Speidel Braumeister (brewmaster)

[beefeater]

The only thing Braumeister does not do well is washing all that stuff.
I need to buy Dishmeister for that !! Washing is pain !

This is a relatively small dishwasher.
When I remove the top shelf in the dishwasher I get the malt pipe, immersion chiller, screens, filters and everything else I use at brewday except the kettle itself in there in one go.

I'm now looking for fermenting buckets with a dishwasher friendly size and shape..

 

[sj_engr]

If anyone is interested in parting with their Braumeister send me a PM.

 

[BierFest]

If anyone is interested in parting with their Braumeister send me a PM.

I think the number of replies you get to this will be indicative of how well people really love their braumeister!! lol

 

[limulus]

I started looking at this system over a year ago and I don't think there were too many in the US. I'm glad I ran across this thread. It seems that everyone is very happy with the BM My thinking is it makes beer and it is made in Germany...how can it be bad? When you have a beer purity law in your country, you have to know how to make a good product! I'm about to remodel our basement in February by taking out a wall to open up a room for better entertaining. My wife actually wants a bar now which we never wanted before. This would make adding a brewery into the mix a real easy thing to do. I think I'm sold on this.

 

[luisfrancisco]

Wow, just went over the 100 pages of this thread in a couple of days. I guess I am getting near to pulling the trigger on a 20l. I basically only do 5 gallon batches. The only thing holding me back, other than the cash outlay, is the fact that I am paying top dollar and am still limited on my ability to brew the occasional RIS, Trippel or Barleywine.
Can anyone one else chime in on their experience brewing any of these styles. Anyone claiming it is their best Barleywine yet?
Someone mentioned earlier about doing a double mash. What were your results?

 

[DeGarre]

... The only thing holding me back, other than the cash outlay, is the fact that I am paying top dollar and am still limited on my ability to brew the occasional RIS, Trippel or Barleywine.
Can anyone one else chime in on their experience brewing any of these styles. Anyone claiming it is their best Barleywine yet?
Someone mentioned earlier about doing a double mash. What were your results?

Would be great to get some feedback/recap on this - I know someone in Finland who is reading this thread and being held back by this high gravity issue.

 

[clasley]

I did a reiterated mash this past weekend on my SBM20L. The total grain bill was around 16 lbs split into two 8 lb mashes. I manually controlled the SBM and did a single infusion for both mashes. At the end of the first mash I emptied the malt tube, rinsed it off and started the second mash using the runoff from the first. I had more issues with the second mash with some grain getting into the pump and a geyser but worked it out. It didn't add much time to my day and was quite a bit easier than I expected.

On the copper hood - I've used it the past few sessions and have to say I like it. I get a much better boil and a consistent 10%/hour boil-off using it. My only remaining concern is DMS. Oh and fermcap-s and hop bags are pretty much a necessity to prevent foaming and boil overs.

-Chris

 

[rico567]

I did a reiterated mash this past weekend on my SBM20L. The total grain bill was around 16 lbs split into two 8 lb mashes. I manually controlled the SBM and did a single infusion for both mashes. At the end of the first mash I emptied the malt tube, rinsed it off and started the second mash using the runoff from the first. I had more issues with the second mash with some grain getting into the pump and a geyser but worked it out. It didn't add much time to my day and was quite a bit easier than I expected.

On the copper hood - I've used it the past few sessions and have to say I like it. I get a much better boil and a consistent 10%/hour boil-off using it. My only remaining concern is DMS. Oh and fermcap-s and hop bags are pretty much a necessity to prevent foaming and boil overs.

-Chris

Interesting. This is a good way to go. Also, when I reflect on getting a Braumeister (which I appear to do more and more these days), I think about how many times I actually brew a beer over 1.060, and I reflect that there are ways to do that occasionally, just using my existing equipment. Or, perhaps, use the Braumeister to do sequential mashes, then taking a "first runnings" from each batch and making that into the big beer, and use the rest of the runnings to make a smaller beer. Or, as some have suggested, just subtract enough 2-row from your big beer recipe, mash that, and then do a late addition of light DME. There are many ways around this issue.......

 

[luisfrancisco]

I did a reiterated mash this past weekend on my SBM20L. The total grain bill was around 16 lbs split into two 8 lb mashes. I manually controlled the SBM and did a single infusion for both mashes. At the end of the first mash I emptied the malt tube, rinsed it off and started the second mash using the runoff from the first. I had more issues with the second mash with some grain getting into the pump and a geyser but worked it out. It didn't add much time to my day and was quite a bit easier than I expected.

On the copper hood - I've used it the past few sessions and have to say I like it. I get a much better boil and a consistent 10%/hour boil-off using it. My only remaining concern is DMS. Oh and fermcap-s and hop bags are pretty much a necessity to prevent foaming and boil overs.

-Chris

Chris:

That is very interesting. Could you tell us what style of beer your were brewing on your reiterated-mash, and if your efficiency went down compared to a single mash?

Somehow I don't like the idea of adding DME to complete the bill. Maybe I could be comfortable not adding the crystals to the mash, and then just steeping. But if this reiterated mash technique works well, then I may have to save up a bit and buy one of these already.

 

[clasley]

It was a batch of Mike "Tasty" McDole's infamous Janet's Brown Ale.

I introduced two variables into the mix on this batch so it's hard to draw conclusions on efficiency. In addition to the reiterated mash I choose not to sparge. I started with 25.6 liters of water and had 20 liters left after mashing at 1.069. It came out to around 62% efficiency. I added water to get my final volume. I usually get around 70% with a sparge rate of 1 liter to 1 kilo grain.

I wouldn't worry too much about adding DME to hit your targets. So long as the percentage is in check I doubt you would be able to perceive a difference. From what I can tell it's actually a pretty common practice to ensure consistency.

-Chris

 

[clasley]

Just checked my notes. The gravity at the end of the first mash was 8.6 brix. The gravity after the second mash was 17.4 brix. Again I split the 16 lb grain bill into two 8 lb mashes and didn't sparge so looking at the numbers I would say both mashes contributed roughly equally.

-Chris

 

[bullsneck]

Has anyone here measured their Braumeisters with a ruler with water in it? So they can ascertain how much water they have by simply chucking a stainless steel ruler in and taking a reading. My old kettle used to be 1.13cm to the litre but I have no idea what a Braumeister 20L is per litre.

 

[Yambor44]

Just checked my notes. The gravity at the end of the first mash was 8.6 brix. The gravity after the second mash was 17.4 brix. Again I split the 16 lb grain bill into two 8 lb mashes and didn't sparge so looking at the numbers I would say both mashes contributed roughly equally.

-Chris

Good to know Chris since I may end up with a 20 before long.

 

[beefeater]

Has anyone here measured their Braumeisters with a ruler with water in it? So they can ascertain how much water they have by simply chucking a stainless steel ruler in and taking a reading. My old kettle used to be 1.13cm to the litre but I have no idea what a Braumeister 20L is per litre.

Close enough to 1 liter pr cm. I just use a metering stick when measuring the contents of it. Dumped exactly 10 liters in there and measured once. Don't remember exactly what the reading was but I figured it was close enough. As long as I allways use the stick it'll be consistent anyways.

 

[bach]

I am thinking about brewing lager with no sparge technique.
So, I probably can't do a true no sparge mash on BM ?
Because of recirculation ?
Or does it matter? Would it still leach tannins, etc
I have never done no sparge mash - lot of brewers recommend it
to obtain the true malty flavor.

Have you guys done experiments with no sparge on BM ?
And if I try that I need to use more water.
For my last version of Czech lager I use 4.3kg of malt.
If the grain absorbs roughly 4l of water, I would need to use
about 29l of water to end up with preboil 25l and post boil 22l.
Is it too much water? Is it over the top of malt pipe ? The malt pipe is 36cm tall..

Bach

 

[bullsneck]

Close enough to 1 liter pr cm. I just use a metering stick when measuring the contents of it. Dumped exactly 10 liters in there and measured once. Don't remember exactly what the reading was but I figured it was close enough. As long as I allways use the stick it'll be consistent anyways.

Yeah, did a quick check and got 1.1cm per litre.

 

[DeGarre]

Finally putting up some BM brewing vids in youtube, linking them to my boring recipe log blog -

http://tavastlandbrewing.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/fumbling-my-way-through-a-brewday/

Boring stuff, nothing like Rob's. If nothing else, at least you'll see what the footprint is

 

[Yambor44]

Awesome videos! Thanks fr taking the time to put these up. I noticed your hops in the bag looked a little full or tight. I have noticed when I bag mine up too tight when they swell the wort doesn't move as freely around them all and my utilization is lower.

Great job on the gravity. I thought I heard you mention you were chilling to 21c. If so, by the time you took your sample of wort for the reading, it could have been 70-71 degrees which would have given you one more point to 1.055.

And last but not least....I gotta get me one of those oven mits in the second video!

Thanks again!!

Rob

 

[limulus]

Very nice videos. Do you guys know if they have made any improvements to their packaging? I know that all the damaged parts were replaced, but I hate to drop $2k on something only to have it damaged when I receive it. It would not be so bad if you did not have to wait a month to receive it and then a couple of additional weeks for replacement parts.

I will be removing a wall in my basement in February and adding a bar. This is still the system I want.

 

[Yambor44]

I did a reiterated mash this past weekend on my SBM20L. The total grain bill was around 16 lbs split into two 8 lb mashes. I manually controlled the SBM and did a single infusion for both mashes. At the end of the first mash I emptied the malt tube, rinsed it off and started the second mash using the runoff from the first. I had more issues with the second mash with some grain getting into the pump and a geyser but worked it out. It didn't add much time to my day and was quite a bit easier than I expected.

On the copper hood - I've used it the past few sessions and have to say I like it. I get a much better boil and a consistent 10%/hour boil-off using it. My only remaining concern is DMS. Oh and fermcap-s and hop bags are pretty much a necessity to prevent foaming and boil overs.

-Chris

Chris,

When you manually control the BM, does the unit do an automatic pump rest or did you do that manually as well? If so what was your time frame to rest and for how long?

Thanks,

Rob

 

[clasley]

When you manually control the BM, does the unit do an automatic pump rest or did you do that manually as well? If so what was your time frame to rest and for how long?

I didn't notice any pump rests in manual mode. It was running the entire mash except for the switch from the first to second grain bill.

-Chris

 

[Yambor44]

I didn't notice any pump rests in manual mode. It was running the entire mash except for the switch from the first to second grain bill.

-Chris

Thanks Chris.

 

[atax1c]

Very nice videos. Do you guys know if they have made any improvements to their packaging? I know that all the damaged parts were replaced, but I hate to drop $2k on something only to have it damaged when I receive it. It would not be so bad if you did not have to wait a month to receive it and then a couple of additional weeks for replacement parts.

I will be removing a wall in my basement in February and adding a bar. This is still the system I want.

This is exactly what I was wondering as well..

 

[rowanb]

This is exactly what I was wondering as well..

I live in Australia & recently had a 20 litre sent FedEx from Germany via craftbrewer.com.au. Everything internal was tied and taped, so nothing could rattle & cause scratches/dings. The packaging seemed fine and it arrived in perfect condition. The only problem I had was getting the driver to allow me to remove it from the box and check it over before signing off - no way was I going to take it sight unseen. I've used it a few times now and it runs well. I've been brewing all-grain with insulated mashtuns & an electric boiler for 10 years. If this had been available when I started, and if I'd had the money, I would have bought it.

 

[limulus]

I live in Australia & recently had a 20 litre sent FedEx from Germany via craftbrewer.com.au. Everything internal was tied and taped, so nothing could rattle & cause scratches/dings. The packaging seemed fine and it arrived in perfect condition. The only problem I had was getting the driver to allow me to remove it from the box and check it over before signing off - no way was I going to take it sight unseen. I've used it a few times now and it runs well. I've been brewing all-grain with insulated mashtuns & an electric boiler for 10 years. If this had been available when I started, and if I'd had the money, I would have bought it.

Thanks for the report.

 

[Yambor44]

Good to hear rowanb. Thanks for the information.

 

[traveler2]

Hey guys, I've been reading this thread for most of a week now and deciced to order my 50L this morning. I've been brewing all-grain for more than a few years now and in the back of mind always thought there had to be a way to do it in one vessel - low and behold the good people at Speidel engineered it and you all have validated their design! Thanks so much for all that you have documented in this thread. I only hope I can give some back in the weeks to come...

 

[stevedasleeve]

Hey guys, I've been reading this thread for most of a week now and deciced to order my 50L this morning. I've been brewing all-grain for more than a few years now and in the back of mind always thought there had to be a way to do it in one vessel - low and behold the good people at Speidel engineered it and you all have validated their design! Thanks so much for all that you have documented in this thread. I only hope I can give some back in the weeks to come...

Yes my sentiments exactly (and experience!) I am ordering soon I think. Though... hmmm... so expensive... OK maybe...



!!!

 

[DeGarre]

Thanks guys - good to see you liked my videos. I think there is some educational value too, for example, I have the smaller unit and one can see that the suction is quite strong in that too, let alone in the 50L unit. Also, having lifted the malt pipe I was a bit stuck standing on a chair and trying to figure out out a nice way of getting off without breaking my back and neck. It's a long step down with a heavy malt pipe...

But more importantly, brew day tomorrow! Single hop Simcoe Pale Ale, first time I'll be using a bit of wheat.

 

[traveler2]

Ok guys, while I'm waiting for delivery and knowing the critical path to brew day upon delivery is the euro to US electrical connection, the engineer in me says we must be able to find sourcing for this simple 250V/30A/50Hz extension cord to 220V/30A/60Hz 4-prong dryer plug. Sure, DIY is acceptable, but most prefer not to get zapped and are willing to pay a little $$ to have someone manufacture the cord for them. I'm scouring the internet and local sources, and believe if I can't find it pre-assembled and off the shelf, then it's probably a $$ making opportunity. Anyone feel the same?