Speidel Braumeister (brewmaster)

[Batfink]

I will continue to push the grain bill as i get used to the system and post on results

I wonder if i welded an extension onto the malt pipe and the top of the system if i could just add more grain that way by making it taller.

Hah, and I'v already been planning on taking the large maltpipe to a sheet metal shop and getting it cut down to about 30 - 35 litres. Well I guess I could cut it myself but don't have the tools to make that lap at the top.

What's with them damn Germans, you always have to redesign all their designs!?

 

[Obliviousbrew]

I think that making the malt pipe taller will only help to make different size batches. You'll need more water and end up with 30 something liters of wort... I just settle for the way the system its build and try to work on the proccess

 

[Batfink]

With a 30 litre malt pipe you could off course brew larger batches, but it would also allow more room for evaporation when doing longer boils, if you want to end up with more than 5 gallons in the fermentor.

 

[Obliviousbrew]

With a 30 litre malt pipe you could off course brew larger batches, but it would also allow more room for evaporation when doing longer boils, if you want to end up with more than 5 gallons in the fermentor.

True. But a 5 gallon batch of a big beer is enough for me! Just a excuse to run out of beer more quickly and brew some more!!!!

 

[Alchemy]

True. But a 5 gallon batch of a big beer is enough for me! Just a excuse to run out of beer more quickly and brew some more!!!!

So long as i brew once a week with the 20l i am good!

for now....im sure once my beer gets better i am going to have a hard time keeping it on tap, my friends are thirsty

 

[rawlus]

Are people purchasing from morebeer.com or morebeer4u.com?
A post a bit up mentioned a higher capacity/more powerful pump... Is this a design change to shipping units or a one-time replacement for a faulty pump? And is it for the 20l or 50l size?
Still thinking about a 20L for condo brewing, would prob go with an intl voltage converter like Kai did.

 

[Alchemy]

Are people purchasing from morebeer.com or morebeer4u.com?
A post a bit up mentioned a higher capacity/more powerful pump... Is this a design change to shipping units or a one-time replacement for a faulty pump? And is it for the 20l or 50l size?
Still thinking about a 20L for condo brewing, would prob go with an intl voltage converter like Kai did.

the replacement pump was for my 20l

i had purchased from morebeer.com and they have been great. When i asked them why the different pump for replacement they said it was the "new pump" so it might come with the new units. Not sure how many morebeer has in stock with the old pump

either way the old pump works fine for a lot of people, also the step up step down converter works great for me. Make sure you have a 20 amp circuit for it, the braumeister only uses 10 but the voltage converter will draw more as it needs to step up to 230 volt.

15 amp might work but it also might trip it.

 

[SFBrewer]

...they said it was the "new pump" so it might come with the new units.

any chance to get a pic of the replacement pump? i'd like to see if it's the same as the pumps on my month old BM50.

thanks in advance!

Are people purchasing from morebeer.com or morebeer4u.com?

I went with morebeer4u for sales tax reasons, very happy with Thorstens service overall.

 

[Alchemy]

any chance to get a pic of the replacement pump? i'd like to see if it's the same as the pumps on my month old BM50.

thanks in advance!



I went with morebeer4u for sales tax reasons, very happy with Thorstens service overall.

Posted a thread on the replacement here:


https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f170/braumeister-pump-replacement-more-power-317778/#post3976846

 

[dinnerstick]

for what it's worth i bought mine within the past month and it has the same pump as the replacement from alchemy's thread above, the light blue BW152 whatever.

 

[Yambor44]

My old 50L had the blue replacement pumps on it as well.

 

[becks41]

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 everyone on this thread as there is some excellent information on here, and a big thanks to Yambor, it was his video's that convinced me that this is an awesome system.

My first beer will be an IPA - I'll be double mashing so I can reach a higher gravity (I'll be using 11kg of grain and I don't want a stuck mash). I'll let you know how it goes!

 

[Yambor44]

Thanks beck! Make sure to let us know how it went! Pics and vids are a plus.

 

[SFBrewer]

Posted a thread on the replacement here:


https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f170/braumeister-pump-replacement-more-power-317778/#post3976846

Thanks! I remember seeing that now! Did you notice a difference in wort flow with the newer pump?

for what it's worth i bought mine within the past month and it has the same pump as the replacement from alchemy's thread above, the light blue BW152 whatever.

My old 50L had the blue replacement pumps on it as well.

interesting, both of the BM50Ls I have had in my possession since the beginning of the year have had the "old" black pumps...perhaps a question of availability? Also, when i disassembled all of my pumps (I've had 4 so far) they've all had that one impeller blade with bare brass on the end as noted in Alchemy's pump thread.

 

[Batfink]

Hey howdy hey my brewing brothers and sisters, as Jamil would say. Just brewed myself an Imperial Stout yesterday, my forth brew on the Meister. I stuffed the smaller maltpipe with 6,6kg of grain, and had to put in the upper screen upside down with the centre hub facing downwards to create a little bit more space. Then thread a nut over the centre rod so that the crossbar still held everything in place without any grains escaping.

My target OG was 1.095 at 80% efficiency, which I admit was kind of over-the-top with this amount of grain. Ended up with 69% while the OG was 1.082, that's with a 120min boil. I was dumb enough to boil with the lid partly on during the first hour which obviously cost me a couple of points. Did stop the program and stirred the mash five times. My mash in volume was 27 litres and I sparged with 3, and got 17 litres of wort into the fermentor. Pitched on to a WLP001 yeast cake from a previous batch of a smaller porter and it took off almost immediately. Mashed at 147° F and I really hope for an 80% attenuation to get it up to about 9% alcohol. I mashed the previous porter at 154° F and it ended up way too sweet with the final gravity being 1.020.

Made a cardinal mistake yesterday when setting up the mash schedule. I some how got the maltose rest to zero minutes and the mash out (172 F) to 60 minutes and of course noticed my mistake when the temperature had already reached 172. The wort ended up in the toilet and I had to start all over again.

 

[Obliviousbrew]

I think 69% efficency with this system and a grain bill big as yours its actually great. I agree that covering the unit while boiling got you a few points down con OG. Im thinking about 5. Mashing without the lid on can be an option to get less wort at a higher OG some evaporation will occur while mashing. Congratulations for your results and keep us informed about how the beers turn out!

 

[Alchemy]

Thanks! I remember seeing that now! Did you notice a difference in wort flow with the newer pump?






interesting, both of the BM50Ls I have had in my possession since the beginning of the year have had the "old" black pumps...perhaps a question of availability? Also, when i disassembled all of my pumps (I've had 4 so far) they've all had that one impeller blade with bare brass on the end as noted in Alchemy's pump thread.

I noticed it was a lot quieter but it is hard to tell if there was more flow. I will try some higher gravity brews soon and note here and in the other thread on how it performs

 

[dinnerstick]

my first speidel brew is now on tap! nicely spied witbier. very satisfying

 

[Obliviousbrew]

my first speidel brew is now on tap! nicely spied witbier. very satisfying

Congrats sure looks nice and I bet it tastes even better. I bottle condition (no kegs yet) and my first brews still need a couple o days more. Anyway I already try them: here is mi Aitana double IPA

 

[Alchemy]

My first pull from my first beer brewed on the braumeister, "Pedal Time" a alpine spring clone

 

[Obliviousbrew]

My first pull from my first beer brewed on the braumeister, "Pedal Time" a alpine spring clone

Nice!

 

[Village_idiot]

Hello everybody,
I'm new to this board and I just wanted to share a few of my experiences with you all. I've had my 20l BM for a about 5 months now with about 25 or so batches under my belt, and I'm very pleased with my purchase. I've forgotten just about everything there is to forget on this thing, I forgot the rubber gasket once which caused the pump to struggle, beer was aborted, I forgot the bottom filter once, the pump became clogged, beer was aborted, and I didn't press the quit button after mash was through once, the pump was still running so a lot of grain ended up in the wort, this was salvageable and the beer turned out great... (I should probably just stick to beer on brew day). I've had one fountain experience which I blame on Northern Brewer, I let them crush my grain and it was absolutely pulverized. As for reliability, I had to replace the stock valve with some brass fittings from Lowe's because the Teflon grommet twisted around to where it was almost completely sealed off, I took it apart and reseated it once but it failed the next brew. I'm currently having an issue with my temperature probe, it's reading anywhere from accurate to about 20 degrees C low. This ruined a batch of beer due to my mash temp being way to high before I noticed it. I emailed Speidel about 2 weeks ago with no response yet. I called morebeer about 1.5 weeks ago and they said they would try to contact speidel, no word back from them yet. So my last batch I did everything manually, which really makes me appreciate how great this setup is when it's working properly. I searched the boards and haven't found anyone that's having the same issue, the morebeer rep has advised me not to try and troubleshoot it myself or it might void the warranty. So anyway, I have plenty of beer to drink for now and I can't wait for summer so I take this puppy outside and get my wife off of my case. Cheers!

 

[Yambor44]

Welcome VI. If I were you I would call my place of purchase everyday until you get an answer. These units are still fairly new and with the gap of the ocean and language barrier for some if not most it could be forgotten. You invested a good chunk of coin in this unit and it should run like so.

Wow! 25 batches in 5 months is impressive!

 

[Village_idiot]

In my current job I do a lot of sitting on my arse, but I have lot's of time off as well. So one of the benefits of brewing more is I burn calories, since I'm always doing something like kegging, bottling, cleaning, testing, I can drink beer but my gut stays neutral. I will use just about anything for a fermentor if I can get it sanitized, my old polarware pots work well, so no problem with multiple batches going at once.

I'll prob give morebeer a call tomorrow, I am starting to get a little peeved.

 

[becks41]

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 one mash with 5.5 kg grain then a second mash of 5,5 kg of grain. I was expecting a bit better efficiency given the second mash and from what I've been reading on the forum. In the end I needed to add a fair amount of DME to get the target OG to where it needed to be.

Any advice here is appreciated.

Cheers

 

[rico567]

Sounds to me like you need to set the crush a bit tighter on your Corona. I had pretty bad efficiency when I started using it, and had to crank it down to the point where I was scared, then I started hitting all my numbers. Of course, I don't use a Braumeister, so YMMV.

 

[becks41]

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 brewing again this Saturday so I'll take some pics of the grind and see what everyone thinks.

Cheers

 

[becks41]

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 really sure if you even can.

If you send me the details about what you've done, who you've contacted, etc I can try to give them a call for you and help move the process along a bit or try to find out why it's taking so long. Just send me a PM and I'll give it a shot, its easy enough to give them a call and ask.

Cheers

 

[Village_idiot]

How do you delete a message?

 

[Getafix]

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 use a Corona Mill from my batch sparge days. I brew mostly beers that are 60-70% malted wheat or have upto 50% raw grains. Tightening down the mill and then some (lots of flour) worked well for batch sparging. For the Braumeister system less flour works better. Grinding less coarsely without too much flour is possible with the Corona mill, it just can't be dialed in like with other mills.
My efficiency is 70-72%, for beers that have high proportions of wheat, and or raw grains with OG's of 1.050-60.

A few of things:
Conditioning (lightly moistening) the grains prior to crushing helps keeps husks and such intact while being more gentle on the grain.

Crush physically different grains separately, and or double crush.
When I double crush the first crush is manually cranked and the second crush is motorized.

While crushing check the results often and tweak the mill gap.

Grind less coarsely with little flour.
-

I have on occasion crushed too fine and got lots of flour, the Braumeister pulled through with some pauses and stirs. Circulation was definetly reduced so naturally the efficiency suffered. I now give alot more attention to crush quality.