Here are a few initial braumeister thoughts as I have now done my first two brews with the Braumeister 50.
Brew #1 - 50L of shop given IPA recipe (Pale Ale Malt, Fuggles & Goldings & British Ale 1098 (x2 packs)
Brew #2 - 50L of a my own Bitter IPA recipe. (Maris Otter & Caramunch, Fuggles & Goldings & Wyeast Whitbread XL 1099 (x2 packs)
It took me 10hrs, from cold tap on, to rinsing out the machine at the end for the 1st brew, and 9hrs for the second brew the next day. No major problems encountered at all with the BM (if the results are drinkable that is).
Biggest issue I had was before I started; getting 16 amps/240V into my kitchen! I ended up installing a new 16 amp trip and plug in my circuit box downstairs and then running a 25 meter (very chunky) extension up to the kitchen to plug the BM into.
I think my biggest F'U' so far was thinking I needed to immediately use my cooler for the fermentation process. I finished the first brew at 22.00 last Saturday eve, pitched the yeast, stuck it in my cooler set at 20C and went to bed. Woke at 0700 to go have a look, and to my horror it was down to 15 degrees in the fridge with no visible Co2 production at all.....I realised the error and took it out and put it in my back room to warm up to 22 hopefully not too late..... It stayed silent for a while, but as the second brew started to bubble on Monday morning, so did this one..... Not sure if it has messed it up or not, but I left it a week and yesterday put 22L into a Rotokeg with 45g of brown sugar, and the rest into 4 x 5L widget party kegs with 10g of brown sugar per keg. Fingers crossed!
The second brew started fermenting like a champ, but I defo kept that one much warmer and I also aerated it with a kitchen louche as it was filtering out of the BM into the ferm bin which I didn't do with the first brew. I resisted kegging the second brew yesterday though as it is still popping the lock every couple of minutes. Hopefully I will do it this evening if it has calmed down enough.
I have since got an aquarium airstone to bubble through the next brew I do (I got a Lager mix in yesterday so next weekend hopefully) to try and ensure it is as aerated as possible before pitching the yeast.
One thing I should point out is the weight of the fully loaded (and wet) grain chimney: I set the BM up on a waist high very solid table so I can easily drain it off into a 60L bin when the brew is done, this is fine, but when you want to pull the grain chimney up and lay it on the girdle ready to sparge, it weighs a ton (25 kilos maybe?). I had to get off the ladder and get right up onto the table, one foot either side of the (very hot) BM and kind of reverse bench-press it up until it is high enough to drop onto the draining brace/girdle. N.B I am a strong lad and I would guess this movement would be difficult for a lot of people to complete solo. You also need to lift it a bit higher than you need to, so you break the suction between the chimney and the wort so that the water can then properly drain out.
I will report back if either of the two brews are drinkable, but all in all, an extremely fun couple of days 8)
Cheers!
Fred.
