Juhani wrote: We made an American Barleywine with our BM 50 using the double mashing method.
OG was 1.114 and we got about 33 liters to fermentor.
I was planning on doing a heft BW, and this is getting me inspired!
Juhani wrote: We mashed with 45 liters, We also added some boiled water to the boil as we overshooted the original gravity a bit.
I have also experimented with this, but I think circulation is hampered if you use so little water, if you have more water, the amount between the upper and lower level is less, so the pump needs to work less, I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say.
Curious, so the final running's were higher that the first mash result?
Thinking about this, maybe I'll try using the short malt pipe for the first mash, and the normal malt pipe for the second mash?
I just started the boil on an AIPA. Very similar recipe to the last I did, but an extra 1/2 kg of grain to make up for losses from dry hopping (only got 17L into the keg last time).
There was 6.5kg grain in 27L mash water, and 10L sparge.
Next time I will drop the mash water by 2L and do a 12L sparge as it took a few very cautious stirs to fit the last bit of grain in. The mash level would've come within 10mm of the top of the malt pipe.
No issues with the pump or efficiency, just a slight bit out on preboil volume (I may still need to fine tune absorbtion figures in BS2).
Last edited by Dan on Fri Feb 21, 2014 10:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
Result: 20 liter / SG 1085, and final beer of 9 à 9,5% alc.
I'm keen to make a small batch barley wine, something that I can bottle and leave for a while... but I'm having trouble balancing the water and grain levels. Too much in one direction and the recipe starts needing > 6kg grain, too much in the other direction and the recipe dips below the 23L mash mark.
I'm not really interested in doing a double mash at this stage, maybe I will consider if the feedback on this recipe convinces me.
So far on my 3 BM beers I've had an average efficiency of about 85% so I ahve reduced it for this bigger beer, but maybe not enough?
Is this a chance of being a success? All thoughts welcome.
Last edited by whitegoose on Sat Mar 01, 2014 2:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
whitegoose wrote: So far on my 3 BM beers I've had an average efficiency of about 85% so I ahve reduced it for this bigger beer, but maybe not enough?
I think the 75% extraction efficiency is a good starting point. When brewing my quadrupel I used 75% and went .002 over the target, but I could probably have get a better efficiency when I would have stirred the grains once or twice.
Also... I could have made a small beer with the second runnings as I stopped sparging a little too soon (although I hit the volume of 20L fermented beer exactly!).
I tried to do a large beer (imperial stout) with my BM20 using double mash.
Sparge with 4,5 l 78 C water.
Anyone has some good advice what to modify to reach higher efficiency?
Last edited by bhe on Thu Mar 13, 2014 1:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
whats the usual SG you get from one of these things? I am about to buy a 50L version but the beer i usually make has an estimated SG of 1.066, will i be able to make this on one of these without having to mess about doing double mashes?
1.058-1.060 is quite normal without adding sugar or DME for a single mash.
but i would be on the upper limits? even for the BM50? does anyone know what the max is without having to dump in extract or double mash?
paddye wrote: but i would be on the upper limits? even for the BM50? does anyone know what the max is without having to dump in extract or double mash?
I made a 1.084 beer with 9.5% candi syrup (so a little less fermentable than sugar) with room to spare!
Look at my post above: you can easily make stronger beers, but you have to add (more) sugar and boil longer (90 min.). You won't get 50l of beer (but max. 40).
And if you choose to go for all grain you control the OG with the boiling time (and lose some volume).
Thanks. I'll give the recipe i posted a go on the bm as soon as it arrives and let you know how it goes.