Hello!
We are not against any system. All systems have their pros and cons. We are offering an alternative, which allows homebrewers to brew as it is done at industrial level.
The classic mashing has some advantages, which are described on our website and kickstarter campaign page. One of these easy measurable advantages is, that you achieve better yield. The extraction process in a classic mash kettle is more efficient, than when you circulate liquid around the bulk of grains. And this is because in classic mashing all milled malt particles are equally contacting with water and being continuously agitated. In recirculation system there always "preferential channels" in the malt pack and it is difficult to control, how the extract is being taken out from the center of a grain pack. Our first tests has shown that we are around 15-20% more efficient with CompaBrew, meaning, that you need 20% less malt to do the same wort volume at the same Plato.
We claim that if you brew side by side with recirc system and CompaBrew, you`ll spend less malt to achieve same results.
I don't buy this. I can get 85-90+% efficiency on my eHERMS setup. So how is it that this will give me a 15-20% increase in efficiency?
The efficiency numbers I can get are with a 60 min mash with a mashout. In 2-2.5 hours I can do a full mash and sparge. You are saying that in order to get the efficiency you are claiming you need to do a 2-2.5 hour mash before sparging? If this is true, then there is still no advantage to having separate mash and lauter tuns as I can do back to back batches in the same amount of time with a single MLT.
Additionally, the channeling problem you describe above is more of a problem for fly sparging than it is for the mash rest. I don't see how your lauter tun design avoids channeling any better than any other mash tun with a decent false bottom. One could argue that you have a higher risk of channeling by pouring sparge water by hand onto the top of the lauter tun with a tea kettle as opposed to using a sparge arm that gently distributes the sparge water across the entire surface of water above the grain bed.
Most of us homebrewers are trying to find ways to shorten our brew days, not increase them. Adding an extra 1-1.5 hours to the mash/sparging process goes against the grain here.
I also don't exactly follow the process for back to back brews on a stacked system. If I'm done with my first mash and transfer to the lauter tun, I now need to remove the mash tun and place it elsewhere so I can add my sparge water on top of the lauter tun. Now I put the mash tun on the floor, or a table and begin the second mash. Once I'm done with sparging and boiling the first batch, I now need to stack all 3 vessels on top of each other to drain the mash tun and sparge. To do this I need to pick up the mash tun full of hot grain and liquid and set it on top of the other 2 vessels. This is another safety concern that has been overlooked.
As I mentioned earlier there is no HLT shown, so for $3K, you aren't even selling a complete system.
At the end of the day I see this as a gimmick. You are trying to emulate large scale brewing on a homebrew level. The advantages that you claim are not very accurate.
1. It's not a complete system (no HLT or transfer pump).
2. The efficiency is no better than a well designed recirculating mash system.
3. Safety concerns about lifting vessels full of hot liquid.
4. With a 2.5 hour mash, your brew day is longer than it could be.
5. It's expensive for an incomplete system (no HLT or pump included).
In the end of the day, just because the big boys do it doesn't mean it's practical on a homebrew level. In some cases like this one there is no real advantage to doing it like the big boys, only several disadvantages and safety concerns.
