Speidel Braumeister (brewmaster)

[Obliviousbrew]

A question to all you who have done double mashes. What efficiency have you gotten out of the total grain bill, and what was your SG after the first mash VS your pre boil gravity? I'm about to brew an Imperial Stout this weekend by doing a triple mash. The first grain bill will hold 13lbs plus all the speciality malts, which adds up to about 14.5lbs. And the last two rounds will be 13lbs base malt only.

Didn´t double mash yet but i will put my specialty malts in the last mash not the first.

 

[Toggels]

I bought the following one at amazon... works great... no issues...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002ITZTNO/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

it is the LiteFuze LT series 5000w....

I live in an apartment and don't have the best access to our 220/240 volt outlet. That's what our oven is plugged into, and I wouldn't want to have to drag that thing out everytime I want to brew. So would this Transformer/Converter work with my regular 110/120 volt outlets?

http://www.estoreoffer.com/3000-watt-voltage-transformer-step-updown-p-851.html

I would be getting the Braumeister 20L. Thanks!

 

[Batfink]

Didn´t double mash yet but i will put my specialty malts in the last mash not the first.

Is there a reason why you would put the speciality malts in the second mash?

 

[Obliviousbrew]

I really depends on what your a brewing being a RIS it can get a little more astringent, other styles color basicly and potencially astringency depending on your grain bill

 

[Batfink]

I really depends on what your a brewing being a RIS it can get a little more astringent, other styles color basicly and potencially astringency depending on your grain bill

Yes that makes sense.

Another question that came to my mind when doing a double mash with the BM, is how it reacts when you mash in the second round. The wort will be in the 60C range, and the preset for mash in is set at 40C?

 

[Obliviousbrew]

You can dough in at 60C with no problem or alternatively top up your wort of the first mash with cold water.

 

[Batfink]

You can dough in at 60C with no problem or alternatively top up your wort of the first mash with cold water.

I had a little brain fart there. At first I was going to program the mash schedule as followed: Dough in at the preset 40C, first phase 64C / 60min, set the rest of the phases to zero, and then 78C mash out. My initial thought was to quit the program before mash out, replace the malt and start the program all over again.

Instead I'll do mash in at 40C, set one phase to 64C / 180min and 15min mash out at 78C. At every 60 min I'll just pause the program at pump break, do a quick sparge, replace the malt and continue.

 

[Obliviousbrew]

That seems like a good game plan! Brew on and let us know how it goes

 

[Batfink]

That seems like a good game plan! Brew on and let us know how it goes

Let's see how my brew day goes and if manage to hit my pre boil gravity 1.117. Cut down the malt bill a bit because my refractometer scale only goes to 1.120 and I would at least like to have an idea of what my SG is before boil. I'm now going to mash 18.3kg grain with the total water amount being 48l for a 23l batch size. It's hard to predict mash efficiency on this kind of a project, but I set it to 55% in BrewMate. I can barely wait to get started tomorrow morning, it's gonna to be a loooong brew day.

 

[dinnerstick]

i don't know if it helps your strategy but lately when i have done brews with a pretty full malt tube i have steeped the specialty grains separately as if doing an extract batch, just to minimize the amount of stuff in the malt tube. if you are worried about your dark grains getting a bit astringent in your quintuple mash you can always steep them in a bag at lower temp on the stovetop. the disadvantage of course is that this uses extra water, diluting the wort a little bit, but only a little bit

 

[Gear101]

Does anyone use Speiel’s Fermenters? It looks like they would work pretty good and really don’t come in at a price that is too far out of line.

 

[Obliviousbrew]

I have a 60L and a 30L they are great.

 

[Batfink]

Let's see how my brew day goes and if manage to hit my pre boil gravity 1.117. Cut down the malt bill a bit because my refractometer scale only goes to 1.120 and I would at least like to have an idea of what my SG is before boil. I'm now going to mash 18.3kg grain with the total water amount being 48l for a 23l batch size. It's hard to predict mash efficiency on this kind of a project, but I set it to 55% in BrewMate. I can barely wait to get started tomorrow morning, it's gonna to be a loooong brew day.

Yesterday was the longest brew day so far (11h). Did three mashes 6,1kg each, the first with 26l water and ended up at 1.052 which dropped down to 1.047 after I sparged with 5 litres.

The sack of base malt I got had a way too fine crush, and it caused me alot of headache in the last two runs. During the second mash I started to get problems with the mash getting stuck. I did stop the program a couple of times to stir and was able to get some flow, but my SG was only 1.084 after the second run. I now knew I wasn't gonna hit my pre boil gravity, never the less get 23 litres into the fermenter.

At the beginning of the third mash I was screwed. The pumps just wouldn't push any wort through the malt bed, so I took out the upper screen and tightened the malt pipe back in. Then I put the program in pause and ran wort into a bucket which I poured back onto the maltbed. That way I got a quite nice and loose mash, which I just let sit for 40 min just to even get some conversion out of the last batch of grain. The gravity luckily went up to 1.103, and though I didn't hit my target, and the mash efficiency was ridiculously low, I still was pleased to go over 1.100 all grain.

I decided to further bump up the gravity by throwing in all the DME I had on hand (250g) and 200g of table sugar into the boil. And after cooling the wort down to 18 C, I measured an OG of 1.140.

After taking a closer look at my refractometer I noticed that even if there is no 1.130 marking, the lines goes to 1.136. And when measuring, the refractometer floated about 4 points above that last line.


Now I just hope this bad boy will ferment out and that the final gravity will be around 1.030- 1.040. I did only get 15 litres into the fermentor, so with my 6,5 litre starter with two vials of yeast, I at least didn't under pitch. :rockin:

 

[digitaldeluge]

Does anyone use Speiel’s Fermenters? It looks like they would work pretty good and really don’t come in at a price that is too far out of line.

There is a thread on them, they seem great. I have 5 on order.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/speidel-plastic-tanks-279540/

 

[psehorne]

Hello folks,
Thanks to all of you for your generous contributions!

I've been reading this thread for days. I'm only up to page 88! I have also subscribed; so I am getting new posts as well.

I have never brewed beer. My only experience was a few weeks ago on September 16. My Son-in-law brought his equipment over (brew kettle, plastic buckets, etc) and brewed a batch of Northern England style brown ale. (It' gone now!). He used LME. A week later I ordered the 20L from Thorsten.... still waiting...

I have been using my waiting time learning all I can. I have purchased and read Charlie Papazian's and Dave Miller's books, and a couple of others and have joined AHA and received my first issue of Zymurgy. I've also picked up a couple of BYO special issues (30 styles of clone recipes, 250 clone recipes, and kegging). So I have a good foundation of knowledge in the process, lingo, etc. I've subscribed to BYO but have not received my first issue yet.

My 240 vac outlet is installed and waiting....

Hope to receive my 20L soon, but there seems to be some problem. I was given a FedEx tracking number week before last (Oct 26th), but the package has never shown up in FedEx's tracking system. Thorsten is trying to find out where it is. According to FedEx's tracking page a label was issued but the package was never passed off to them....

Well, that's enough for my first post.

Paul

 

[Obliviousbrew]

Welcome psehorne, this things are back orderer to Germany most of times a three week period to recieve them is not unusual. Keep reading and doing you homework the way you are doing it... I went all grain frombatch #1 with the Braumeister and it´s an obsession, a healthy delicious obsession. Hope the your 20l unit arrives fast.
Cheers!

 

[psehorne]

Hope to receive my 20L soon, but there seems to be some problem. I was given a FedEx tracking number week before last (Oct 26th), but the package has never shown up in FedEx's tracking system.

Thorsten and I were persistent. Finally got someone at the factory to look into the whereabouts of my 20L. It has never been passed off to FedEx.

Ralf Leukart (Sales Manager at Speidel) sent me an email apologizing for the delay and said that they would request that FedEx pick it up today. I will check FedEx's tracking page later today.

 

[psehorne]

what do you guys think about this for a bm table. sick of killing my back lifting the malt pipe out. have a look. cheers

http://www.harborfreight.com/500-lb-capacity-hydraulic-lift-table-94822.html

I'm also looking into options for lifting the malt pipe.

What is the length of the malt pipe for the 20L and how much below the top of the kettle does the malt pipe sit? Or worded another way what is the depth of the kettle from where the bottom of the malt pipe rest to the top of the kettle? The mechanism for pulling the malt pipe out of the kettle must have enough range to lift the bottom of the malt pipe at least a couple of inches above the top of the kettle.

The table in the link above has a range of 18 1/4 inches (46.355 cm). I think that is (barely) enough range to lift the malt pipe out of the 20L kettle (by lowering the table with the malt pipe secured from above). I'm assuming the 50L kettle is deeper and 18" might not be enough range.

It could still be used to make removing the malt pipe easier to lift out manually by lowering the table to a height that removes the need to be standing precariously on a step stool or chair.

Thoughts?

Paul

 

[psehorne]

Ralf Leukart (Sales Manager at Speidel) ... said that they would request that FedEx pick it up today.

This just in from Ralf "30 minutes ago FEDEX told us that they couldn’t come today and they will have to come tomorrow…"

Darn!

 

[psehorne]

I'm ... looking into options for lifting the malt pipe.

I'm thinking a bicycle hoist like this one for <$30 would be good. The Harbor Freight table would be overkill, although might be useful for other things as well.

 

[dinnerstick]

the 20L isn't that heavy. when it's packed to capacity with grain and totally saturated with wort it's pretty damn heavy, but if you lift it slowly, most of the wort drains down slowly as you lift, and then once it's fairly well drained (20 seconds or so) one good pull gets it up where you need it. no winch, ladder, hoist, chair, crane needed.

 

[psehorne]

DeGarre,
Good to know the top plate doen't need to move. Where can a "rubber edge seal" be found?

I've seen a post saying that the bottom plate must be able to move up and down and another post saying it does not. The poster saying it does not need to move is speaking from first hand experience; so I have to believe he is right. What made someone think that it does need to move? Is there something here that I am missing?

Paul

 

[psehorne]

I've seen several different acids (phosphoric, lactic, for example) mentioned for lowering pH. I have gallons of muriatic acid that I use for my swimming pool. Any reason not to use it?

I filled a corny keg with my high pH tap water and each 5ml of 30% muriatic acid lowered the pH by 1.1; 15 ml took it from 8.1 to 5.8.

As I recall a gallon of muriatic acid is about $10 vs about $15 for one ounce of 85% lactic acid (on Amazon).

I need to settle on this before my first batch. My 20L is supposed to ship tomorrow and I anticipate receiving it before the end of next week. So my first brew day could be as early as Saturday the 17th.

Paul

 

[psehorne]

What is the length of the malt pipe for the 20L and how much below the top of the kettle does the malt pipe sit? Or worded another way what is the depth of the kettle from where the bottom of the malt pipe rest to the top of the kettle? The mechanism for pulling the malt pipe out of the kettle must have enough range to lift the bottom of the malt pipe at least a couple of inches above the top of the kettle.

I found this post:

20L malt pipe height: 36 cm, ID: 27 cm

That's height: 14.17 inches, ID: 10.6 inches.

Still need to know the distance from the top (or bottom) of the malt pipe to the top of the kettle.

 

[DeGarre]

Psehorne, I know you Texans think BIG and space is not a problem but just have patience and wait for the BM to arrive and you'll have a better idea what is needed to lift the 20L pipe - it's not that heavy.

 

[psehorne]

Psehorne, I know you Texans think BIG and space is not a problem but just have patience and wait for the BM to arrive and you'll have a better idea what is needed to lift the 20L pipe - it's not that heavy.

I'm just trying to get everything in place before the arrival of the BM. I will run a water test before my first brew. I don't want to find out that standing on a step stool with my arms extended trying to drain 10kg of grist and liquor is more than I can handle. (I've seen your videos).

I have made a checklist and am just trying to have everything ready when my machine gets here. I don't want add stress by having to run all over town at the last moment.

 

[psehorne]

My 20L shipped today!!!

 

[digitaldeluge]

I'm just trying to get everything in place before the arrival of the BM. I will run a water test before my first brew. I don't want to find out that standing on a step stool with my arms extended trying to drain 10kg of grist and liquor is more than I can handle. (I've seen your videos).

I have made a checklist and am just trying to have everything ready when my machine gets here. I don't want add stress by having to run all over town at the last moment.

You are doing the opposite of what I did. I got my BM before any of the other stuff I needed arrived. Two days later after doing a water test I was impatient for my stuff to arrive so I ran to my LHBS on the way home and grabbed a 30L bucket, airlock, starsan and picked a recipe off a flyer they had and winged it default BM programming and all. The beer actually came out good too! :cross: So I can say with experience as long as your good about cleaning nothing needs to be perfect. Heck I didn't even chill the wart I threw it in the bucket and let it cool in the garage overnight and pitched the yeast the next morning. :rockin: That was my first bew EVER too! Just jump in.

My 20L shipped today!!!

Nice! Order you grain bill etc NOW! trust me you'll wish you had it once you BM arrives!

 

[psehorne]

Nice! Order you grain bill etc NOW! trust me you'll wish you had it once you BM arrives!

I've had the ingredients for a couple of weeks. I was given a tracking number on Friday October 26th; so my unit should have been here already. However it never got passed off to FedEx until today. I anticipate delivery around Wednesday of next week.

 

[psehorne]

I've had the ingredients for a couple of weeks. I was given a tracking number on Friday October 26th; so my unit should have been here already. However it never got passed off to FedEx until today. I anticipate delivery around Wednesday of next week.

I have the ingredients on hand for my first two brews. First up is an American Blonde. Something simple to get me familiar with the system.

On deck an American Brown Ale.

Then I'm going to invite my Son-in-law to re-do his (LME) Northern England Brown Ale all-grain.

So I've got three beers lined up to begin my pipeline.