How to Brew Buddy?

How to Brew Buddy is a guide to getting more out of our popular Brew Buddy Microbrewing Machines.

How to set up an Equipment Profile for the Brew Buddy Microbrewing Machine on Brewing Software

In this video I use the BrewFather App as my Brew Software. I find this app very easy to use. You can use whichever software you are comfortable with or have experience using.

These are the basic settings require to set up an Equipment profile for the Brew Buddy 40l and 60l Microbrewing Machines. I use these setting when creating recipes with consistant and predictable results.

Brew House Efficiency: 72%

Mash Tun Dead Space: 10l

Trub loss: 2l

Boil off: 3.5l per hour

How to set up a step mash on the Brew Buddy 40l and 60l Micro Brewing Machines

  1. Plug the Brew Buddy machine in and turn the PCB switch on. You should see the temparature being desplayed on the screen. Press ‘Auto’ a display with a number of values will pop up. It is on this screen that we will edit some values and create our first step. You can set 9 stpes, the 9th or last step must be boiling. On the Brew Buddy Machines we can edit 3 values in each step of our mash profile, these being; Time, Temperature and Power. Which ever value is flashing is the value we will be editing with the “+” and “-” buttons.
  2. To edit either Power, Temperature or Time we press either the ‘Power’, ‘Temp’ or ‘Time’ buttons and then use the ‘+’ or ‘-‘ buttons to move to the value we would like to set. Power is set in incriments of 100W. Time is set in 1 minute incriments. Temperature is set in 0.1C incriments.
  3. Once you have set all the values you need for step 1, called RSO1 on the display we press the ‘Auto’, this will move you to the second step. This step will be called RSO2 and each following step will be called RSO”and the next number in the sequence. repeat the instruction at 2 above to create a new step in the mash profile. 
  4. Your last step must be the boil. To set the boil step. Select temp and use the ‘+’ button to raise the temperature to 100C. Once this has been reached the word ‘Boiling’ should appear in the screen. Press ‘time’ and set how long you would like to boil for. Press ‘Auto’ and Hop1 should appear use the ‘+’ or ‘-‘ buttons to set the first hop addition. This would be as minutes from the end of the boil, eg 60mins. Press the ‘Timer’ button to move on the second and subsiquent hop addition times and set these as above. 
  5. Once all the setting for your mash profile and hop addiitons have been set press ‘Auto’ and the temperature should be desplayed on the desplay. DO NOT TURN THE MACHINE OFF OR THE PROFILE WILL BE LOST. Press ‘Auto’ again and the profile will be recalled then press ‘Start/Stop’ once you are ready to start heating your water. Only press ‘Start/Stop’ once the machine has  been filled with water. The machine will now start the brew cycle as programed.
  6. When the water has reached machine in temperature, the first temperature you set, the machine will chime continuosly to indicate that you need to Mash in. Add your grains and press ‘Auto’, the timer should start to count down from the time set in your profilr. The machine will chime each time it ends a step and progressed to the next step. 
  7. You last step before boiling the machine will chime again continuously indicating that you must sparge or remove the grains. Again press ‘Auto’ to stop the chiming and the machine will then start heating the wort to boiling will you sparge and the wort drains from the grains.
  8. The machine will chime at each hop addition.
  9. Once the boil is complete the machine will chime and the display will desplay the temperature only, this is great for monitoring the cooling of the wort so do not turn the machine off just yet.