My first Braumeister Brew Day

[hambrook]

So my shiny new BM 20L had arrived; I had flushed it all through with warm water and was ready to go. Now rather than mess around with a new recipe I wanted to try a slight refinement on a brew I have done 3 times before - Gale's HSB - I call it "Hollybank". Here's my Braumeister 20 litre set up with jacket and hood; its the 2015 version with the bling new controller


So based on the Graham Wheeler recipe all I have done is added slightly more black malt and swapped out the white sugar for molasses with a goal of producing a more chestnut colour; as a Mac user; I use BeerSmith; here is my recipe (I actually did modify this after brew day but I'll come to that in a bit)


After reading / watching many an article on brewing with the Braumeister (esp this one: https://youtu.be/KqA4d605XcQ ) I set about making a 25 litre batch. I used the 25 litre recipe from the Graham Wheeler book but expected a higher ABV as a result of the efficiency of the BM; 25 litres up to the top notch on the BM; half a Campden tablet added:


One of the nice tips I got when ordering the BM is that the domed hood, used for the boil off, can also be inverted to help loading the grain:


All mashed in;


Mash schedule - the BIGGEST unknown and I need some help here!. BM seems to have lots of stepped mash programmes but they seem to be more for European Lager / Beer formats rather than the malty, chestnut ales I am looking to brew. So I thought for my first brew I would keep it as close to the 'traditional' mash in the Graham Wheeler Book. So I mashed as follows:
- 55 degrees (filled from hot tap as we have fresh hot water) - 0 minutes
- 66 degrees - 75 mins
- 78 degrees - 10 mins

Result was a lovely clear wort;


I sparged with 10 litres of hot water at 78 degrees; I used my old Buffalo boiler to maintain the temp and added slowly 2 litres at a time over a 30 minute period. I removed the Malt Pipe and placed over a bucket to catch any residual drips. I took a pre boil sample, cooled it to 20 degrees - 1036 - WAY OFF what it should be and I was really worried I had over sparged or gone with the silly wrong mash schedule. At this point we had to nip out for a couple of hours so I swicthed the BM off; all covered up.

Got back home. added the fluid from the bucket ; must have been a litre or so in there; took another pre boil sample - 1044 - WOW did that 1 litre in the bucket really boost the gravity by that? There had been no boil yet and the fluid level was way above the 25 litre top notch? Onto the boil;

I have ordered a Hop Spider from Utah Bodies that is currently crossing the Atlantic Ocean so for the moment I used 2 muslin bags with my hops in; I am using a mixture of leaf and pellet and did not want the brew to clog on drain;


As I had gone out and turned the BM off (or it would have sat at 78 degrees after mash out) - there is no way of resuming or restarting a recipe so I had to go into manual mode for the boil; no biggie but a resume or "start from step 4" would be really handy; I programmed 102 degrees and after a wait of 20 mins or more it was finally on the rolling boil (before I added the hops in above pic)


End of the 90 mins I dropped the stainless immersion chiller in and switched the pump on and within 22 mins was down to 25 degrees. Dumped into the FV but a lot of wort sill in BM so tipped (on edge of chair so as not to damage the controller under the BM) and got as much as I dare out of the BM - 25 litres in the FV - I'm putting that down to fluke - and the final Original Gravity;


Now 1050 OG is what the Graham Wheeler book quotes so good in that respect BUT; I had punched a Total Efficiency into BeerSmith of 78%; when I reduced that down to 70% Tot Efficiency then I got 1050 OG with a pre boil of 1044. I am happy with the end results but would appreciate some help with the following questions;

- What should be the Total Efficiency figure be (ish) for a Braumeister?
- Clearly the mash schedule did not deliver the efficiency - WHAT is the BEST mash schedule for English Ale? Should I be using a 4 step mash like this?:

[BrewerBen]

Hi, welcome to the BM owners club. Looks like you had a pretty successful brewday despite the efficiency being not quite where you's like.
I wouldn't say there is anything wrong with your mash profile, there is nothing wrong with doing just a single mash step in a BM as it doesn't need to do multiple steps it just has the capability as being a German built machine their beers typically have multiple steps. Its fun experimenting though as i've done the odd english style ale and mashed in at 38C. I cant really say what difference it made though. I've not brewed a lager yet but have done wheat beers using speidels 38C mash profile.
My efficiency so far has ranged from about 70% to 85% on the BM.
Looking over you process its not hugely dissimilar from mine, the only difference i can see is it looks like you added the molasses to the mash where i put mine in the boil although i don't know what difference it makes. I also pause the program a couple of times during the mash to give it a good stir which i am pretty confident helps efficiency.
I've done 12 or so brews on the BM, the last few have had efficiency in the 80's so hopefully i'm getting the hang of it but i wouldn't say i've nailed it net.

[Matt12398]

There are plenty of reasons not do a stepped mash but if you learn a bit about them it can help you to have more control over factors such as the fermentability of your wort and some specific enzymatic reactions. At this stage you might find it easier just to do a single step mash.

Efficiency wise that depends on a whole host of factors including the grain bill. If you use lots of unmalted adjuncts for example it will usually be lower, if you mash longer it will tend to be higher, your water treatment and water profile can also affect it. So there isn't a standard expected efficiency with a braumeister.

The first Braumeister brew I did I sparged. Usual accepted best practice is 1 litre per kilo of grain. I suppose whatever works for you though. The last two I've done I've not sparged at all and my efficiency has been similar. Based on that I don't think I'll bother as it's more faffing about.

Those hop filters look cool and I considered buying one for some time but for the 50 litre braumeister that I have they're a lot more expensive (about £160 I believe by the time it's imported). I used hop bags for the first brew but there are a lot of people that don't filter at all. What I've realised is that most of the hops settle in the middle of the elements and below the level of the tap. So what I've started to do is just run off into a sanitised sieve. When I tip for the last few litres pretty much anything that gets through the tap is collected and I've done that with both a mix of leaf and pellets and all pellets.

[Matt12398]

I meant to also say that the 38 degree mash in is, as far as I am aware, purely due to the fact that this is below the starch gelatinisation temperature. That means you can dough in with virtually zero concern for dough balls. If you wanted you can even get your hands in there and mix the mash because it's cool enough not to burn your hands.