I had an Ausiie suggest reading the head space instead and it made sense. 40 liters to the top of the rod minus 10 cm dow equals 30 liters! Huh I think I will just cut off a yard/meter stick and use the zero to 40 cm marks to measure down.
There's been a couple questions about the pump. Here is a close-up of the label.
Jim
Could the 20L brew smaller 2.5-3 gal batches?
The other question I have is for all Braumeister owners out there. I've seen the video, and it's pretty clear that the very top surface of the grain has been pressing against the 'false' top' in the grain tube. What is not so clear to me is whether the entire grain bed is also getting pressed against the false top during recirculation or not (just a small surface layer).
The pump pulls water from the port in the bottom of the kettle that is outside of the malt pipe. If forces water up through the port nearer the center of the kettle and up through the malt pipe, pushing the grain bed up. I found the hard way, by failing to answer the prompt after the last mash cycle at the mash-out stage. I removed the hold-down bar while apparently the unit was doing a pump rest and at about the time the pump came on and the whole grain bed began to rise and overflowed the malt pipe before I realized what was happening. Of course I quickly answered the prompt and the pump stopped.
goodgodilove beer. When I ordered mine from B3 CHS was out of stock as well. I got a message from CHS that they had them back in stock the same day that B3 shipped.
I too would have liked to keep my Cdn$ on this side of the border but for the 500 bills I couldn't see cancelling the US order. I have now done 2 brews with it and am really liking it .I know you will too.
Us Canucks should stay in touch. Are you a Yeast Wrangler?
When you raise your maltpipe at the end of the mash, do you have any sense of whether you are lifting the entire grain bed from the false bottom up or whether you are just lifting the false bottom up easily until it comes into contact with the bottom of the grain bed where suddenly lifting becomes harder/heavier?
And when you empty your maltpipe, is the grain bed compressed into a compact patty or is it loose?
-fafrd
I totally understand. Mine should be shipped from Ontario today and most likely arrive by Thursday according to CHBS. My buddy who's an electrician and works on wind turbines said he's talked to master electricians about the equipment and shouldn't have a problem helping me with the electrical next week. Judging by his conversation with the master electrician, the only concern would be the Hz difference, but that's not a deal breaker. How did your re-wiring of the BM go?
fafrd- just to add to what psehorne has said, the only way the malt will be compacted into a solid mass is if you waaaay overload the malt pipe (or maybe if you try a 100% rye mash). normally the pump won't compress the mash, just gently push it towards the top screen. as you suggested, the grain bed sets upside-down when the pump is running. you will start to circulate very clear wort, but the grain bed gets disrupted when you finish the mash, and it has to reset at the bottom of the malt pipe for 'lautering' and sparging. of course to get perfectly clear wort you would then want to recirculate all of the wort through the new grain bed, but that's not really possible without an external pump, and the turbidity of the wort in practice is pretty low, so it's really not necessary. i make a little whirlpool after cooling, let is sit for 30 minutes or so, and run off very clear wort. you asked if anyone has stopped the pump and opened the malt pipe during the mash; this is pretty common practice, and highly recommended if your malt pipe is on the full side. it seems to help circulation, prevent channeling, or something, and get you much better efficiency. with low gravity beers (<1.055ish?) the flow through the mash is much better and i don't think stirring is as important.
Thanks dinnerstick (and psehorn) - so it sounds like the pump is powerful to force some or all of the grain bed up towards the false top but when the pump stops pumping, the grain falls back down to the false bottom - does that sound about right? If/when you stop the pump and remove the false top to stir the grain bed, has the grain bed pretty much all fallen back down by then (so you never get to actually see the raised grain bed)?
Also, it sounds like the grain bed is staying loose through the mash, so the force of the pump is enough to counteract gravity and force the grains upward, but not strong enough to cause any compaction - does that sound correct?
-fafrd
I am thinking about a setup to use the pump of the braumeister for a hot whirlpool. Basic idea is taking some copper tubing and a rubber plug and fabricate a tube that fits into the outlet from the pump (with the rubber plug as a seal) and the other end comes closed out of the wort as a handle. Somewhere in the tube I'd mount a T-fitting and a piece of copper tubing as the whirlpool outlet.
Anyone got some experience with that?
yep that's about the long and short of it, as far as i can tell. how loose the mash stays depends of course on the crush and composition of the mash as well as how full the pipe is. so it is possible that you open the top and see a somewhat compacted grain surface, but often in my experience this means over-filled mash pipe = poor circulation = poor efficiency. you should be able to get a mash paddle (well, wooden spoon) through it and to the bottom of the pipe pretty easily. when you get the pipe just to its limit, for me that usually means making around a 1.074 og wort, there's no room for the grain to settle back down when the pump is off, and you will see the grain pressed (lightly) against the top screen when you open it
Did I see somewhere back in the thread, that someone had found a replacement cord that plugs directly into the BM with a North American 220v plug? No cutting/splicing required?
Thanks psehorne! Did you end up going this route?
So close to pulling the trigger on this... even got a tentative OK from the wife for the 20L.
Some questions:
1. Is that cord all I need to get going? No assembly required? I just plug it into the 220v stove socket, right?
2. I don't want to spend all this money only to still need to mess around sparging. What kind of efficiency can I expect without sparging?
3. When doing a no-Sparge, roughly how much grain can the 20l reliably hold without issue?
4. Are morebeer and morebeer4u the only US distributors?
Thanks!
1. Is that cord all I need to get going? No assembly required? I just plug it into the 220v stove socket, right?
No. Sorry if I misled you. The male plug on the cord I linked you to is NOT a mate to an electric clothes dryer outlet. It requires a matching L20-6R receptacle available at most local hardware stores.
OK. So am I right in thinking I need the cord you linked to AND the l20-6R receptacle? I'm having trouble picturing this is my head.
Am I right in guessing the receptacle plugs into my stove outlet, then the cable you linked to plugs into the receptacle? I then just connect the Braumeister to the cable: http://www.stayonline.com/detail.aspx?id=8951
I think I get it now, thanks! So basically there's no simple plugin adapter for US stove/drier 220v plug to German 220v plug then?
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