Hi all. New to the forum and figured I had better introduce myself. Been homebrewing for a few years now mostly kits, a little elderberry wine and a little mead ( win some lose some). I have recently decided to make the move into all grain brewing and have started production of my first brewing system. Basing it on the a 50L speidels Braumeister. Would love to hear if anyone has any feed back on this system. It looks good but is so expensive.
Hi B4B (If you think I'm spelling that out ;D, CH is fine) welcome to the forum.
Partridge has one of those 25L ones.
They are great if you are tight on space, I came this close to one as well before I went herms and don't see the point now :(.
50L is a big one do you drink a lot of beer?
I decided to future proof it, The beauty of building it myself. Will just make a shorter inner tube to brew smaller batches. That's the idea anyway. I have a friend building it with me so when you split the batch it's not that much. Will also allow for half as an ale and half as a larger
Quote from: Brew_for_Buttons on September 18, 2013, 11:53:30 PM
Will also allow for half as an ale and half as a larger
which half will get your ale and which the lager the top or bottom half? ;D
sorry about that now I will revert to trying to help and be supportive
pics please first as to what you are building i'm genuinely fascinated, I've seen knock off speidels but they were rough
To make true lagers or Ales you need totally different grain and hop types and its not possible to get 2 distinct styles from 1 brew although you could have a go at a hybrid.
Be delighted to give you any input, as I'm sure would the forum in terms of equipment or odds and sods required for your build, beer to me is just a by product of my brewing equipment builds :)
All help is truly appreciated CH, as I said, this is my first venture into all grain. What I would like to do is see the effect of the different yeasts, conditioning methods and dry hop additions have on the same basic batch. Being able to split a larger batch means (hopefully) I can experiment with some and still have something to drink if it all goes wrong. That's the thinking behind it anyway. Will post pics as we go through the build. Just started buying the parts. It's just been a CAD drawing until now.
small fermenting buckets from allpack.ie or glass demi-johns will help you try different permutations from generic malt and hop base.
For fear of repeating myself welcome along in any case :)
Quote from: Brew_for_Buttons on September 18, 2013, 11:18:15 PMBasing it on the a 50L speidels Braumeister. Would love to hear if anyone has any feed back on this system. It looks good but is so expensive.
A guy at our club has the small one. He loves it, and it has raised his brewing game. Its really simple to use, and the precision/efficiency aspect is really good. I think you can hit 90% BHE with these things, and the temperature control is very precise around the mash temp for those beers where you need to really care about alpha/beta enzyme action.
If cost is your big factor, you could just go BIAB? Big metal pot ~50-70L capacity and 2-3 2.5KW kettle elements? Get a decent temp probe, and you are straight into the brewing game. Get a custom made bag, and ideally some kind of hoist and you are laughing.
If you have the DIY skills, and can source a good sized pot for cheap, you could be all in for <150€ easily.
For me half the fun is in the build, money and space are both factors but mostly space. The plan is to buy a large stock pot and extend it. we have been in contact with a local element specialist who are going to role an element into a large diameter coil. Ecocirc 25/6/130 pump, PID temp probe, all controlled by some custom software via PC. if it works out it should be good, but only time will tell. Would love to know if there was anything area he felt his Braumeister was lacking.
Quote from: Brew_for_Buttons on September 19, 2013, 03:28:34 PM
Would love to know if there was anything area he felt his Braumeister was lacking.
The price :P
Welcome to the group.
Can't wait to see pics of your set-up, it sounds promising :)
I think Patridge's main problem with the Braumeister is the size i.e. it's difficult to do any high gravity beers in it.
Quote from: irish_goat on September 19, 2013, 03:41:37 PM
I think Patridge's main problem with the Braumeister is the size i.e. it's difficult to do any high gravity beers in it.
Whereas a regular BIAB, you can do parti-gyle, or casual sparge of the grain bag, to get those big beers.
Quote from: Brew_for_Buttons on September 19, 2013, 03:28:34 PM
For me half the fun is in the build, money and space are both factors but mostly space. The plan is to buy a large stock pot and extend it.
True, all the methods discussed are very space efficient (foot print)
Quote
we have been in contact with a local element specialist who are going to role an element into a large diameter coil.
Sounds cool, but there are practicality concerns to using only one element.
- cut outs
- cleaning
- replacing
- single electrical outlet
Also there is a possibility that a central large element may interfere with any future RIMS setup, which is a key feature of the braumeisters, and is important for maintaining BHE at the high and low gravity scale. A rarely mentioned issue with BIAB setups, is that low gravity beers can be really tricky to do - the high water/grain ratio spikes the BHE and your 3.2% lawnmower beer often ends up hitting 4%+ anyway. Basically BHE is variable in BIAB, and a RIMS setup compensates.
A 2.5 KW element will heat 33L of water to strike temp in around 40-50 mins, and can maintain a rolling boil in my Buffalo 40L up around 97/98 C.
For big volumes a second element may be necessary, and the third element is a backup.
Quote
Ecocirc 25/6/130 pump, PID temp probe, all controlled by some custom software via PC. if it works out it should be good, but only time will tell. Would love to know if there was anything area he felt his Braumeister was lacking.
PC? Would probably go with something a bit more bespoke (Arduino/RasPi), or use wireless control. The idea of my mac being anywhere near my brew setup is a scary thought.
What are you using the pump for?
The Malt Miller do some custom builds, including element fittings, spy glass, and taps, on bloody big stock pots: £80 for a 100L stock pot before it starts getting tricked out. If I had space, and did kegging, thats probably the way I would go in future. 100L 3 elements and a tap.
Anyway, have fun with the project, but dont lose sight of the end result.
Was just looking into your Arduino suggestion, good call, thanks. The pump on the braumeister is used to circulate through the grain.
I would love to use more than the 1 element but fitting standard elements between the inner and outer tubes is proving difficult.
Just received our 70l stock pot from the HBC, 3 piece ball valve also arrived,
Think i will put any future posts i make on the build into the equipment section, try and keep everything where its supposed to be.