prah
Member
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2020
- Messages
- 9
- Reaction score
- 1
Greeting to all the amazing homebrewers out there!
I'm in the middle of thinking on how to optimize my brew day, I brew on the kitchen stove and I'm getting tired of the ridiculous amount of times that I need to get the worth to boil and all this stuff.
My most frequent issues are:
I only own 2 vessels: one for mashing with a 15 liter + 5kg grains maximum capacity a and a boiling vessel with a 28 L maximum capacity. To sparge I use multiple vessel each of 3-4L and getting everything to the sparge temperature and repeat the whole process at least 3 times to get a 15-16L sparge takes ages.
I have a worth chiller, but it doesn't suit perfectly the kitchen sink so I have to kind of hold it with my hand to get it going almost properly, and the chilling process takes at least 1 and a half hour.
I think you guys are starting to see what I mean by time wasted, so far I've written of two vessels not of the proper size (and I have to be honest, they're not even INOX, they're cheap), a slow chilling process, and a very old kitchen stove which is barely capable of taking a 25-28L mash to boiling temperature ( it can but it's not so much boiling as you'd expect).
I'm sick and tired of that, but since I started working I gathered some money and I want to upgrade some stuff, and that's where I want your guys opinion:
I've started looking at a proper INOX vessel, and a 35L vessel with tap and thermometer goes for 130 euros here in Italy, plus I would need to substitute the stove, or I'm still stuck with a long heating process, possibly even longer by using a bigger vessel, So I've started looking at a gas burner, on the same website it goes for 30 euros, the gas I need to buy it elsewhere but I heard it goes for 20-30 euros (I don't know if there's a caution to pay as well). So we're already at 180-190 euros, now I could brew in the garden, I could use the chiller without any problem there, not dirtying anything is also a huge plus, I have a shack in the garden that I can use so definitely a huge plus. But still I can warm vessels only one at a time, I could do a no sparge (i think it's called actually batch sparge, please correct me if I'm mistaken) but it would require me to buy a bigger vessel to do a 25L batch at least, so the price would already be at more than 230-250 Euros.
Then I saw this : Maischfest paiolo di ammostamento
It's one of those All in one machines, but it's simpler than an Easy grain, bremonk or similar, that's why it costs significantly less. It comes with almost everything, except for a recirculation pump (How crucial is that? could I recirculate it manually as I'm doing right now with my vessels?) For the same price I would get a more compact solution to all the problems stated above, it could be a bargaign but I don't know much about these automated systems, Can some more expert brewer give me a feedback about those machines? Or maybe if someone owns this one and could give me a feedback it would be lovely.
Should I drop the cheap vessels and go for this system? Or should I slowly one by one replace them all with more expensive vessels?
I know these are a lot of questions and it came out very long but it could be a great starting point for a discussion.
Thank you for your time! Looking forward to see what you guys think!
Sincerely,
Francesco.
I'm in the middle of thinking on how to optimize my brew day, I brew on the kitchen stove and I'm getting tired of the ridiculous amount of times that I need to get the worth to boil and all this stuff.
My most frequent issues are:
I only own 2 vessels: one for mashing with a 15 liter + 5kg grains maximum capacity a and a boiling vessel with a 28 L maximum capacity. To sparge I use multiple vessel each of 3-4L and getting everything to the sparge temperature and repeat the whole process at least 3 times to get a 15-16L sparge takes ages.
I have a worth chiller, but it doesn't suit perfectly the kitchen sink so I have to kind of hold it with my hand to get it going almost properly, and the chilling process takes at least 1 and a half hour.
I think you guys are starting to see what I mean by time wasted, so far I've written of two vessels not of the proper size (and I have to be honest, they're not even INOX, they're cheap), a slow chilling process, and a very old kitchen stove which is barely capable of taking a 25-28L mash to boiling temperature ( it can but it's not so much boiling as you'd expect).
I'm sick and tired of that, but since I started working I gathered some money and I want to upgrade some stuff, and that's where I want your guys opinion:
I've started looking at a proper INOX vessel, and a 35L vessel with tap and thermometer goes for 130 euros here in Italy, plus I would need to substitute the stove, or I'm still stuck with a long heating process, possibly even longer by using a bigger vessel, So I've started looking at a gas burner, on the same website it goes for 30 euros, the gas I need to buy it elsewhere but I heard it goes for 20-30 euros (I don't know if there's a caution to pay as well). So we're already at 180-190 euros, now I could brew in the garden, I could use the chiller without any problem there, not dirtying anything is also a huge plus, I have a shack in the garden that I can use so definitely a huge plus. But still I can warm vessels only one at a time, I could do a no sparge (i think it's called actually batch sparge, please correct me if I'm mistaken) but it would require me to buy a bigger vessel to do a 25L batch at least, so the price would already be at more than 230-250 Euros.
Then I saw this : Maischfest paiolo di ammostamento
It's one of those All in one machines, but it's simpler than an Easy grain, bremonk or similar, that's why it costs significantly less. It comes with almost everything, except for a recirculation pump (How crucial is that? could I recirculate it manually as I'm doing right now with my vessels?) For the same price I would get a more compact solution to all the problems stated above, it could be a bargaign but I don't know much about these automated systems, Can some more expert brewer give me a feedback about those machines? Or maybe if someone owns this one and could give me a feedback it would be lovely.
Should I drop the cheap vessels and go for this system? Or should I slowly one by one replace them all with more expensive vessels?
I know these are a lot of questions and it came out very long but it could be a great starting point for a discussion.
Thank you for your time! Looking forward to see what you guys think!
Sincerely,
Francesco.