Clawhammer Supply Electric All-in-One
- Thread starter AGbrewer
- Start date
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2018
- Messages
- 473
- Reaction score
- 358
- Points
- 63
Actually, I use a Spork!
To be honest, I scaled this one down a bit. Normally end up with a 15% to 16% beer.
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2018
- Messages
- 9,457
- Reaction score
- 17,218
- Points
- 113
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2018
- Messages
- 473
- Reaction score
- 358
- Points
- 63
I always bottle. Big beers should be aged in my opinion. Rarely ever make a beer below 10% abv. If I want something lighter, I get it at the store. I have done some Kolsch and Pislners in the past, just never really came out that great and for the amount of time and effort baby sitting them along with the rare occasion that I actually wanted one, just seemed better to purchase from the store. I'm not into IPA's, so the stuff I buy doesn't cost $10 a six pack.
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2018
- Messages
- 473
- Reaction score
- 358
- Points
- 63
Here is the break down after my first brew.
Heat up: From 68 degrees F to 153 degrees F it took about 1 hour. Better than my old system, however there is no time delay...which means that you can't wake up with mash temp ready water. Not a deal breaker, just something you have to take into account. Really surprised that they haven't added that feature yet.
Capacity: Grain Capacity was pretty close to the max at 18 lbs. This isn't because you couldn't fit more, but more because the spray nozzle on the lid was causing quite a bit of foam and I was concerned that it would get cause some grains to fall out of the grain basket and get caught on the element or stuck in the pump or possibly start coming out of the sides of the pot/lid. That may be far fetched, but it was a concern for me personally. Having said that, I also had to occasionally open the lid to spray down the foam. To be honest, if you are willing to go with a smaller water to grain ratio or maybe not use the pump, I'm confident you could probably fit 20 lbs into the system. Be sure to fine crush so that your efficiency doesn't take a hit.
Mash In: Had some dough balls, but the mesh screen made it easy to stir and allow water in so that I could break them up. Really no problems there.
Mash Out: Heated up to 170 in a few minutes. No problem there either. 75% Eff.
Sparge: Had to reserve about 1.5 gallons of water out of the mash and sparge due to capacity limits and fear of not getting good efficiency or volume. Not 100% sure that it was required, but I did it. Ended up pressing the grains down with a pot lid to get about 1 gallon of wort out of the spent grains.
Boil: This took forever. Mainly because I was boiling off 3 gallons, I can't really blame the system too much on that end. Leaving the lid on with a bit of a crack really got a vigorous boil going. This presents a problem when you have that much grain in the system. It ends up foaming and coming out of the pot and all over the sides of your new system....not cool. However, if you don't have that lid covering most of the pot, you won't get a vigorous boil. This is a problem as it seems like you don't really boil off as much when the lid is covering most of the pot opening. However, I could be wrong about that as I haven't done any calculations to see if that is an issue or not. Nor do I claim to be an expert on boil off rates with vs. without a lid partially covering the exhaust point. Long story short, find the sweet spot for coverage and roll with it.
Insulation Jacket: I purposely didn't use the insulation jacket as I wanted to see how it would work without it. Next time I will use it and see how it fairs.
Clean Up: Not really that big of a deal. Anyone who brews knows that you had better enjoy cleaning stuff as you are going to be doing a lot of it. Put about 2 gallons of water and some PBW through the system for 1 hour. Then put clean water through the system for another 10 minutes to clear out any remnants of the cleaner or other particles. One sticking point is the heating element. It was covered in black when I drained the kettle. Figured it was just residue, but nope, it was crusted on. Sitting in PBW at the moment and will likely end up having to scrub with a coarse scotch brite green pad to get it off. Hopefully it doesn't cause any burnt flavors in the beer. Fingers Crossed. Not sure if it is due to the fine crush or that it was at 100% power for the mash and the boil portions. If it is the power issue, then that is my fault. I guess the grain crush would be my fault too. Lesson learned I guess.
Overall: This is a solid system that I would recommend over the Mash & Boil easily. Solid Build overall with some great features. Would like to see the delay start and a more sturdy grain basket, but those are fairly minor complaints on a otherwise awesome system. Add to that the customer service that Emmett and his team provides and you would be crazy to pick pretty much any other system in the $1000 or less range over this one.
Heat up: From 68 degrees F to 153 degrees F it took about 1 hour. Better than my old system, however there is no time delay...which means that you can't wake up with mash temp ready water. Not a deal breaker, just something you have to take into account. Really surprised that they haven't added that feature yet.
Capacity: Grain Capacity was pretty close to the max at 18 lbs. This isn't because you couldn't fit more, but more because the spray nozzle on the lid was causing quite a bit of foam and I was concerned that it would get cause some grains to fall out of the grain basket and get caught on the element or stuck in the pump or possibly start coming out of the sides of the pot/lid. That may be far fetched, but it was a concern for me personally. Having said that, I also had to occasionally open the lid to spray down the foam. To be honest, if you are willing to go with a smaller water to grain ratio or maybe not use the pump, I'm confident you could probably fit 20 lbs into the system. Be sure to fine crush so that your efficiency doesn't take a hit.
Mash In: Had some dough balls, but the mesh screen made it easy to stir and allow water in so that I could break them up. Really no problems there.
Mash Out: Heated up to 170 in a few minutes. No problem there either. 75% Eff.
Sparge: Had to reserve about 1.5 gallons of water out of the mash and sparge due to capacity limits and fear of not getting good efficiency or volume. Not 100% sure that it was required, but I did it. Ended up pressing the grains down with a pot lid to get about 1 gallon of wort out of the spent grains.
Boil: This took forever. Mainly because I was boiling off 3 gallons, I can't really blame the system too much on that end. Leaving the lid on with a bit of a crack really got a vigorous boil going. This presents a problem when you have that much grain in the system. It ends up foaming and coming out of the pot and all over the sides of your new system....not cool. However, if you don't have that lid covering most of the pot, you won't get a vigorous boil. This is a problem as it seems like you don't really boil off as much when the lid is covering most of the pot opening. However, I could be wrong about that as I haven't done any calculations to see if that is an issue or not. Nor do I claim to be an expert on boil off rates with vs. without a lid partially covering the exhaust point. Long story short, find the sweet spot for coverage and roll with it.
Insulation Jacket: I purposely didn't use the insulation jacket as I wanted to see how it would work without it. Next time I will use it and see how it fairs.
Clean Up: Not really that big of a deal. Anyone who brews knows that you had better enjoy cleaning stuff as you are going to be doing a lot of it. Put about 2 gallons of water and some PBW through the system for 1 hour. Then put clean water through the system for another 10 minutes to clear out any remnants of the cleaner or other particles. One sticking point is the heating element. It was covered in black when I drained the kettle. Figured it was just residue, but nope, it was crusted on. Sitting in PBW at the moment and will likely end up having to scrub with a coarse scotch brite green pad to get it off. Hopefully it doesn't cause any burnt flavors in the beer. Fingers Crossed. Not sure if it is due to the fine crush or that it was at 100% power for the mash and the boil portions. If it is the power issue, then that is my fault. I guess the grain crush would be my fault too. Lesson learned I guess.
Overall: This is a solid system that I would recommend over the Mash & Boil easily. Solid Build overall with some great features. Would like to see the delay start and a more sturdy grain basket, but those are fairly minor complaints on a otherwise awesome system. Add to that the customer service that Emmett and his team provides and you would be crazy to pick pretty much any other system in the $1000 or less range over this one.
Last edited:
Yup I wouldn't mash on 100%
I mash about %40 here on a 3000watt ULWD element. I can leave the mash bag in contact with the element this way and avoids overshooting mash temp to much.
Yeah I love their vlog their system looks solid too.
I'm sure with a few more runs you'll have it down pat.
I mash about %40 here on a 3000watt ULWD element. I can leave the mash bag in contact with the element this way and avoids overshooting mash temp to much.
Yeah I love their vlog their system looks solid too.
I'm sure with a few more runs you'll have it down pat.
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2019
- Messages
- 2,227
- Reaction score
- 5,615
- Points
- 113
Yup, give it it a few more batches and you'll be running it the way you want
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2015
- Messages
- 3,792
- Reaction score
- 7,373
- Points
- 113
Thanks for sharing your impressions on this set up. I really considered it before I settled on the GF. That's to bad it doesn't have a time delay. Not a deal breaker for sure, but man I really do like the feature! Is yours the 120v if I remember correctly? Unfortunately, for us here in the states, that's an inconvenience many of us have to live with. I'm to lazy these days to run a dedicated 220v for brewing. Reminds me to much of being at work lol.
Thanks for the update!
Thanks for the update!
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2018
- Messages
- 473
- Reaction score
- 358
- Points
- 63
So my second go around was much better.
Water and Grains:
Dropped the amount of total grain in the bucket and the total water in the mash. This made it much easier to keep grains from overflowing into the kettle.
Mash:
I didn't set it to 40% because when you do that with the Clawhammer unit, it simply provides 40% power the whole time. It doesn't care what the temperature is, it just keeps supplying 40% power. This caused my mash to creep up in temp, so i switched it back to the temperature controlled option rather than the power % option. Still, no scorching though. My guess is that some grains or something got on the element.
Boil:
Boil took forever again, but that wasn't the systems fault. I had to boil off at least 3 gallons of wort. It's boiloff rate is at about .6 gallons per hour. Insulation Jacket was very helpful in maintaining temp and getting/staying at a vigorous boil.
Scorching:
Scorching was not a problem this time. Not sure if it was because the insulation jacket maintained temp resulting in less on/off for the heating element or because the last time some stuff may have gotten out of the grain basket and onto the element causing scorching. either way, it wasn't a problem.
Overall:
Pretty easy day all in all (albeit long). Just getting used to the system and how it works.
Next Steps:
I've got two more brews scheduled over the next two weeks (Belgian Dubbel & Czech Pils). I'll report back after each brew to give y'all a review on each one.
Water and Grains:
Dropped the amount of total grain in the bucket and the total water in the mash. This made it much easier to keep grains from overflowing into the kettle.
Mash:
I didn't set it to 40% because when you do that with the Clawhammer unit, it simply provides 40% power the whole time. It doesn't care what the temperature is, it just keeps supplying 40% power. This caused my mash to creep up in temp, so i switched it back to the temperature controlled option rather than the power % option. Still, no scorching though. My guess is that some grains or something got on the element.
Boil:
Boil took forever again, but that wasn't the systems fault. I had to boil off at least 3 gallons of wort. It's boiloff rate is at about .6 gallons per hour. Insulation Jacket was very helpful in maintaining temp and getting/staying at a vigorous boil.
Scorching:
Scorching was not a problem this time. Not sure if it was because the insulation jacket maintained temp resulting in less on/off for the heating element or because the last time some stuff may have gotten out of the grain basket and onto the element causing scorching. either way, it wasn't a problem.
Overall:
Pretty easy day all in all (albeit long). Just getting used to the system and how it works.
Next Steps:
I've got two more brews scheduled over the next two weeks (Belgian Dubbel & Czech Pils). I'll report back after each brew to give y'all a review on each one.
See almost nailing it already 
. Yup keep the goods inside the bag man. Especially adjunct laden beers or high wheat content beers you might want to be careful on them.
My wort don't scorch no more now I run an ULWDE but before I had to be careful boiling the beers I mentioned above.
So that's how you get that ultra high gravity boil the bejesus out of the wort condense the gravity cool.
. Yup keep the goods inside the bag man. Especially adjunct laden beers or high wheat content beers you might want to be careful on them.My wort don't scorch no more now I run an ULWDE but before I had to be careful boiling the beers I mentioned above.
So that's how you get that ultra high gravity boil the bejesus out of the wort condense the gravity cool.
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2018
- Messages
- 473
- Reaction score
- 358
- Points
- 63
See almost nailing it already
My wort don't scorch no more now I run an ULWDE but before I had to be careful boiling the beers I mentioned above.
So that's how you get that ultra high gravity boil the bejesus out of the wort condense the gravity cool.
I could probably just add a ton of DME and table sugar, but I'd rather just let the equipment do the work and boil off until I hit the desired OG. Plus, DME and sugar have their own problems you have to deal with. Different flavors with DME, Sugar produces a dryer beer and less mouth feel, etc.
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2018
- Messages
- 473
- Reaction score
- 358
- Points
- 63
*****UPDATE*****
So I ended up doing 3 more brews (Belgian Dubbel/Quad, Czech Pils, and a Hoppy Norwegian). Overall, great experience and a far superior system to the Brewers Edge Mash & Boil w/pump system.
MASH and TEMPERATURES:
Temps were really consistent. Found that I didn't need to overshoot the strike temp, just set it to whatever you want and the recirculation really ensures that it is there within a minute or so. If I set the strike temp to 10 degrees F over my desired mash temp, I found that once I got all the grains into the mash tun, it was just a couple degrees below the Strike temp target (in other words, it's really good at maintaining temp). Really like the spray nozzle configuration, seems to more evenly distribute the wort over the grain bed during recirculation.
When the pump is on and you are mashing, you need to sometimes check on it as the foam will creep up and cause a few grains to potentially sneak out of the grain basket and into the boil kettle. I suspect that this can be mitigated by finding the sweet spot for flow rate with the pump, I just haven't quite got there yet. As such, I have to check on it every 15 minutes, no big deal though.
Definitely need to do a mash out if you are skipping the sparge process. Reason being is that you need the viscosity of the wort to loosen up in order to get out all you can of the sugars.
Squeeze the bag. Actually, I used a pot lid to press down on the grains in the grain basket to get every last ounce of wort. Really simple and worked great. Didn't need to sparge at all.
BOIL:
My boil off rate is around .4 gallons per hour (Central Texas, USA). Not bad, but not great. Probably should have gone with the 220 version, but didn't have the ability to add the electrical drop to support it.
Also found that the insulation jacket really helps out along with keeping the lid covering about 90% of the kettle opening. Boil is much more vigorous with those 2 additions to the process.
CLEANUP:
Again, this was pretty much a breeze. Only thing to consider is that you have to clean the system in the bath tub our outside with a hose. It's just too large to do in a kitchen sink. However, this system has an advantage over most of the other All-In-One Electric systems as you can actually disassemble the unit and clean the entire thing. Grain Father, Mash & Boil, and Brewzilla don't have that ability as the controls are permanently mounted to the kettle. CHS has the ability to be completely submerged and scrubbed down to easily get all that sticky wort off the outside of the system.
ISSUES/PROBLEMS:
Most of the issues and problems were self inflicted (e.g. boil over, scorching on the element, etc.). However, there was an issue with the grain basket and the plug, but Emmett was Johnny on the spot with getting replacements sent out quickly, so that is a real plus. Every interaction that I had with the company has been positive. They really do bend over backwards to ensure that you are happy and make any issue that you have corrected to your satisfaction. That's worth it's weight in gold in my book.
OVERALL:
Big surprise, I love the system and highly recommend it. Build quality, Customer Service, and Ease of Use just really put it over the top. Add to that the price tag of around $1000, it really is hard to beat. Even if you are just a beginner, this system just makes brewing beer so much easier.
So I ended up doing 3 more brews (Belgian Dubbel/Quad, Czech Pils, and a Hoppy Norwegian). Overall, great experience and a far superior system to the Brewers Edge Mash & Boil w/pump system.
MASH and TEMPERATURES:
Temps were really consistent. Found that I didn't need to overshoot the strike temp, just set it to whatever you want and the recirculation really ensures that it is there within a minute or so. If I set the strike temp to 10 degrees F over my desired mash temp, I found that once I got all the grains into the mash tun, it was just a couple degrees below the Strike temp target (in other words, it's really good at maintaining temp). Really like the spray nozzle configuration, seems to more evenly distribute the wort over the grain bed during recirculation.
When the pump is on and you are mashing, you need to sometimes check on it as the foam will creep up and cause a few grains to potentially sneak out of the grain basket and into the boil kettle. I suspect that this can be mitigated by finding the sweet spot for flow rate with the pump, I just haven't quite got there yet. As such, I have to check on it every 15 minutes, no big deal though.
Definitely need to do a mash out if you are skipping the sparge process. Reason being is that you need the viscosity of the wort to loosen up in order to get out all you can of the sugars.
Squeeze the bag. Actually, I used a pot lid to press down on the grains in the grain basket to get every last ounce of wort. Really simple and worked great. Didn't need to sparge at all.
BOIL:
My boil off rate is around .4 gallons per hour (Central Texas, USA). Not bad, but not great. Probably should have gone with the 220 version, but didn't have the ability to add the electrical drop to support it.
Also found that the insulation jacket really helps out along with keeping the lid covering about 90% of the kettle opening. Boil is much more vigorous with those 2 additions to the process.
CLEANUP:
Again, this was pretty much a breeze. Only thing to consider is that you have to clean the system in the bath tub our outside with a hose. It's just too large to do in a kitchen sink. However, this system has an advantage over most of the other All-In-One Electric systems as you can actually disassemble the unit and clean the entire thing. Grain Father, Mash & Boil, and Brewzilla don't have that ability as the controls are permanently mounted to the kettle. CHS has the ability to be completely submerged and scrubbed down to easily get all that sticky wort off the outside of the system.
ISSUES/PROBLEMS:
Most of the issues and problems were self inflicted (e.g. boil over, scorching on the element, etc.). However, there was an issue with the grain basket and the plug, but Emmett was Johnny on the spot with getting replacements sent out quickly, so that is a real plus. Every interaction that I had with the company has been positive. They really do bend over backwards to ensure that you are happy and make any issue that you have corrected to your satisfaction. That's worth it's weight in gold in my book.
OVERALL:
Big surprise, I love the system and highly recommend it. Build quality, Customer Service, and Ease of Use just really put it over the top. Add to that the price tag of around $1000, it really is hard to beat. Even if you are just a beginner, this system just makes brewing beer so much easier.
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2018
- Messages
- 473
- Reaction score
- 358
- Points
- 63
Right on man! Hope you like it. Let us know how your maiden voyage goes.
Be sure to do a test run with just water to make sure you don't have any leaks and that everything works as expected.
