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I recently acquired one of these: http://www.speidels-braumeister.de/product_info.php/info/p2_Braumeister-20-litres.html It's a one-kettle self-contained brewing system, with a pump for circulation during the mash and programmable digital temperature control. It's also electric, which makes it ideal for the small condo-apartment I live in. Cost is approximately equivalent to the RIMS-type setups that Morebeer and Blichmann and those types sell. It's also one of the only things I've ever seen that wasn't subject to a huge markup in Canada vs. the US. One or two of you expressed some interest after I was asking for opinions on it here. I've now been through one brewday with it; this is what I can report. It's all stainless, and seems very well built and thought out (I shouldn't really be surprised, if the Germans are known for one thing, its this). The steel used in the kettle and "malt pipe" is thinner than I would have thought - but as you're constantly circulating the liquid during the mash, maintaining temperature is not a problem. First thing that threw me is that you mash with a full batch worth of water. I'll throw up a couple of pictures here to explain why. There's a "malt pipe" which goes inside the kettle and holds your malt during the mash. There's filters above and below the malt, to keep it contained. The pipe has a rubber rim at the base, which forms a seal within the kettle, separating the inside and outside of the pipe.  The pump draws liquid from outside the pipe, and pumps it into the pipe at the base. This raises the level of liquid inside the pipe, until it overflows back into the kettle. You need all that water at the outset to keep the malt pipe overflowing and the circulation pump fed.  The machine is set up for a 4 or 5 step mash. You can set the rest times and temperatures for all steps. I set a few of them to zero minutes, for a simple English single infusion + mashout. Temperature rises by a couple of degrees (C) per minute - I'm guessing here, wasn't really keeping track. At the end of the mash, you pull the pipe out, it rests on a frame, fully above the liquor (wort? never paid much attention to the proper terms for everything). You can let it drain. I went for a sparge of a sort, pulling wort from the tap at the base and pouring it back over the grains, then following that with fresh water to rinse the sugars out of the grains. Following that, just hit a button to start the boil (also programmable for length). I was brewing a best bitter, with tettnanger hops. I just picked up a couple pounds of hops from an outfit in Southern Ontario, and went with the tettnanger over Fuggles or Goldings (also got a pound of cascade because I like them). Saved me probably close to 75% over local per-oz prices. Recipe follows: 4.4 lbs 2-row pale 1.1 lbs cara pils 2 lbs victory .5 pounds oats Mashed at 67C for 65 min. 10 min mash-out at 75C. 1.5 oz tett @ 60min 1 oz @ 10min 1 oz @ "flameout" Wyeast 1028 Anticipated OG 1.041. How did it go? In retrospect, I probably added almost 2 gallons of water during the sparge. Didn't lose a whole lot during the boil, which was not all that strong. I found at the end, when I was transferring to the fermenter, that I had at least a gallon extra, probably more. The OG came out to 1.035, due to that dilution, I assume. Everything looks and smells just great, thought. My best bitter became a regular bitter, but that no great problem. I just have to be careful how much water I use. Speidel proclaim that this uses a concentrated brewing method - producing 4 gallons of concentrated wort that needs to be diluted to 5. But after this experience, it seems likely to have very little trouble coping with the full 5 for the boil. I think really high gravity (<9%) brews may not be possible without using a fair bit of sugar or extract, as there's definitely a limit to how much malt it can hold for the mash. I've seen people consider this machine to be a "brew in a bag" style of operation, but with the extraction rates I got, I don't think it wastes much malt, like those brewers do. I think the circulation during the mash probably makes that difference. So far, I'm happy. Once I get familiar with the machine, I think it should be be pretty competent.
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Sep 28, 2011 00:33
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tesilential posted:Quick question, is that thing a kettle, fermenter AND serving vessel? If so how do you plan to simultaneous brews going? It's not a fermenter, or a serving vessel. I'm fermenting in buckets and carboys and serving from kegs. This is (but I get the impression it's extract only): https://www.williamswarn.com Cleaning wasn't too bad. I didn't pull the pump apart, just ran a star-san solution through it for a few minutes, then warm water. It should be pulled off and rinsed fairly regularly, though. Otherwise everything is stainless without any tiny crannies for gunk to hide in. The heating coil is enclosed in stainless tubing, which just needs to be wiped down.
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Sep 28, 2011 23:23
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Can someone point me towards a resource (internet or book) that can explain step mashes and how to design them? ie. this talk about a beta glucan rest... I've googled around, but not found something that actually explains what all the different possible rests are, how long each one should (or could) be, their effects on the final product, and how to put them together to arrange it properly. I now have the ability to easily step-mash, and I'd like to know how to do it.
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Mar 29, 2012 17:04
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Docjowles posted:This is another good one (actually the entire site rules if you like the RiggenBlaque posted:This probably doesn't give everything you're looking for, but is a good overview: Second question: I'm running a RIMS-type mash that circulates the wort through the grain (this thing: http://www.speidels-braumeister.de/), and haven't been doing a secondary. After say 4 weeks in the fermenter, on average, I still have a tonne of suspended particles in the keg, which leads to a rather grainy mouthfeel. I'm thinking the recirculating mash is releasing a lot of flour from the ground grains that might not be released in a normal mash. To clear this up, will finings like Irish Moss work well? I've never really bothered with finings before as I didn't care too much about having clear beer, but it's getting intrusive, now.
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Apr 1, 2012 14:23
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djwetmouse posted:Sorry if I missed any discussion on this earlier on the thread, but I was wondering if anyone had any experience with one of these bad boys or anything similar. A couple pages back, but I'm going to reply to this because I bought one of these last fall. I moved into a condo apartment, and needed something that wasn't gas-powered. It's much much easier to brew with this than stovetop or with a turkey fryer. You can program in your mash schedule (up to 5 rests, I think), and it'll take care of the temperatures. Beeps and pauses when you need to do something. Seems to reach a pretty good mash efficiency (I've never calculated it out). It does tend to put out more sediment in the beer than I'm used to, so I'm going to have to put some effort into clearing the beer up - which I never bothered with before. It won't do very strong all-grain beer, as someone mentioned. I had to buy a ~$150 (can't remember how much it was) transformer to run it on North American current. It's a good machine, similar in price to pre-assembled brew stands. If you're considering it, you just need to think about your needs and brewing habits. If you're short on space and not too concerned about brewing monster beer, you'll probably be quite happy with it.
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Apr 13, 2012 20:01
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fullroundaction posted:Also: does anyone have any suggestions for intermediate level books on homebrewing? I got a ton of stuff for Christmas but it's all either about the current business and how "EXTREME" American beer has gotten, or "there are 4 main ingredients in beer, lets get you started on your first batch!" Randy Mosher - Radical Brewing. It isn't very complex on techniques, it's more of a rough guide to ingredients and styles and full of ideas. Don't be fooled by the title - it's not really an Extreme Crazy American Craft book. I've had it for years and it's still the first thing I reach for when brewing and planning recipes. ---- It's been a bit more than a year now, and I just love the hell out of my Braumeister. It's compact, it's easy to use, and the beer comes out fantastically. It's an electric, single vessel, mashing and boiling system - essentially a heated RIMS-type setup. I throw some water in, program a mash schedule, and hit go. It beeps to tell me when to add the malt, then it beeps when the mash is done. Pull the malt up and hang it above the kettle, a quick batch sparge, then set it to boiling. Then all I need to do is watch for the boil-over attempt, and add hops. My coil chiller fits the kettle, and I can run the pump to circulate wort and speed chilling. A hell of an easy brew day - and now that I'm in a small condo apartment with a ceramic-top stove, all-grain would be next to impossible without it. I set up a 5-rest mash this morning (including glucanase and protein rests for the oats in the recipe, alpha and beta amylase rests, and the mash-out) in a couple of minutes. I would never have even attempted a complex mash schedule when brewing with the cooler and stove in the old days. The best part is - I can brew with a consistency that I never could before. Hit all the temperatures and times, dead on, and there's no more of the little, niggling, not-quite-right flavours that always used to cropped up when I didn't have this kind of control. The beer is noticeably better. So call this a ringing endorsement. Speidel Braumeister: a good system.
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Jan 6, 2013 17:42
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crazyfish posted:How big is your Braumeister (batch-size-wise) and what are the power requirements? I can't imagine doing full boils on 5 gallon batches is going to be achieveable on a single 120v 20A wall socket... It does a standard 20L (5.something gallon) batch. The heating element is 2000W, I run it from a standard socket through a 3000W voltage converter. It boils ~23L (what I usually start with) just fine. Yeah, it's 2 grand, but that's noticeably less than off-the-shelf gas-powered setups like MoreBeer's Brewsculptures. And, again, I couldn't run one of those in my apartment.
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Jan 6, 2013 22:04
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My CO2 tank just emptied, and I got it refilled. Now, when I hook it up to the regulator, it's maxing the pressure and blowing out the relief valve (on the regulator). I've got the pressure control knob backed out as far as it will go, and pressure is still sitting at ~55 PSI and leaking out the relief valve. Any ideas?
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Jan 29, 2013 20:48
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zedprime posted:Regulators are backwards, are you sure you don't have it all the way open? Yep, I had it all the way down. Just leaked air through the relief valve the way I had it, turned it back up made it a whole hell of a lot worse. So there's a new, more expensive (assumedly more solid) regulator on the way, now. Bright side: I found a couple new online supply places - one in Toronto (torontobrewing.ca) with the best selection I've seen on a Canadian site - so there's a pound each of Bramling Cross (I remember rather liking this hop when I've used it before) and this new HopUnion Zythos blend and some of the new Danstar dried saison yeast inbound. Microbrewing and homebrewing in Ontario have just exploded in the last couple of years. It wasn't that long ago that I ordered a lot of my ingredients from Saskatoon (before they cut out internet sales)...
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Jan 31, 2013 05:11
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