First Klarstein brew - a few questions

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Morning!

Yesterday was my first AG brew using my new Klarstein mash tun. End result is (I think) okay but there were a few problems along the way. Some of which just mean I'll do things differently next time but some I don't have an immediate answer for.

Bit of info on the brew. It was an 23l citra IPA. 23l used for the mash and 7l sparge (calculated by the brewfather app based on the robobrew slightly tweaked to mash water and grain was below the 30l max of theash tun). Sparge was done using 75°c water, just through the basket suspended over the mash tun. Pre-boil gravity was meant to be 1.051 (actual was 1.033). OG actually hit the predicted 1.057 so I'm assuming the volume lost during the boil was much higher than expected. Volume in the fermenting bucket was 20l so 3l short.

Couple of issues I don't have immediate answers for.

1. First is that the grain basket is much narrower than the unit. Because the basket is so narrow, the grain to water ratio in the basket was clearly off. Stirring in the grain was hard and it was like thick porridge during the mash. I'm assuming this is what caused my pre-boil gravity to be so low?
2. Second issue, also with the grain basket (could be linked to the first issue), is that there's very little flow out of the bottom of the basket, maybe due to how thick the grain mix was? This meant that there was very little water movement during the mash. The water outside the basket was still pretty much clear.

Possible solution for the first solution is to find a wider basket that still fits. Anyone know if other baskets are available? Internal diameter of the Klarstein is around 11.5 inches. Alternative is to just use a bag rather than a basket but it would make the sparge harder (or I could do smaller batches and omit the sparge).

Second issue, I think, will be partially fixed with a larger basket but I'm also thinking of getting a pump to recirculate the water. Any suggestions?

Any and all help appreciated!

 

[Slid]

There is quite a lot of discussion on this system in various places on the Forum. In particular, member @Horners posted his Methodology somewhere and I thought it was so useful, I printed it out. Unfortunately I can't find where it is to point you to it directly. It does include "I use 3L of mash water per 1kg of grain."
If you find the thread "Calling All Klarstein Owners" that might be a place to start.

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/calling-all-klarstein-owners.75787/

 

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Thanks, I'll have a read through that thread when I'm on my laptop.

Just checked and I had just under 6kg of grain so 23l of water should have been plenty (unless I weighed it wrong - unlikely but not impossible).

Next planned brew has a lighter grain bill. I'll do plenty of reading before tackling that one.