Lager recipe for the spiedel braumeister

[edubrueurope]

BM owners.... have you successfully brewed a pilsner lager?

What recipe did you use?

Did you use the standard settings or did you programme your own times and temperatures?

Any answers gratefully received.

[critch]

dont think anyones rich enough to own one of them on here!

[bds]

I do have a BM but it is still very new and I haven't had a chance to try a lager yet. It appears that you can make more or less anything with the BM that you could make any other way, so just pick out your favourite-sounding recipe! There was a link on Speidel's website to a German recipe site, and my next brew is going to be a wheat beer from there. You can use Google translate on it if necessary: http://hobbybrauer.de/rezepte.php

Good luck, and do let us know if you hit on a particularly successful recipe!

[Bribie]

I don't own a BM but do BIAB which is a similar philosophy and use the Hochkurz infusion mash regime as described on the Braukaiser site here.

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?ti ... on_Mashing

I have a mate in our area who is German and actually imported his BM direct as he has contacts in the company. He makes killer lagers and AFAIK he also basically uses a Hochkurz mash but not sure if he does a protein rest as well.

If using Weyermann floor malted Bohemian Pilsner malt I'd be tempted to do a protein rest, but with other modern malts I'd just go for a Hochkurz like most modern German breweries.

[edubrueurope]

Last night i did my first brew on the 50 litre Braumeister machine. I found a pilsner recipe that i used. Below is some facts n figures:

53 ltrs water
10kg organic lager malt
100g saaz hops
2 x 11g saflager 34-70 yeast

Mashing in 38 deg c
Phase1 - 52 deg c - zero mins
Phase2 - 63 deg c -40 mins
Phase3 - 73 deg c - 25 mins
Phase4 - 78 deg c - 10 mins

7 ltrs sparge @ 78 deg c

Hopping - 100 deg c - 80 mins
75g added after 10 mins
25g added after 70 mins

I took a few readings - ph of the wort was 5.5 and i think the OG was 1009.... does that sound right?

I added the yeast directly to the wort - below 20 deg c, and it is now sitting in my store room at 11 deg c.

Will let you know how it turns out....

[guypettigrew]

53 litres of water and 10kg of lager malt should give you an OG of about 1.040---Beer engine figures.

Are you sure it was 1.009? That would give you almost no fermentable sugars, no flavour and certainly not a lager. Sorry!

Guy

[edubrueurope]

I bought my hydrometer from germany and it reads in degrees Plato.... 9 is 1.036

Any ideas on how to change the process to get a higher reading?

[Normski]

Yeah Get a mash tun.

Just teasing.

[DeGarre]

I bought my hydrometer from germany and it reads in degrees Plato.... 9 is 1.036

Any ideas on how to change the process to get a higher reading?

That is very strange. With my 20L BM I start with 23-25L of water and 5kg of Pale Ale malt would give me around 1054 OG IIRC (check my website in my details for the recipes I've done). If you followed the instructions as per the manual and operated the process correctly, 50L and 10kg should yield very similar figures.

edit. sorry just noticed you used pilsner malt instead of pale ale so no idea.

[bds]

From my very limited experience of the BM, and from everything I've seen and read (including people making barley wine with a BM) you are still lightyears from the limitations of the machine in terms of the OG. Equally, the efficiency it can achieve is extremely respectable (though maybe not exceptional), so I woudn't even think of ditching it in favour of kit that is much harder to use well - enjoy the luxury route you already have!

Obviously you have the options of using more malt or less water, but there are other things you can do:

• Increase the phase 2 time - this is the one that will give you the sugars you want, and 40 minutes seems quite short.
• Make sure the malt is ground to a good size. I recently had a problem where is was a bit too fine, and the wort kept finding shortcuts through the mash instead of recirculating right through it as it should. Equally, if it is too coarse, you get less efficient conversion.
• Get another hydrometer - I have two, which you would think would read the same, but they don't! (Not knowing which one is right, I just go with the reading I like the look of best )

[Kev888]

I bought my hydrometer from germany and it reads in degrees Plato.... 9 is 1.036
Any ideas on how to change the process to get a higher reading?

Hi,

Good thoughts above. Also, (more generally, as I don't own this equipment) the OG could be a bit lower than you intended for various reasons, efficiency is one of them that tends to attract immediate suspicion, but other common reasons include ending up with more wort than intended (effectively diluting things) or not getting your expected losses to evaporation during the boil. It could be estimated, but to work this sort of stuff out conclusively you really need to know what volume you have after removing the grain and doing any sparging or topping up, and after the boil ends.

If you haven't got the volume figures at that sort of stage then the final volume (in the FV) could be helpful if you have some idea of what the losses to any hops and deadspace were when you racked from the boiler. If not then its something of a guess really, as potentially such losses in the boiler could hide the fact that (for example) the final volume was more than expected. In that case I'd just chalk it up to experience and try to record them next time.

If it 'is' efficiency then quite a few things can affect this too, but keep in mind that (within reason) consistency is more important than a high efficiency and some attempts to get higher extraction rates can make it more variable - if so then unless every last pence counts, a tad more grain will overcome it easily enough. At 1.036 there could be room for improvement, but I'd only be 'too' concerned if lower efficiency were due to something actually going wrong.

Cheers
kev

[edubrueurope]

Just a quick update.... the fermentation has been going on for a week now... did a reading - 6 plato / 1024.
Its been cold here recently and the temperature in the store is 10 deg C - but the brew is still bubbling along!

How do i know when its done?

With regards the sparging - is the objective to sparge with just the right amount of water to get the wort volume back to the original quantity of water?

Kev888 - thanks for your full reply. I note the need to take some more volume measurements during the various stages.

[edubrueurope]

The brew has finally finished fermenting.... after three weeks! Its still only 11 - 12 deg C so maybe thats why it has taken so long.

My next problem is how to get it fizzed! I intend to bottle in 500ml flip top bottles and have been advised to add 4gms of sugar to each bottle before filling. I understand that the bottles then need to be put somewhere warm to produce the CO2 needed to make a good lager.

Any advice on how to get the CO2 levels up?

What temperature and for for how long?

Thanks

[Normski]

My next problem is how to get it fizzed! I intend to bottle in 500ml flip top bottles and have been advised to add 4gms of sugar to each bottle before filling. I understand that the bottles then need to be put somewhere warm to produce the CO2 needed to make a good lager. Any advice on how to get the CO2 levels up?

These are questions normally asked from a novice. Arn't you the guy thats about to open a brewing school. I would have thought getting similar equipment to other brewing schools or Micros may have been a better choice retther than getting a Braumeister.
Are all of your pupils going to have to get a Braumeister too. Maybe if you contact your future pupils they will be able to show you how to prime your bottles. Sorry if Im sounding bitchy, But it seems a joke to be starting a brewing school.

Or is this going to turn out to be another Troll an I've been had.