Recent content by Philthebrewer

I am lucky enough to have both a 35l Brewzilla and a 25l Braumeister and so I can regularly compare the performance. I have to agree with MashBag that the difference is like a modern washing machine compared to a scrubbing board. It is not only the need for stirring makes the Brewzilla a very...

I converted my old garden shredder to a fruit press by simply stripping it down and cleaning thoroughly. It creates a good apple mash. Then bought a cheap hydropress from ebay and can now make hundreds of litres of juice with little cost. The juice can be stored frozen in a big chest freezer...

If you have a mashing kettle which will take a big enough volume I would recommend mashing with as much water as possible. So, I would run the calc backwards and say: 23 litres target + 3 litres boil off (say) + 5.5 litres grain absorption - 6 litres sparging = 25.5 litres mashing water. In...

thanks for the link, Foxy, which sent me down the rabbit hole of citations. It seems that there has been a fair amount of research on DMS. The research seems to be trying to answer the question of how much can you reduce power and still achieve a removal of most of the DMS. The focus is on...

Can't help with oats but I can say that I get better flow in the brewzilla if I use 25l of water to 5kg grain, rather than 20l. I also use a cup of rice hulls in every brew. After about 5 mins I also stir right to the bottom with a giant stainless steel paddle with a flat bottom. Even with...

I respectfully request that we refrain from making value judgements on whether people have "real brewing knowledge" or not. I appreciate the stories of experiences by other brewers and hope they will continue to report them in this forum without judgement.

Science proceeds by hypothesis, experiment and explanation. David Heath and others have hypothesised that 30 minute boils work for modern brews and have claimed to have tested this. 2 months ago I performed a 30 minute boil experiment with two of my standard beers, an APA and a German style...

Foxy made a good point about the mash thickness. I always use the maximum water I can get in (25l in my 35l brewzilla) so that it is a thin mash which recirculates acceptably and has good heat conduction via the water in the mash. You must measure the temp of the mash itself, not rely on the...

On your point of needing to aerate the wort, the latest tests I have seen are that this is not necessary. Fermentis did a long webinar a year or so ago showing the results from temperature and aeration differences and showed that the aeration (or oxygenation) makes no difference to the...

I have also dropped the absorption rate, to match measurements I made on my BM20 and on my Brewzilla 35. Perhaps recirculating mash systems have lower absorption, who knows, but I do know that it fixed my problems. I now hit my volume and OG estimate marks pretty much perfectly every time...

Hi, what is the purpose of using glucanase please?

always use rice hulls, otherwise I end up stirring forever...

I crush to the largest gap which will still crack the grain. This seems to be around 1.1mm . I try to keep my life simple these days and just do a single mash temp, plus mashout at around 78 degrees. I like this guide by Brad Smith: Enzymes in the Mash and Mash Temperatures for Beer Brewing

I mash at whatever temperature the beer needs (68 or more sometimes), but make sure that the pump is running pretty strongly to stop the wort boiling above the element. I don't seem to have any problems with flavours or efficiency, but I do have to keep an eye on the mash and stir it if it...

I made 2 experimental wheat beers this year (small batches). One flavoured with rhubarb, the other with redcurrants. The rhubarb beer was predictably sour and clearly not for usual consumption, although it worked well with lemonade as a shandy. However the redcurrant wheat beer was a success...