I was reading through this thread thinking he should get a Klarstein Fullhorn so I'm glad to see on scrolling down further that you did.
I've had one a little while and I think it's a great unit. When I first got it out of the box, I thought the build quality was a bit lacking, but I think I was expecting too much and on using it I've come to realise that it does all you need it to.
You've probably worked this out already, but you can do full BIAB brews very successfully with this unit. You need the custom grain bag that Klarstein sells (which is about £20 IIRC) but it's well worth it.
I mash in the bag and then run off the wort into a bucket and batch sparge the grains in the bag in situ. I repeat the process two or three times until I have my desired boil volume. I then remove the bag full of grist and tip the wort back into the Fullhorn for the boil. By doing this you get pretty good efficiency and I've hit my numbers on every brew, bar a high gravity old ale.
Two things to watch based on my experience:
- The inbuilt digital thermometer isn't always accurate so I would always check with a digital probe if you have one. I tend to find the temp at the top during a mash is less than at the bottom and the temp sensor in the Fullhorn is located at the bottom of the vessel. Doing a quick vorlauf with a jug usually evens things up.
- When boiling it's really important to switch off the 900w element just as it's approaching the hot break. If you leave both elements on you will almost certainly get a boil over if the unit is reasonably full.
