Beginner need advice, Klarstein

[Jla1190]

I just purchased a Klarstein Maischfest 35L brewer and I'm wanting to make a hoppy Ipa with a alc % somewhere around 7-9. I've been looking at forms to get an understanding of what to do/buy and it's overwhelming. Can anyone walk me thru the steps and terminologys?

 

[Jtvann]

For your first beer or two I’d suggest buying an extract kit that has everything you’re looking for. If the kit doesn’t contain the alcohol percentage, you can buy additional extract to bump it up higher. We can help you with the calculations if needed. Here’s a good kit that matches what you’re looking for.


https://www.morebeer.com/products/russian-rivers-pliny-elder-extract-beer-brewing-kit-5-gallons.html

 

[Jla1190]

For your first beer or two I’d suggest buying an extract kit that has everything you’re looking for. If the kit doesn’t contain the alcohol percentage, you can buy additional extract to bump it up higher. We can help you with the calculations if needed. Here’s a good kit that matches what you’re looking for.


https://www.morebeer.com/products/russian-rivers-pliny-elder-extract-beer-brewing-kit-5-gallons.html

Dope, so what's the difference between DME and LME?

 

[Barbarossa]

A good recipe from a bad brewer will make a bad beer. A bad recipe from a good brewer will make a good beer.

Focus on the process before focussing on the recipe. Start simple with a simple recipe and learn to work with your equipment.

 

[Jla1190]

I went ahead and got these, besides bottles is this going to cover everything I need?

 

[Jla1190]

A good recipe from a bad brewer will make a bad beer. A bad recipe from a good brewer will make a good beer.

Focus on the process before focussing on the recipe. Start simple with a simple recipe and learn to work with your equipment.

That's one of my big questions, is there a thread someone could link me to for a step by step process and making an IPA, I looked at IPA recipes but that doesn't explain how to even begin making it.

 

[Barbarossa]

That's one of my big questions, is there a thread someone could link me to for a step by step process and making an IPA, I looked at IPA recipes but that doesn't explain how to even begin making it.

My understanding is that you need to make a good beer first. Then you make a good beer with a shitton of hops at flameout then dry hop some more. If you have no idea what I just said, start with the first sentence. Try a smash. Single malt single hop. Make it good. Then do a fancy version of it.

Also, an IPA requires a special process. It's not for beginner. You can blow 20$ on hops and still have no hop flavor after the conditioning.

 

[Jla1190]

My understanding is that you need to make a good beer first. Then you make a good beer with a shitton of hops at flameout then dry hop some more. If you have no idea what I just said, start with the first sentence. Try a smash. Single malt single hop. Make it good. Then do a fancy version of it.

Also, an IPA requires a special process. It's not for beginner. You can blow 20$ on hops and still have no hop flavor after the conditioning.

Ahh got you, what's a smash?

 

[NGD]

My understanding is that you need to make a good beer first. Then you make a good beer with a shitton of hops at flameout then dry hop some more. If you have no idea what I just said, start with the first sentence. Try a smash. Single malt single hop. Make it good. Then do a fancy version of it.

Not exactly. IPAs tend to have different water profiles, particularly if your brewing all grain. Making a SMaSH is always a good idea, plus its simple.

Also, an IPA requires a special process. It's not for beginner. You can blow 20$ on hops and still have no hop flavor after the conditioning.

Not true, although doing something like NEIPA is more difficult to nail without the right technique and equipment. Making an IPA is fairly simple. Making a great IPA is hard.

Ahh got you, what's a smash?

He stated it already. It stands for Single Malt and Single Hop. Its a simple beer that uses just one type of malt, one type of hops and a yeast of your choosing.

If you want an idea of the parameters for different styles you can check out Explore 75+ Beer Styles | CraftBeer.com to get an overview.

There was a recent discussion on different styles on this thread that may be helpful.

 

[Jtvann]

Dope, so what's the difference between DME and LME?

LME is liquid. It has the consistency of honey.
DME is dry. It will be a powder.

One difference is freshness. LME can go stale faster on a shelf. Not really a concern if you buy from a reputable dealer. Another difference is the amount of variety in flavors.

A kit will come with a recipe. Aside from that the basic process for an extract IPA kit is this.


1- Heat a few gallons of water to a boil. 2 gallons for our example here.

2- Dump in all your extract and mix it.

3- Bring everything to a boil

4- Start a timer for 60 minutes counting down.

5- Add hops according to the recipe and timer. A 60 minute addition goes in at 60 minutes on your timer. So basically as soon as you start the timer you throw in those hops.

6- Continue to add hops whenever the recipe calls for it. 30 minutes hops added when timer is at 30.

7- Timer runs out. Find a way to cool your boil. Either cover it and let it sit, put it in the sink and spray water outside the pot (not inside), or spend money and buy a chiller

8- Dump your pot into the fermenter along with more water. We will say 4 gallons of water here for the example. At this point be very clean. It can get infected easy now that everything has cooled down.

9- When it’s about 65-70 degrees, add yeast. Find a way to maintain a temp around 65 as closely as you can for about 2 weeks or so.

10- Estimating about 7 days after you pitch yeast, throw in more hops. This is called dry hopping.

11- Cover and let everything sit for a total of 2 weeks. Read about hydrometers to be more precise and have a better time frame than generically 2 weeks.

12- Bottle your beer with priming sugar and cap them.

13- Wait 2 more weeks while bottles are kept at room temp.

14- Done.

 

[Birrofilo]

That above, plus a number of little tricks and things that must be known, such as cleaning properly, sanitizing, bottling, taking measures of density to be sure fermentation is over etc.

You should read first a good guide about making beer from hopped kits - or making beer in general - so that you can learn all activities such as cleaning, sanitizing and managing fermentation and bottling.

When all that is well settled, you can begin trying the Extract + Grain (E+G techinique) which normally requires hopping and boiling and finally the "all grain" technique.

Palmers' "How to Brew" is a very good source of information.

 

[Jla1190]

LME is liquid. It has the consistency of honey.
DME is dry. It will be a powder.

One difference is freshness. LME can go stale faster on a shelf. Not really a concern if you buy from a reputable dealer. Another difference is the amount of variety in flavors.

A kit will come with a recipe. Aside from that the basic process for an extract IPA kit is this.


1- Heat a few gallons of water to a boil. 2 gallons for our example here.

2- Dump in all your extract and mix it.

3- Bring everything to a boil

4- Start a timer for 60 minutes counting down.

5- Add hops according to the recipe and timer. A 60 minute addition goes in at 60 minutes on your timer. So basically as soon as you start the timer you throw in those hops.

6- Continue to add hops whenever the recipe calls for it. 30 minutes hops added when timer is at 30.

7- Timer runs out. Find a way to cool your boil. Either cover it and let it sit, put it in the sink and spray water outside the pot (not inside), or spend money and buy a chiller

8- Dump your pot into the fermenter along with more water. We will say 4 gallons of water here for the example. At this point be very clean. It can get infected easy now that everything has cooled down.

9- When it’s about 65-70 degrees, add yeast. Find a way to maintain a temp around 65 as closely as you can for about 2 weeks or so.

10- Estimating about 7 days after you pitch yeast, throw in more hops. This is called dry hopping.

11- Cover and let everything sit for a total of 2 weeks. Read about hydrometers to be more precise and have a better time frame than generically 2 weeks.

12- Bottle your beer with priming sugar and cap them.

13- Wait 2 more weeks while bottles are kept at room temp.

14- Done.

This is exactly what I needed, thank you so much.

 

[Jla1190]

That above, plus a number of little tricks and things that must be known, such as cleaning properly, sanitizing, bottling, taking measures of density to be sure fermentation is over etc.

You should read first a good guide about making beer from hopped kits - or making beer in general - so that you can learn all activities such as cleaning, sanitizing and managing fermentation and bottling.

When all that is well settled, you can begin trying the Extract + Grain (E+G techinique) which normally requires hopping and boiling and finally the "all grain" technique.

Palmers' "How to Brew" is a very good source of information.

Thank you, I'll keep that in mind!

 

[Barbarossa]

Not true, although doing something like NEIPA is more difficult to nail without the right technique and equipment. Making an IPA is fairly simple. Making a great IPA is hard.

I must be mistaken then. It was my understanding that most IPAs needs a special hop schedule along with some dry hopping, which in turn requires closed transfer to not lose the hop flavor.

 

[NGD]

I must be mistaken then. It was my understanding that most IPAs needs a special hop schedule along with some dry hopping, which in turn requires closed transfer to not lose the hop flavor.

Ideally that is what you would want to do to tease out as much flavor and aroma as possible. Technically you can “hit the numbers” and make an IPA.

To make a good IPA you want to have a blend of bittering, aroma and flavoring hops added at various times to express the different values of those hops.

You also want to avoid O2 exposure as much as possible to avoid the beer from getting stale quickly, but as a newbie its next to impossible to do something like a closed transfer with your bottling wand and priming mix. You can still make a decent IPA, you just need to drink it quickly.

 

[Barbarossa]

I did a 5g Belgian white beer with 2 ounces of dry hopped lemondrop, which was tasting like lemonade when I kegged it. One week later I could barely taste the hops. Apparently I'll need to learn how to do the closed transfer properly.

 

[Jla1190]

LME is liquid. It has the consistency of honey.
DME is dry. It will be a powder.

One difference is freshness. LME can go stale faster on a shelf. Not really a concern if you buy from a reputable dealer. Another difference is the amount of variety in flavors.

A kit will come with a recipe. Aside from that the basic process for an extract IPA kit is this.


1- Heat a few gallons of water to a boil. 2 gallons for our example here.

2- Dump in all your extract and mix it.

3- Bring everything to a boil

4- Start a timer for 60 minutes counting down.

5- Add hops according to the recipe and timer. A 60 minute addition goes in at 60 minutes on your timer. So basically as soon as you start the timer you throw in those hops.

6- Continue to add hops whenever the recipe calls for it. 30 minutes hops added when timer is at 30.

7- Timer runs out. Find a way to cool your boil. Either cover it and let it sit, put it in the sink and spray water outside the pot (not inside), or spend money and buy a chiller

8- Dump your pot into the fermenter along with more water. We will say 4 gallons of water here for the example. At this point be very clean. It can get infected easy now that everything has cooled down.

9- When it’s about 65-70 degrees, add yeast. Find a way to maintain a temp around 65 as closely as you can for about 2 weeks or so.

10- Estimating about 7 days after you pitch yeast, throw in more hops. This is called dry hopping.

11- Cover and let everything sit for a total of 2 weeks. Read about hydrometers to be more precise and have a better time frame than generically 2 weeks.

12- Bottle your beer with priming sugar and cap them.

13- Wait 2 more weeks while bottles are kept at room temp.

14- Done.

How could I cool the brew quickly in the electric brewer I bought? I definitely don't want to submerge it in water or ice

 

[Birrofilo]

How could I cool the brew quickly in the electric brewer I bought? I definitely don't want to submerge it in water or ice

There are three methods:

a) An immersion chiller, also known as IC;
b) A counterflow chiller, also known as CFC;
c) A plate heat exchanger;

They are listed in order of increasing cost, increasing efficacy/rapidity, and increasing fuss in keeping them cleaned and sanitized.

You will find a lot of information here and on the internet about the pros and cons of the various solutions.

Cold water and a sink will be necessary (if we exclude some esoteric solutions).

My IC colds my wort from boiling to 24°C in 30 minutes.

 

[OG-wan Kenobi]

How could I cool the brew quickly in the electric brewer I bought? I definitely don't want to submerge it in water or ice

Which wort chiller would you recommend for this brewing system? What is the internal diammeter for the kettle?
Answer:
Even though it's not listed in the discription or pictured, it actually came with a stainless wort chiller. Just the actual chiller itself. No hose or fittings to hook it up. The chiller is also fairly short. It appears to be 25 feet of 3/8 inch stainless pipe. It would not be very efficient for chilling a full 5-… see more

According to reviews it comes with a basic chiller you need to buy the hoses for it

 

[FillWholeWell]

I just purchased a Klarstein Maischfest 35L brewer
Hi, I'm relatively new to Homebrewing too and have the Klarstein Maischfest. I've made six batches of all-grain beer, five really good ones and one bad, which was my fault for being careless with cleaning and pitching out of date yeast.
The Klarstein is great, a bit of a pain when raising the grain basket and sitting it on the ring, but having help with that bit from a mate ,or even spouse, helps a lot.
I recommend...watch "The Ginger Brewers" on YouTube, and you'll see how easy it is to get started. If you want any advice or tricks then drop me a message.
My advice for using the Klarstein is:
Start with a simple all-grain recipe, a 'SMASH' is ideal, as the guys have said. I actually did a wheat beer with Wheat, Pilsen and Munich and Hakkertauer hops,, which easy and great ! Also, use a dry yeast as the easiest pitching experience.
You'll see from the Ginger Brewers, I used a jug to cycle some wort every fifteen minutes through the hour long mash. I used the (clean) jug and a Colander to sparge (I mashed with 4 gallons, sparged with 2 gallons of fresh water, heated up to about 120F with boiled water from an ordinary kettle). I boiled for an hour with the hops in from the start (use a little hop bag for a bit less mess), I then add 1/2 teaspoon of Irish Moss at 15 mins to go until the end of the boil.
I use two small lengths of silicon hose on the ends of the cooling coil, held on with hose clamps onto garden hose fitted with adapters with push on barbs (you can get all of that from Lowes). Coolingnusually takes me about 30 mins, my advice, stir all the time as it really speeds up the cooling.
Pour into a plastic fermenting bucket (definitely get one with a spigot) with plenty of splashing to help oxygenate the cooled wort. Put the lid on, your (StarSan'd) thumb over the airlock hole and shake vigorously for a minute or two. Take inside and when the wort has cooled further to about 70-75F sprinkle in your dry yeast, put the lid on and your (empty) airlock in. Then fill your airlock with some of your StarSan solution. Drink a beer and clean up !
One piece of specific advice on the Klarstein, when you set your temperature for strike-water (your mash temperature) set it 8F higher (typically mash at 152F so set it to 160F) as the grain will lower the temperature when you put it in. Then, set it to 152F for your mash. The Klarstein will let the temperature drop by about 6F and then start heating again, don't worry about that, let it do its thing, the software is averaging the temp at the bottom (where the temp sensor is) and the temp at the top. Also when you cycle a jug of wort every 15mins, this keeps the core temperature at 152ish. I usually set my temp to 216 for the boil after I mash-out and sparge, then once I've removed the grain basket, I stir regularly until I reach the boil. I heat up with the lid on, then take it off when the temp reaches about 200F, watching out for the sudden boil and "hot break" which is when the wort suddenly starts to boil and froth up. Then I leave the lid half on, stirring regularly through my housing boil. You need to have the top basically open for steam to escape as there are undesirable elements being boiled off in the boil phase ! Good luck, enjoy, give me a shout if I can help, Phil.

 

[BongoYodeler]

As a beginner you may want to read through this thread...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...-known-when-you-first-started-brewing.688545/

 

[NSMikeD]

@Jla1190 Update? Did you start your first brew yet?

 

[FillWholeWell]

Hi, I have the Klarstein too, and been using it for a while. Let me know if you want to have a chat about it, terminology or what other equipment to buy.

 

[Grond]

Hi, I have the Klarstein too, and been using it for a while. Let me know if you want to have a chat about it, terminology or what other equipment to buy.

I’ve been thinking about getting one…
THIS ONE actually…any tips?

 

[DuncB]

It's similar to a generation 2 robobrew or a brewzilla 35 without the pump. I'd have a look at the threads about robobrew and brewzilla to get a general idea.

6kg of grain about the upper limit if you want decent efficiency.

The brewers edge mash and boil looks similar to the klarstein but a few dollars less on amazon , other suppliers are available.

I find the pump to recirculate and empty the boiler into the fermenter is useful. I can then have device on a low platform and not have to work with it raised up high enough so the tap will empty into a fermenter.

 

[tomhog]

Hi, I have the Klarstein too, and been using it for a while. Let me know if you want to have a chat about it, terminology or what other equipment to buy.

Hi there, I also have a Klarstein and I am wondering about using the pump to transfer into the fermenter. After chilling the wort if I put a stainless steel tube 18" - 24" into the hole on the bottom for the pump and attached tubing to the end out of the wort long enough to put back into the wort to siphon from the top of the wort down. That way avoiding all the trub in the bottom of the brewer.

 

[DuncB]

I always transfer with the pump.

I use a trubtrapper and that keeps the majority of the break and hops out of the fermenter.

If you could find a way to put a tube into the drain hole and then have a floating dip tube pickup that would be the ultimate.
It's on my to do list but other mods needed first, a magnet based attachement would be ideal as it would self locate then.

 

[Snuffy]

 

[Yorkshire lad]

Jla1190, to cool wort quickly, I have a second Stainless steel 25' coil set in another pot containing Ice water, effectively a pre-chiller. Water from the kitchen faucet passes through that before it goes through the coil in the brew kettle. I just run a trickle through this system and also use a paint stirrer in the wort to keep it moving around. After chilling, I remove the coil in the BK then use the stirrer to whirlpool the trub to the center of the pot so I can drain off a fairly clear brew into the fermenter.