Brewday 17th July 2015 - Effin Wheat Beer BM#001.150717

[Aleman]

So nothing like a challenge for this one, a wheat beer with a high percentage of wheat for my first ever brew with my Braumeister. This is inspired by the great wheat beers I got in a GroupOn deal earlier in the year. I had forgotten just how much I love good wheat beers, this is going to be a regular I feel

Looking at 20L at 1.049 and 23IBU Guessing at 77% efficiency

3000g Wheat Malt
2000g Weyermann Floor malted Czech Malt

Mash using a modified Hochkurz Schedule (45C for 45 minutes, 63C for 35Minutes, 71C for 45 Minutes, Mash out at 72C for 10 minutes)

Sparge with 6L in my case I'm going to drain and decoct the grain then strain it into the boiler.

Boil 31L for 80 minutes adding

50g Hallertau Mittelfruh at 60 minutes to go.

I'll ferment a 1L starter, using the shaken not stirred method, of WLP380 at 18C Really hoping to get spicy Clove and keep the banana in check.

This is the starter preparation, 100g spray malt in 1000g of water. Autoclaved at 121C for 15 minutes



A picture of a well aerated starter . . . Using the Martini method "shaken, not stirred"



First Job this morning was to crush the grain, so out came the Barleycrusher



Handful of grain to check the crush



Followed by the 3Kg of wheat malt



And the remainder of the 2Kg of Bohemian Pilsner malt



In the meantime 23L of water was going into the BM. I dropped the alkalinity from a (measured) 53mg/L down to 14 (measured), with sulphuric acid, as this was a 'pale' beer. The TDS of 102 showed me that my water was probably very close to my last profile reading at the end of June. I would have preferred to use hydrochloric, but my chemist forgot to bring some home



I didn't realise just how easy it is to mash in with a 1V 'Full Volume' system, tip the grain in and stir job done . . . but then at 4.8L/Kg mash ratio that is a loose mash.



Well the mash is under way, remember that this is a modified Hochkurz mash and this 45C initial step is to help produce the precursors of 4 Vinyl Guaiacol responsible for the spicy clove notes of good wheat beeers



A sample drawn at 10 minutes shows that the pH is within the acceptable range of 5.2 to 5.7, but it is a touch high for a pale beer where I would prefer it to be 5.4. I added 4.5g of calcium chloride to the mash to adjust this, as the higher mash pH is probably due to an insufficient calcium level. This will boost the calcium to 75, and chloride to around 100 mg/L, giving me a balanced 1:1 sulphate : chloride ratio.



So we are at the next mash step, Braumeisters hit about a 1C per minute temperature change (Outside with no jacket and a wind blowing) This will favour beta amylase.



The third step at 71C favours alpha amylase, and should help mop up any unconverted starch that has been left lying around.



At this stage the wort has cleared really well, I was concerned as it was very milky previously



Purely for curiosity, I took a gravity reading as well, 10.5 Brix is about 1.042 so getting close to where I want to be already.



4 minutes to the end of the mash . . . Eeeeeee, I'm so excited :party: :party: :party:

At the end of the mash, this was the clarity of the wort. It doesn't have to be this bright, and indeed a bright wort is no idication that you will have a bright beer. It looks good though



It's an interesting exercise lifting the malt tube, not particularly difficult or heavy, but interesting. I sparged with 5 Litres of 72C water. No shot but preboil gravity reading was 1.049 at 24 Litres



The Braumeister does lead you through the process pretty well



Almost ready to start boiling



Just coming up to the boil now



50g Of Hallertau Mittelfruh hops weighed out and ready to go



All tucked up in it's bodged jacket to boil for 80 minutes



And a good rolling boil with the hops in - 60 minutes left

[sbond10]

God that is really showing what the bm can do I feel anything I try will fail vastly in comparison

[Hairybiker]

Well it is really what any grain brewer can do, the BM just makes it "automated".

[Andy]

Great write up

[Thorbz]

I did my first Braumeister brew this week. After doing a coarser crush than previously, I still had a problem with the flour blocking the hop stopper. I'm also going to invest in some silicone edging to fit around the top screen and stop the larger bits of grain from escaping into the boil.

Nice pictures and description, BTW.

[mosquat]

Great post, thanks for sharing

[EccentricDyslexic]

I get what u mean about constant messing around with various vessels, pumps coolers etc etc. sometimes u just wanna brew without problems with kit. The BM looks like a great solution and if free of hassle (ie sorted issues with hops blocking stuff up etc) then it is worth the investment.

Let us know your opinion of the BM.

Steve

[Jim]

Nice thread!

It certainly is a great system - the only drawback for many people is the cost.

[Andy]

A snip for all the cash rich retired folk.

[WalesAles]

Aleman,
Great Post!
I still prefer my Bish, Bash, Bosh Kits though!
Thanks for the Water Profile Talk at the HBF. I`m glad I live in a `Soft Water` area!

WA

[Jim]

A snip for all the cash rich retired folk.

I don't know who you mean!

[EccentricDyslexic]

Aleman, did you do anything different for water treatment with this full volume mash campared to your 3V system? I typicaly put all my water treatments in my HLT(with stirer) and mash, sparge and boil without doing anything else. I have been getting astringency and difficult to clear(or impossible) ales. I am thinking of trying a FVM to resolve this(and simplify my automated brewery), but think i need to change my water treatment procedure to get the mash ph right with such a large liquid volume.

Cheers

Steve

[Dave S]

Aleman, did you do anything different for water treatment with this full volume mash campared to your 3V system? I typicaly put all my water treatments in my HLT(with stirer) and mash, sparge and boil without doing anything else. I have been getting astringency and difficult to clear(or impossible) ales. I am thinking of trying a FVM to resolve this(and simplify my automated brewery), but think i need to change my water treatment procedure to get the mash ph right with such a large liquid volume.

Cheers

Steve

It's important to get sparge liquor akaklinity low no matter what style you are brewing so that undesirable and harsh tasting elements like tannins are no extracted from the grain. Sparge should be typically around 20ppm even if you are brewing say a stout, where the mash alkalinity could be 130 or more. I always treat my mash and sparge liquors separately,

[faeyd]

Nice write up The new BM looks great ! After a house move and having no room to brew I have finally got external power plumbed in and re-purchased a suitable fermentation vessel. So... time to go get my 20l BM out of the attic

[Aleman]

Aleman, did you do anything different for water treatment with this full volume mash campared to your 3V system?

Not this time, I simply reduced the alkalinity down to 14mg/L from 52mg/L. Although I should say that this is actually lower than I would normally have done for my 3V system were for such a simple pale grist I would have aimed for around 25mg/L. I did think that this would be sufficient to overcome the total alkalinity and allow a mash pH towards the lower end of the 5.2 to 5.7 range. Obviously this was not the case, and I suspect that there was to low a level of calcium in the mash to get the pH where I would have preferred it, hence adding the 4.5g of calcium chloride. Before I brew this again I think a test mash is in order to try out water treatment at a 5 to 1 liquor to grist ratio. It is likely that even adding a seriously excessive amount of calcium will not get the pH to drop further and I'll have to resort to a bigger hammer, and adjust it with a further acid addition.

Full Volume Mashing, adding another spanner in the works of water treatment

I typicaly put all my water treatments in my HLT(with stirer) and mash, sparge and boil without doing anything else. I have been getting astringency and difficult to clear(or impossible) ales. I am thinking of trying a FVM to resolve this(and simplify my automated brewery), but think i need to change my water treatment procedure to get the mash ph right with such a large liquid volume.

It's important to get sparge liquor akaklinity low no matter what style you are brewing so that undesirable and harsh tasting elements like tannins are no extracted from the grain. Sparge should be typically around 20ppm even if you are brewing say a stout, where the mash alkalinity could be 130 or more. I always treat my mash and sparge liquors separately

I agree completely with Dave S,with caveats though Although I still treat my mash and sparge liquors differently.

As long as you are sparging slowly, and at sensible temperatures, then there should be no need to drop the alkalinity, or indeed pH,of your sparge liquor lower than you mash liquor. It is only when you are sparging rapidly (say less than 30 minutes to collect 30+ litres of wort), and you are using sparge liquor at greater than 78C that you will run into astringency problems. In the small volumes that typical home brewers are dealing with (5-10gallons) then there is simply no requirement to raise the mash temp to greater than 72C or sparge with liquor in excess of 72C. We should also not concern ourselves about extracting every drop of sugar from the mash, grain is cheap, if you final running's are 1.020 and your mash efficiency is only 70% . . . So what! We want to brew quality beer, and the best way to do this is to use sufficient malt and sparge slowly, say taking an hour to collect 30+litres of wort for a 5 gallon mash. If you brew this way the pH does not rise into the region where the high temperatures can cause excess tannin extraction.

If you hurry your sparge, and sparge hot, then yes get your alkalinity low, otherwise you can hit troubles.