Speidel Braumeister (brewmaster)

Anyone come up with a Beersmith profile for the 50l?

My replacement 20L has arrived in OKC late this morning and is scheduled for delivery tomorrow. In commemoration of this event, I promptly set off a yeast starter volcano on my stove this morning while trying to do a 2L starter in a 5L erlenmeyer! Went off instantly when adding yeast nutrient - even with fermcap! I'm done with trying a new thing - first and last time doing it direct in the flask for me. Off to clean up a HUGE mess!

See Mako, even your yeast starter is excited!

Anyone have a Profile for a 20l, I'm trying to adapt my brewing software to it?

I will absolutely document the reassembly of my 20l and post it for everyone. I'm going to get some brewing in before I do a tear down however.

rlhvegas said:

See Mako, even your yeast starter is excited!

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Yeah, it and I are very excited. SWMBO...not so much. Holy cow what a mess! I've got most of it cleaned up but what baked onto our cooktop is going to need some elbow grease this evening...

I'm interested in the profile info as well for the 20L. I came up about 1/2 gallon shy in the fermentor when adding 6 gallons at the beginning and sparging with a gallon on the Mcgyver Wheat with a 90min boil. That isnt anything to go off of however given the pump/process issues had the heat all out of whack through the mash. Need to set something up on Beersmith as well...

wreals said:

Anyone come up with a Beersmith profile for the 50l?

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Here's mine so far ...I'm sure there's plenty of tweakin' yet to be done.

BM50L

Batch Size: 50.00 l
Mash Volume: 60.00 l
Boil Volume: 54.00 l
Mash Tun Weight: 24.00 kg
Evaporation Rate: 6.5 %
Mash Tun Specific Heat: 0.20 cal/g-deg C
Boil Time: 90
Mash Tun Deadspace: 0.50 l
Top-up for Boiler: 0.00 l
Equip Hop Utilization: 100.00 %
Losses to Trub/Chiller: 3.00 l
Cooling Loss (%): 4.00
Top up water for Fermenter: 0.00 l
Notes: This includes a 1L/Kg sparge of 80c water at "mash out"

We need to talk someone into doing this for Beer Tools Pro. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

This my preliminary for BeerSmith2: BM 20L
Brewhouse Efficiency: 83%
Hop Utilization: 100%
Mash tun volume: 4.68 gals (this was calculated from the malt tube dimension)
Mash tun weight: 4lbs.(estimated just the actual pots weight not total machine)
Mash tun specific heat: .12
Top off water: 0
Boil volume: 7 gals
Boil time: 90 min
Boil off: .75 gal
Total boil off: 1.13 gals
Evap Rate: 10.7%/hr.
Post boil volume: 5.88 gals
Cooling shrinkage: 4%
Cooling loss: .24 gals
Loss to trub: .15 gals
Top up water: 0
Batch volume: 5.5 gals
Fermenter loss: 0
This is a work in process but seems to be a good starting point. It's more important in the recipe section use "temperature mash" profile, and be sure to change the first step value to 23 liters and whatever your mash or protein rest temperature will be. Lately I've been using a heat stick in the boil so I've been readjusting my boil off numbers. Also I estimate the pot volume to be 43 liters (11.35 gals)

Lauter tun deadspace: .33 gals (I started at .25 gals and also used .5 gals., this will directly affect what the program says how much fly sparge liquid to use.

Thorston's unit arrived today with a few minor dings and a bent lid. I swapped pumps on his unit with mine, that was in otherwise great condition and it now works perfectly. Did a test mash this afternoon all the way into boil and the pump worked flawlessly. Must have been a bad pump - but thankfully I now have a working unit. Thanks again to Thorston for assisting with this problem which allows me to brew tomorrow! He is arranging pickup of the return at my house on Monday and has made this as pain free as the situation can allow. Citra Pale Ale on deck!!!

That's great to hear!

I wonder what the deal is with these bent lids? May be the way they pack them with those straps. My straps were still in tact but my lid was bent also. I had it replaced instead of trying to work it out. I know you just needed the pump so the lid isn't a problem. Just think that whether you get a 20 or 50 you have spent a lot of your hard earned cash. Get it right. There should be no problem ( as Thorsten showed here as well as with mine) in getting replacement units/parts while you use yours. Then it can be shipped back once you get the replacement via their shipping label

Can't wait to hear how your brew goes.

Todays the day! Maiden voyage of my BM 20l!!! I'm brewing an English bitter, simple beer to learn the process. I will post my results later today.

Yambor44 said:

That's great to hear!

I wonder what the deal is with these bent lids? May be the way they pack them with those straps. My straps were still in tact but my lid was bent also. I had it replaced instead of trying to work it out. I know you just needed the pump so the lid isn't a problem. Just think that whether you get a 20 or 50 you have spent a lot of your hard earned cash. Get it right. There should be no problem ( as Thorsten showed here as well as with mine) in getting replacement units/parts while you use yours. Then it can be shipped back once you get the replacement via their shipping label

Can't wait to hear how your brew goes.

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That's ironic, my lid arrived perfect... I just had a pushed in spigot valve!

I'm in Phase 2 of the mash on the recipe below. Amazingly simple day thus far - will post final brew day thoughts later today. Camera is on hiatus, but will document another full day down the road.

Citra Pale Ale

7 Ibs. Rahr 2-Row
4 lbs Vienna
12 oz. Crystal(20L)
8 oz. Carapils
HOPS
.5 oz. Magnum(60 min.) - 13.5AA
1 oz. Citra (15 min.) - 13.4AA
1 oz. Citra (5 min.) - 13.4AA
1 oz. Citra (Dry hopped) - 13.4AA
48 IBU
WATER TREATMENT
Whirlfloc (Last 15min. of boil)



6 gallon mash
50C / 122F mash in
55C / 131F 15 min
63C / 145.4F 30 min
68C / 154.4F 30 min
76 C / 168.8F 15 min mash out

Sparge 1.5gallon - 175F

WLP001 67f

Looks like a nice beer. Congrats on finally getting to brew!!

hows everyone sparging with this unit?

forcabrew said:

hows everyone sparging with this unit?

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Lift the malt pipe after mashing.
Pour one to two gallons of 178 degree plus water thru the grain.

ok so no fancy fly spraging techniques or anything. thats what i like to hear

So here is my recipe for my first BM brew.

English Bitter

7 lbs Pale Malt
.5 lbs Crystal 60
.25 lbs Flaked Oats
.5 lbs Victory

.50 ozs. EKG @ 60
.50 ozs. Fuggles @ 15
.50 ozs. EKG @ 10
.50 ozs. Fuggles @ 1

OG: 1.045
IBU's: 16.83

This is the first time I'm using my brewing software with the BM, hopefully I have entered the profile numbers correctly. My software tells me to mash with 23 liters water. Sparge with 8.85 liters of water. This will give me a boil size of 26.54 liters in kettle, ending up with 20.82 liters in the fermenter. Taking into account a 90 min boil and trub loss. Does this seem correct?

rlhvegas said:

So here is my recipe for my first BM brew.

English Bitter

7 lbs Pale Malt
.5 lbs Crystal 60
.25 lbs Flaked Oats
.5 lbs Victory

.50 ozs. EKG @ 60
.50 ozs. Fuggles @ 15
.50 ozs. EKG @ 10
.50 ozs. Fuggles @ 1

OG: 1.045
IBU's: 16.83

This is the first time I'm using my brewing software with the BM, hopefully I have entered the profile numbers correctly. My software tells me to mash with 23 liters water. Sparge with 8.85 liters of water. This will give me a boil size of 26.54 liters in kettle, ending up with 20.82 liters in the fermenter. Taking into account a 90 min boil and trub loss. Does this seem correct?

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That seems like a little too much water to me, but don't have my conversion chart handy. Today I mashed with 6 gallons and sparged with 1.5 gallons and got right around 5.25 gallons in the fermentor after a 90 min boil. You're about a gallon more than me if my math is right. Are you using a dip tube or tipping your unit to get past the standard spigot level?

makomachine said:

That seems like a little too much water to me, but don't have my conversion chart handy. Today I mashed with 6 gallons and sparged with 1.5 gallons and got right around 5.25 gallons in the fermentor after a 90 min boil. You're about a gallon more than me if my math is right. Are you using a dip tube or tipping your unit to get past the standard spigot level?

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Thanks mako, I'll adjust my sparge to 1.5g in my software. I will tip the unit until I fashion a dip tube. What method of draining are you using?

Well my brew day was a success. I'm now officially pleased with my purchase! It's probably early for that, given I'm a bit away from sampling the actual first product, but the simplicity and stress free process really made this a great brew day. Followed the recipe as previously outlined and ended up as follows.

Pre boil Gravity - 12.8 Plato, 1052. *(76% efficiency)
OG - 15 Plato, 1061 SG

I'm pretty pleased with the efficiency numbers as my LHBS grain mill was set way too wide and upon looking at the crush, was a bit worried I'd be low today. (Didn't mill myself as it was a call in order they already had bagged for me) I think with a better crush I can easily depend and plan around the ~80% range that others are reporting.

Pitched my decanted 2L starter with some topped off wort at 70F and hit it with 50 seconds of pure O2 from my new oxygenation setup from Williams Brewing. The yeastie beasties were already chomping away at the starter actively and expecting minimal lag time on fermentation on this one. I'll let everyone know how this one turns out.

Things I still need to work out:

1). Pick up /Dip tube - could not get it to fit in my kettle with the elbow and reducer without pushing against the malt pipe. I removed it for this brew as I wanted the malt pipe centered to minimize grain from escaping around the off center screens. Not sure why I'm having this issue and may need to rethink the assembly. Anyone have an issue on their 20L with this occurring? I'd take a picture but my camera is MIA at the moment.

2) Chilling is SLOW - I had a terrible time chilling today with my old 50 ft immersion chiller hooked up to a 25 ft Pre chiller in a bucket of ice from my laundry room faucet. Ground water is warmer but I think a lot if this is from how well the BM is insulated with the jacket still on. Ran the pumps and it dropped quickly to around 85 degrees and then started crawling. Finally gave up at 80F - racked to my carboy and let the chest freezer take it down to 70F prior to pitching. I'm going to remove the jacket next time and see if that helps as a starting point. Didn't think to time it as it started dropping quickly, but it was longer than my outdoor setup by a good margin. Anyone have any tips in this area? Got me to thinking about a plate chiller but I'm a freak for sanitation and those things worry me.

Outside of these two items, everything went extremely well- all from the comfort of my air conditioned home! I'm going to need another chest freezer...

rlhvegas said:

Thanks mako, I'll adjust my sparge to 1.5g in my software. I will tip the unit until I fashion a dip tube. What method of draining are you using?

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I picked up a bit of trub today and given that and another look at my fermenter, I'd go 1.75g as a starting point. (went and looked after I posted earlier) I auto syphoned today as I'm having dip tube issues - so still figuring that out myself.

You brewing tomorrow and is that going in your cask setup? Sounds tasty!

makomachine said:

I picked up a bit of trub today and given that and another look at my fermenter, I'd go 1.75g as a starting point. (went and looked after I posted earlier) I auto syphoned today as I'm having dip tube issues - so still figuring that out myself.

You brewing tomorrow and is that going in your cask setup? Sounds tasty!

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Cool Mako I'll try 1.75g on sparge. Yes I'm killing two birds with one stone, brewing on the new system and supplying the beer engine!

rlhvegas said:

Cool Mako I'll try 1.75g on sparge. Yes I'm killing two birds with one stone, brewing on the new system and supplying the beer engine!

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Let us know how it's going today.

Woke up this morning to the beginnings of a wicked fermentation in my chest freezer. I'm going to need a blow off tube for this one - even though I used fermcap! Usually fermcap eliminates this problem for me and wondering if it's the trub I picked up or the O2 I used for the first time. Need to figure out a blow off solution that still allows me to use my thermowell.

Mako did you check the temperature while chilling with anything other than the built-in probe? I've found it to be way off while chilling (10-15C or more).

I remember reading about this somewhere but can't recall which thread. From what I can tell as the wort chills hop debris and break material settle in around the probe and insulate it throwing off the reading. I'm going to solve the problem by drilling a small ~1/8" hole in the lid and use a long stem digital.

Yambor we may be wrong about these stainless chillers.

-Chris

I hope so Chris!! But I think I checked mine with a separate thermometer. I'll check it for sure with something else next time. All I know is the copper chiller took it right down to chilling temps in a way more reasonable time. I'm on the road right now so can't check my notes.

clasley said:

Mako did you check the temperature while chilling with anything other than the built-in probe? I've found it to be way off while chilling (10-15C or more).

I remember reading about this somewhere but can't recall which thread. From what I can tell as the wort chills hop debris and break material settle in around the probe and insulate it throwing off the reading. I'm going to solve the problem by drilling a small ~1/8" hole in the lid and use a long stem digital.

Yambor we may be wrong about these stainless chillers.

-Chris

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I actually checked via a separate digital thermometer myself and it was reading accurately. I had the pump running part of the time and probably kept things from settling on the probe - although that and impatience were probably why I picked up some trub as well.

Hey Mako, what percent are your citra and magnum hops?

Yambor44 said:

Hey Mako, what percent are your citra and magnum hops?

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Forgot to post that in the original recipe and will update it.

Magnum - 13.5AA
Citra - 13.4AA
48 IBU's by recipe

makomachine said:

Forgot to post that in the original recipe and will update it.

Magnum - 13.5AA
Citra - 13.4AA
48 IBU's by recipe

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Thanks! Was putting this together and came up with IPA IBU's.

Yambor44 said:

Thanks! Was putting this together and came up with IPA IBU's.

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It's technically 3 IBU's beyond the upper limits of the APA style, but I'm a fan of the hop and I'm not a stickler for guidelines! I also tend to always end up a bit short on my utilization and have always seemed to need to bump up my IBU's ~10% or so. I use bottled spring water and it's the next step in my process to nail down as I haven't done any water profiling or adjustments to date. Guessing that has something to do with it as I don't use any hop sacks in my process.

makomachine said:

It's technically 3 IBU's beyond the upper limits of the APA style, but I'm a fan of the hop and I'm not a stickler for guidelines! I also tend to always end up a bit short on my utilization and have always seemed to need to bump up my IBU's ~10% or so. I use bottled spring water and it's the next step in my process to nail down as I haven't done any water profiling or adjustments to date. Guessing that has something to do with it as I don't use any hop sacks in my process.

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Very, very good points.

rlhvegas - How did your brew day go today? I'm sipping on my Oktoberfest and thinking about real ale, and where I could fit a beer engine into my home pub plans - thanks to you!

makomachine said:

rlhvegas - How did your brew day go today? I'm sipping on my Oktoberfest and thinking about real ale, and where I could fit a beer engine into my home pub plans - thanks to you!

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Hey Mako, I'm in the midst of brewing a second 5g batch right now, everything's going great! I'm actually brewing two 5g batches of Oktoberfest... I'll explain later! I'll post my results soon.

I'm glad I've influenced another person towards a beer engine, it's the way beer should be served. If you want I can forward you info and contact for the beer engine.

rlhvegas said:

If you want I can forward you info and contact for the beer engine.

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Definitely forward it to me when you get a chance. No rush as I have to wait until we build our next home before I go there, but will be great to have it for some pre-planning. Let us know your thoughts when you wrap up today!

makomachine said:

Definitely forward it to me when you get a chance. No rush as I have to wait until we build our next home before I go there, but will be great to have it for some pre-planning. Let us know your thoughts when you wrap up today!

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I want to start by saying thank you to all you BM users for putting together this wonderful informative thread! My brew day was a complete success! My plan today was to brew a test English Bitter but I switched gears and brewed a double batch of Oktoberfest. Because of the procedures I learned here, my efficiency was 82% and the brew day was very enjoyable. This system is awesome. I'm very happy with my purchase.

Mako I bought my beer engine from ukbrewing.com, it's the CO model. The person you want to deal with is Paul Pendyke.

I can't wait to brew again. My next two beers will be the English Bitter and a Peppermint Stout.

What mash schedule did you use for your Oktoberfest? Will be doing another this fall and will be the first on the BM. How did your boil volume turn out?

Just recapping my experiences.

On sparging. I seem to hit my BeerSmith-calculated OG when I fill up with 23-24 litres of water and after mashing I pour 4 litres of water on top of the filter while BM is bringing the temp up for the boil at which point I have 23-24 litres of wort, and 20 after the boil. If I sparge with 5 litres I will undershoot OG.

On chilling. I use Speidel chiller and it takes 20-25 minutes to get 20C ie pitching temp. Granted, water is from my own well and quite cold. Takes about 4 bucketfulls of water to get the job done. Very pleased. Also, the chiller is very easy to clean up, I just hose it down, nothing seems to stick to it.

Planning my #6 brew...porter/stout of some kind, chocolate and black malt, fuggles, etc...yummy...