Trust the Germans to Overcomplicate

I’m brewing today. I was not satisfied with the last batch of Disaster Management Ale I brewed, so I am replacing it.

Ordinarily, I use a Braumeister 20-liter electric brewing machine, made in Germany. I bought it a year ago, when I went back to brewing. Today I’m doing BIAB, or “Brew In A Bag.”

When I started brewing in 2002, I did it the hard way, like everyone else. I mashed in a big pot. I moved the mash to an Igloo cooler with a screen in the bottom. I poured hot water over the mash to get all the sugar out. I moved the wort back to the pot to boil it. I used so many things, the cleaning was worse than the brewing.

I have no idea how I got the boiled wort into the fermenter. I think I picked up the 40-gallon pot with hot wort in it and poured, hoping for the best. I’m not sure.

When I started brewing again, I thought I’d take the easy way out, so I bought the Braumeister. It has a computer, a pump, and a heater. It does all the mashing and boiling for you, but you still have to lift the wet grain out before the boil, which is a pain.

I figured it had to be the best way, since it was the most expensive. I bought my machine used, but a new one runs $3,000. I paid less than a third of that.

A Braumeister is a stainless pot on legs with a heating element and a pump in it. The element and pump are connected to a computer in the bottom. There is a foot-wide stainless tube you stand up in the machine, in the water, and you dump your grain in it. The pump pushes the water through the grain continuously, and the computer keeps the heat where you want it.

It’s a real pain to wash, and you have to have a 220 circuit. It only works for beers under starting specific gravities of maybe 1.085. You have to play tricks on it to get that high.

I thought it would be great, and it works very well, but it has a lot of parts that have to be removed and washed every time I use it. On top of that, the Speidel company, which makes these machines, has a small presence in the US, and they do a poor job of supplying parts.

To brew in a bag, you need…a bag. You get a nylon bag that fits the inside of your pot. You put the bag in, with the mouth fastened to the rim of the pot. You heat water in the pot. You dump the grain in. You control the temperature however you can to mash it, and then you pull the bag out. You put an oven rack on top of the pot. You put the bag on the rack. It sits there and drains the wort back into the pot. You move the rack. You set the bag aside. Then you boil.

It’s a real cinch. That’s what I learned today.

When I was done brewing tonight, the kitchen was less messed up than it is when I make barbecue. Cleaning was quick and simple. I wish I had never fooled with the Braumeister.

Today I brewed Disaster Management Ale. It’s a lot like an IPA in terms of grain, but I use Nugget hops for bittering and Crystal for aroma. My understanding is that this combination is considered classic now, but I was using it 18 years ago.

This stuff should be ready to keg in a week. After that, I may make a stout, to prevent me from running out when the current keg dries up.