20L Braumeister

[Ian]

Hi people, still hoping to connect with 20L Braumeister brewers here in NZ. I moved to this a couple of years ago from my 3 V system and it is great - but it would be excellent to compare notes with other users.

[Peter Smith]

Hi Ian

I have a 50L but use the small malt pipe a lot....

Peter 021380611

[Ian]

Great stuff Peter - I recognise your name as having been around this forum for quite awhile? I joined it way back and a number of the blokes who were active then seemed to go pro and move on. Anyhow I thought I'd get back to it just to see whether I could raise any Braumeister users in NZ. I considered the 50L version but in the end considered 20L as more appropriate for my own use. Either way would have been good. I actually have a half malt pipe for this too but haven't used it yet - maybe good for experimental brews? Not too mush to drink if it turns out average! I love the BM and my beer is working well, my only issue has been a mystifyingly low brewhouse efficiency which after so many brews I have put down to a crush too fine. I have readjusted now to 1.2 mm (BM suggest an amazing 1.6) and hope that this will allow better flow. The guys who do sparge say that they get improved efficiency doing so but that it is marginal and so often they don't bother.

[Peter Smith]

The BM's have a lower Eff then the Grainfather, not an issue if you use Beersmith and adjust recipes to EFF you get.   I tend to recirculate full volume with the BM50 while doing a 20pipe brew for a few reasons, mainly less bed settlement issues, i just stop pump and drain wort into a seperate urn to boil.  I often do two back to back mashs i.e. a double brew day, i drain 2nd one into container clean the bm and boil second batch in the BM50.

I normally set my BH Eff to 72%, and batch size 20L as i ferment in 23L glass carboys, i normally hit numbers within 1 or 2 points, Some malts like Gladdies give VERY high Eff, others like Bestz malts need a step mash to unlock decent numbers...   but you get magic Belgian pale ales from those malts

[jamis]

HI Ian, just wondering how the braumeister experience is going, have you sorted your effeciency issues?  Been looking into some of these all in one systems... came across this machine on youtube the B40pro  by brewtools... https://youtu.be/o_R_1i8el78  seems pretty cool , similar to a braumeister.  Just getting back into brewing after few yrs off , other interests took over, seems like abit of that has gone on in here, this place is so quiet compared to how it use to be.