from happening (or at least what I think I did). I know that the original shipment that we received had impeller issues, but the recent shipment that we received and shipped out shouldn't be having these problems. The impeller is similar to a March Pump, however doesn't even rest on a post. It is a free spinning impeller, so I don't see how wet grains could be damaging it, but I'll look into it a little further and will report back with any information I can gather!

If anybody has any other questions or concerns regarding these units please let me know...cheers!

Just a guess about this ancient thread. The OP, edubrueurope, was using a refractometer and failing to adjust for the presence of alcohol.