Klarstein

[crowcrow]

Rodcx500z has a different one to the one I got (which has a mesh/metal bucket so no need for a bag) - I'll be doing my first brew tomorrow but an old friend has the same one and he loves it, been using it over 3 years now, he has a 3 stage/gas set up before but finds this more usable. But yes this allows you to mash and boil. Only issue is this doesn't go ve yoy somewhere to heat your sparge water, but grain father etc are the same in that sense.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Crowcrow do you do no sparge in yours, if so how big do you go

 

[crowcrow]

Will be my first brew in this tomorrow - I plan on starting with approx 15 litres and then in addition sparging with approx 15litre of water

 

[Rodcx500z]

Good luck and let us know how it goes

 

[Tunabeast]

Rodcx500z has a different one to the one I got (which has a mesh/metal bucket so no need for a bag) - I'll be doing my first brew tomorrow but an old friend has the same one and he loves it, been using it over 3 years now, he has a 3 stage/gas set up before but finds this more usable. But yes this allows you to mash and boil. Only issue is this doesn't go ve yoy somewhere to heat your sparge water, but grain father etc are the same in that sense.

Thanks, i've still got my plastic kettle element boiler which I can use to heat sparge water. Very tempted now!

 

[chrisb8]

I have the klarstein fullhorn 30l kettle and use it to heat my strike and sparge water while using a separate mash tun and then for the boil. I find this works very well for me and can recommend the klarstein kettle from my experience so far (although I can't comment on its use as a mash kettle or for biab)

 

[Mark Nohr]

So what is the largest batch anyone has done with this?
My plan is to only use it for mashing. Once the initial mash is done and I lift the grain basket the wort will be transferred into a 15 gallon boil kettle. Then drain while sparging into the boil kettle. Testing the sparge as I go.

This is the unit I have.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L35H735/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[crowcrow]

In another thread someone suggested 3 litres of water for 1kg of malt. I did 4kg and there was a little under half the space left - I'd guess a 7kg mash might be doable if going very high (if you have the 30litre kettle) but would doubt you could do much more. But yours is a different recirculating system, so not really sure.

Why don't you want to use this to boil?

 

[Rodcx500z]

In another thread someone suggested 3 litres of water for 1kg of malt. I did 4kg and there was a little under half the space left - I'd guess a 7kg mash might be doable if going very high (if you have the 30litre kettle) but would doubt you could do much more. But yours is a different recirculating system, so not really sure.

Why don't you want to use this to boil?

my brew mate calculator quotes 3kg per 1kg grain, I can't get my head round why you would want a fullhorn just for mashing it is very capable of boiling wort

 

[Mark Nohr]

USA Variety is 1800 watts. This barely holds a boil unless the lid is on but cocked.

Reading this article tells me boils should be uncovered.
https://www.winning-homebrew.com/dms-in-beer.html

This lower power (than the European counterpart) means temperature ramping up to a boil is slow (45 mins to an hour).

There is no way to test or see the fly sparged wort to prevent over sparging.

Having a separate Boil Kettle can enable back to back batches on brew day overlapping mashing the second while boiling the 1st - adding a little more than an hour and yielding twice as much beer.

 

[crowcrow]

Nice one, and shame about the lower wattage. I was shocked how fast it got to 65c from 18c and then 65c to boil again was swift. I had to turn it down to 1500w as was over boiling considerably - but then I did have the unit wrapped in a couple of towels, which helped it stay warm surfing the mash - and then put them around the sides surfing the boil. Brew day detail here: https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/my-first-all-grain-brew-day.82646/

 

[Rodcx500z]

Thank you for your explaination Mark, all is clear now

 

[Mark Nohr]

I'm still puzzling through optimizing efficiency and maximizing batch size. I'm a little concerned about maximizing grains and a stuck mash. I've been using 1.3 qt/lb but wonder if that can be stepped down to 1.25 qt/lb or even 1.2 since we have the recirculating pump (I'm talking ales here). The big ah-ha last time was turning the pump on at the tail end of the dough in to bring some of the strike water to the top.

Last brew of Stout just used the Klarstein and was 6.5 gallons using a 1 Gallon glass jug for fermenting the extra gallon with some previously harvested yeast. I plan on continuing this trend of making extra wort for experimenting with different fermentation stage variations.

Sorry for the English units. Our Country never made the switch to the better metric system causing us old guys a brain hemorrhage trying to think otherwise.

 

[PhilBrew]

Hi Mark

So what is the largest batch anyone has done with this?
My plan is to only use it for mashing. Once the initial mash is done and I lift the grain basket the wort will be transferred into a 15 gallon boil kettle. Then drain while sparging into the boil kettle. Testing the sparge as I go.

This is the unit I have.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L35H735/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

... I have the "BrewDevil" branded version of that machine, and as you can see there (link) the agent here in the UK reckons you can get up to 10kg into it as a MAX ... I've not done that myself, but I reckon you probably could at a squeeze ... by my measurements there's 6 litres under the bottom of the grain basket (before any grain dropped in will get wet, even) and then you'd probably be looking at an effective maximum mash thickness of just over 2 litres per kg in the grain basket, just to get all that grain in ... doughing in would be a nightmare, but with another water heater/boiler around, underletting would probably solve that problem for you

Cheers, PhilB

 

[Rodcx500z]

Now you have lost me, I have a lot to learn

 

[Mark Nohr]

Wow. That's either a 5 gallon batch with a really high abv or a 9 gallon 5.25 abv batch when using the external boil kettle (15 Gal with 8 qt/hr boil off rate). Again this is based on a Stout recipe I'm used to making.

And RodCx550z - I hear ya. I keep opening doors to giant rooms of things I never considered.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Mark I have only done one ag brew and it was a bit of a feck up but I made beer, I am going to learn how to this and do it proper I am sick of paying £2-50p to £6-00p a pint depending on were you are + I am retired now so have time to persue this great hobby, I am planning my next brew I am doing no chill at the moment so have to check the weather forcast its looking like weekend,

 

[PhilBrew]

Now you have lost me

... sorry Rod, I guess from the points he was making, I was figuring Mark would understand ... but to be clearer, since this is a general thread about these machines and not just about answering Mark's questions :tinhat: ...

Although people say 3 or 4 lts per kilogram, and that's fine for "standard" 4-5 kg grain bills, in practice there's space at the bottom of the machine under the bottom of the grain basket which you need to consider separately for "extreme" grain bills (whether small or large) ... the instructions for the Grainfather say to use "3.5 + 2.7xkg" in lts for mashing, that's a 2.7 lts/kg mash thickness and 3.5 lts to fill the bottom of the machine ... so if the Klarstein/Ace/Brewcat/BrewDevil has 6 lts space under the grain basket, then "6 + 2.7xkg" might be an OK rule ... which at around 4.75kgs happens to work out as needing the same amount of strike water as the straight 4 lts/kg calculation

And then for REALLY "extreme" grain bills, the calculation might need to drop to something like "6 + 1.7xkg", just to be able to fit it all in ... but getting dry grain to mix into so little water is quite hard ... but then, to save having to stir HUGE grainbills (perhaps many tons in weight) to dough-in, some very large commercial brewers put the dry grain into the dry mash tun, and let the water in slowly from underneath (underletting) ... water slowly seeps into the grain from underneath, the air is forced out to the top, no dough balls, no need to stir

Hope that's clearer now
Cheers, PhilB

 

[Rodcx500z]

Hi Phil yes it is clearer now thanks, at the moment owing to space and storage the biggest brew I can do is 21l, I have 3 fv's 1 pb and 40 bottles and counting so I have to plan my brew days round storage while keeping an eye on my alcohol consumption my next purchase will be a wort chiller then another pb I can't be doing with bottling unless it's something special like my first ag pale ale , I am planning on living until i'm 104 66 now so plenty of time

 

[Tunabeast]

Guys quick question to those of you that are using these:

I understand the temperature probe is located in the bottom of the unit and during mashing the temperature can be a bit inaccurate.

Is it possible to use my Inkbird temperature probe with the Maischfest plugged into it and with power on to control temperature rather than the inbuilt controller?

So basically when you cycle the machine on/off at the mains will the element kick in? Or do you need to initiate the heating element using the programmable display?