Hello, hobby brewer! Welcome to klarstein's beer world

For passionate hobby brewers: simply make beer

Real beer lovers pay homage to the king with the foam crown because of its freshness, originality and variety. Fortunately for hobby brewers: with the right brewing equipment or a high-quality mash kettle, anyone can make beer. But how do you start and what do you need if you want to make beer yourself?? Find the answers in our guide.

Brewing beer with Klarstein

The anticipation of balmy summer evenings in the park, barbecues with good friends and exuberant festivals increases with every degree. Good things come to those who start the open-air season well prepared, because Klarstein makes the dream of home-brewed beer come true with a hearty plop. On your mark, get set, cheers!

More beer related products

You are a passionate hobby brewer and still have questions on the way to becoming an experienced brewmaster? You can find the most important answers about beer brewing in our FAQ.

Hearty to the home-brewed beer

So that the beer does not go to your head, a proper foundation is essential. How about hearty evergreens like baked potatoes with sour cream, cheese sausage with bacon, or oven-fresh pretzels??

Baked Potatoes

Cheesy bockwurst

Pretzels

Brewing beer: There is Hops!

Sweet guide to brewing beer

Hops and malt are never lost on us. Visit our beer world and let yourself be intoxicated by the golden, amber and mystically dark lakes to the magnificent peaks of the frothy crowns. But not too much, because we should also enjoy beer in moderation – and no, we don’t mean the beer mugs.
Brewing beer is so much more than just a means to an end. Therefore, from the initial idea to the finished sip, there are a number of things to keep in mind – for example, which ingredients are important for brewing beer and in which order they are relevant in the brewing process. But the effort pays off – at the latest when you proudly share your own beer creation with your friends.

Brewing beer with Klarstein

The brewing products

High quality beer accessories:

Knowing how something works is one thing. Tasty results that happily dissolve the time and effort spent into thin air like a refreshing, cool beer in summer, a whole other. We have very good arguments for the optimal realization of your brewing ideas:

Brewing beer: Here’s how

Do you want your beer to taste rather sweet with lots of malt, be Nordic tart, or surprise with a deep dark color?? If you want to brew your own beer, you not only have to use the ingredients correctly, but also vary the type and quantity as well as the brewing temperatures.

Which ingredients belong in the beer?

Brewing beer isn’t rocket science, but with the right planning you can discover far-flung galaxies of pleasure. A successful brewing process is preceded by various decisions: Which recipe do I implement, in which quantities do I want to produce, which beer ingredients do I have to buy for it and which accessories do I need for brewing beer? The basis is always the recipe. Top-fermented beers include all ales and typical Bavarian wheat beer. Pilsner, Helles and Marzen, for example, are among the bottom-fermented lagers. Either way: According to the Purity Law, German beers may only consist of malt, hops, yeast and water.

The variety of recipes is almost limitless. Therefore, it makes sense to buy ingredients for your first beer that are offered in a ready mix. Important: The popularity of beer in Germany is also reflected in typical German regulations, because as a hobby brewer you have to inform the responsible main customs office about your plans. But don’t worry, beer tax only applies if you brew more than 200 liters of beer per calendar year.

Traditional beer production first dissolves the starch from the crushed cereal grains and converts it into sugar – known as mashing. In this process, water and malt are mixed in the mash tun before the residual sugar still in the malt is washed out during lautering and the leached malt (spent grain) is separated from the liquid.

The result is called wort, which you boil for about an hour together with hops in the next step. There are several reasons for this: The hops supplement the malt sugar solution with bitter and aromatic substances with additional flavor notes.

Is there actually beer without hops? Yep. Those who adhere strictly to the Purity Law cannot do without hops or must replace them with alternatives such as herbs – but this enrages the guardians of public morals. If you want to break free from the tight corset of the Purity Law, we can only say: Go for it and tell us about your homebrewed beer without hops.

Fermentation: from bread soup to beer

Ready for the first freestyle brewing? So far, we have only created a cloudy, joyless bread soup, but through fermentation, the yeast conjures up a buoyant beer from it. This is achieved by converting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. It is not for nothing that the well-known saying persists: "The brewer makes the wort, the yeast makes the beer."We hope you brought patience, because the main fermentation takes about five to seven days when brewing beer.

Bottling and secondary fermentation

Before we bottle or keg the young beer in the final step, we have to filter out any remaining trub and yeast particles from the barley juice. During secondary fermentation, the homebrew is then given its well-deserved resting time to mature well, to bind the carbon dioxide to the beer, and to round off everything in terms of taste. We make no secret of the fact that the last act is the greatest test of patience, because the young beer is stored upright at a temperature of one to two degrees for several weeks, so that the yeast can settle out. The beer is clarified and stabilized in the process.

Yes, a lot of heart and soul goes into brewing beer – it’s high time to celebrate with a bottle of cool homebrew, because once you’ve started, you can time the process so that you always have enough of your own products ready to go. In this sense: Cheers!

A taste for beer?

Then we go to the brewing art together in six acts closer to the bottom of the bottle. With our instructions and the Klarstein mash kettle, a practical all-in-one solution for preparing mash, you can brew your own beer with ease.

Brew beer now

Brewing beer yourself – and putting on the foam crown

The art of brewing in six acts

What’s the difference between a bar-brew and a bar-beer?? Right, the former cuts hair and the bar beer we want to replace every now and then with a homebrewed beer. Okay, that one was really flat. Quite different from the royal foam crown when we brew fresh beer ourselves.
But is there even a beer brewing kit for your own home brewery? But of course! With a clear knock and the mash kettles and fermenters from Klarstein, you can brew beer yourself with ease, despite the age-bound nature of the barley juice.

Brew your own beer: Ingredients and accessories

For around 20 liters of homebrew beer

Beer brewing recipe
Water, malt, hops, yeast – quantities according to the recipe
Mash kettle and lauter tun (25-30 liters)
Stewing tank
Trub filter
Pot or bucket (at least 10 liters)
Long-handled wooden spoon
Measuring cup
Thermometer
Scale

Especially the accessories are quite extensive. The good news: If you want to brew your own beer particularly conveniently, you serve yourself a practical and high-quality solution with the mash tun brewing system from Klarstein. This means that four lines disappear from the beer mat at once: the mash tun, lauter tun, trub filter and thermometer, because the system combines all the important elements.

Brewing beer with Klarstein

Mouth mash kettle – a must for hobby brewers

If you want to brew beer at home, you can hardly get around a product like the Mundschenk mash kettle. The complete solution for brewing mash has a sieve insert and grain container to separate the pre-wort from the spent grains without any problems. Transferring the beer into the fermentation vessel is just as easy with the drain tap.

Mashfest fermentation kettle – brewing beer at home

Even amateur brewers who make the beer themselves have the flexibility to make their favorite beverage. Do you like it better light or dark, strong or light?? The Maischfest fermentation kettle turns the pre-wort into delicious beer of your choice – opening several doors into the beer realm at once. "Beer on wine, let it be," they say, but if your appetite flirts with a glass of wine for a change, Klarstein’s fermentation kettle will gladly take that order, too.

Skal beer tapping plant – runs with you

Because a freshly tapped beer simply tastes better than any beer from a bottle or can, there’s no way around having your own beer dispenser – for the party cellar or the next round of barbecues in the garden. And because the eye also drinks, the scale is true to the style of a real countertop system.
You are a passionate hobby brewer and still have questions on the way to becoming an experienced brewmaster? You can find the most important answers about beer brewing in our FAQ.

Brewing beer yourself: Instructions

A toast to excellence

With the Mundschenk you can create almost all beer styles and even brew trendy craft beer yourself. For this to be successful, it is very important that the system is set up correctly. So take your time and familiarize yourself with the device – after all, everything here revolves around relaxed enjoyment.

The advantage of the brewing system is that you don’t have to buy an extensive brewing kit because it acts as a complete solution. Before you do this, however, you should clean the system by filling it with about 20 liters of water and a suitable cleaning agent. Let the mixture circulate at about 60 °C for half an hour. Then rinse the device thoroughly with water.

B(i)ready? Great, then let’s fill a beer kettle together, into which Obelix would have preferred to fall even more than into the magic potion. The following "Brew your own beer" instructions in six artful acts refer to the Mundschenk mash kettle and the Maischfest fermentation kettle.

Mashing

If you want to brew your own beer, first put the strainer insert into the kettle and fill the device with the required amount of water and the corresponding container with the grain. Now the water must be heated to 66 to 68 °C. Program the brewing system with the help of the modern display, sit back and watch the action. In the meantime, let’s explain what mash is: it’s the mixture of malt grist and water. Once the correct temperature is reached, the circulation pump starts and regulates the flow. When the mashing process is finished after about an hour and a half, you have obtained the wort – these are the liquid parts of the mash.

Purification

Lautering is to separate the wort from the solid spent grains and dispense it through the drain cock. You need a big pot or bucket to put under the tap to collect the filtered wort. Here, too, patience is required, which is of course rewarded at the end with delicious self-made beer – the lautering process can take up to 30 minutes.

Boiling

Now the wort boiling process takes place. Heat the device to boiling temperature and add the remaining ingredients – here it depends on the right timing, so we recommend a meticulous study of the recipe. As mentioned: Brewing your own beer is an art! The boiling time can be 60 to 90 minutes, depending on the instructions, and since during this time also the so-called hot trub is created, the steam should always be able to escape from the kettle.

This is how you avoid an unpleasant taste of your beer brewed at home. And that, my friends, is what nobody really wants.

Cooling

When brewing your own beer, time is not money, but gold – and liquid gold at that. Around 15 minutes before the end of the boil, you dip the cooling coil in to sterilize it. At this point, an important note: Please get the hoses and connections for the cooling coil separately in advance, because they are not included in the scope of delivery. After the boiling time, you cool the liquid down to 20 °C with the help of the cooling coil. Temperature reached? Then you can pour the liquid into a fermentation vessel via the drain cock on the front of the kettle. For this we recommend the proven Maischfest fermentation kettle.

Ferment

Now the fun comes into the glass. Yeast transforms bland bread soup into a deliciously palatable beer. Your beer! In order not to make a mistake on the last meters, a quality product like the fermenting kettle from Klarstein is a good choice. Because you should stir or shake the brew very well after adding yeast, which desperately needs oxygen. This works best in a controlled and precisely tempered environment – so no unwanted by-products are produced during fermentation.

Bottling

No, we don’t mean the act of drinking, but the final act of our journey through the art of brewing. After all, we want to enjoy our product consciously. Depending on the style, occasion, and your own drinking habits, decide how you want to go about secondary fermentation of your young beer and how you want to store it. An Imperial IPA can certainly be stored for a few weeks longer than a light Pale Ale. Even with a stout, the tasting line is further back, while a classic pilsner tastes best fresh. The young beer is filled via a hose or an automatic filling tube, which you plug into the drainage tap of the beer container. Run the hose or tube to the bottom of the bottle and fill it carefully. Successful? We congratulate you and toast to your success with a homebrew – wohl bekomms!

Beer varieties: Let it taste!

How is it actually with the beer types? Golden barley juice is the real thing, only craft beers can be orange or amber, and dark beers are only drunk by goths or people with a proper graveyard of pollen? Nonsense with beer sauce!

Did you know that Mollenfriedhof berlinisch jokingly stands for beer belly? Neither do we. Still a lot to learn, we all have – Yoda in a beery tone of voice. Okay, all jokes aside and let’s get into our little beer lore.

Beer abc for the next regulars’ table

Yeast, hops, malt and water – these are the four ingredients from which beer is produced according to the German Purity Law. Nevertheless, not all beers are the same, and the typical characteristics of the different types of beer are based on the many subtleties of beer production.

What types of beer are there?

A general distinction is made in two classes: top-fermented and bottom-fermented beers. Among them are different varieties and countless beer synonyms. With that in mind, before we explain the two levels of fermentation and present typical top-fermented and bottom-fermented beers from Germany, we’ll first present our top five best synonymous word creations:

Hop smoothie – the healthy beer
Foam – Caution, danger of confusion
Barley tea – for relaxation
Glass jacket – seriously?
Maurer sparkling wine – sweet, even if it is tart

Beer types – it’s the yeast that makes the difference!

Top fermented beer – fermenting at room temperature

The decisive factor in beer production is the yeast cultures used in brewing. Top-fermenting yeasts feel most at home at warm temperatures of 15 to 20 °C – then they come to the surface, take a look around, so to speak, and settle on the young beer during fermentation. Many palates find top-fermented beer styles to be more aromatic, full-bodied and fruity in taste.

The best-known top-fermented beer varieties:

Ale
Berliner Weisse
Kolsch
Wheat beer

Alcohol content: from 3 vol.-%
Original wort: 7.5 to 32 degrees Plato
Fermentation: at 18 to 25 °C

Bottom fermented beer – keep a cool head

In bottom-fermented beers, the yeast tends to hide, because this category includes beers where it settles at the bottom of the fermentation vessel during the brewing process. Until about 150 years ago, beer could only be made in winter because bottom-fermenting yeast prefers cold temperatures. It was not until the invention of the refrigeration machine in 1876 that it became possible to produce bottom-fermented beers all year round, which generally have a longer shelf life, a more pronounced original gravity and a higher alcohol content.

The most popular bottom-fermented beers:

Bright
Marzen
Stock
Pilsner

Alcohol content: from 4.5 vol.-%
Original wort: 10 to 12 degrees Plato
Fermentation: at 4 to 9 °C

Beer varieties in Germany

In the culinary sector, Germany also stands for a multifaceted variety of beers. But for some is quite simple: pilsner and nothing else. If you’re a beer gourmet who likes to taste beyond the rim of the glass, you’ll quickly get to know other delicacies as well. We have summarized the most popular beers of the Germans for you.

Popular top-fermented beers

Helle von der Insel is a rather dry, bitter beer with a strong hop aroma and low alcohol content. Not for nothing do some like to call it the "British long drink".

A popular refreshing drink on hot summer days, often with a shot of woodruff or raspberry syrup and stylishly (un)genuine with a straw. But also tastes great on its own.

The straw-blond, highly fermented speciality from Cologne suits every occasion. Restrained in taste and modest in alcohol content, Kolsch is a particularly light type of beer.

The traditional beverage has developed into a lifestyle beer in recent years. Lovers especially appreciate the tangy flavor and the sometimes noticeable banana aroma, which results from a fermentation by-product.

Popular bottom-fermented beers

The all-rounder among the most popular types of beer tastes good to almost everyone and suits almost any situation. The light, clear beer with a slightly sweet, malty taste drinks very well, especially in hot weather, and provides welcome refreshment in the summertime.

Originally brewed in the last month of the cold season, bottom-fermented beer already bears its brewing tradition in its name. The mild "hopping" and sweet character placed the Marzenbier in quite a few favorites list in the last years.

Pilsner beer, or Pilsner for short, is the most popular type of beer in Germany – a true classic, in fact. The full-bodied beer with a light golden color has a hoppy, tart taste and is usually more bitter than other varieties.

Characteristic of the full beer, as the name suggests, is its deep dark color. If you take a sip, you taste the malty charm of roasted notes and immediately look forward to the next and the one after that.

Our top sellers

Hearty beer accompaniment

So that the beer doesn’t go to your head too quickly, a good foundation is essential. How about something light and hearty like a baked potato with sour cream, pure heartiness like a cheesy bockwurst with bacon or a Bavarian snack classic like a pretzel fresh from the oven?

Flammkuchen

Fiery cheeseburger

Potato and bacon bread

How to brew beer?

The ultimate FAQ for hobby brewers

You wonder how you can brew beer? We quench your thirst for knowledge with the most important answers.

How, I am not allowed to brew beer? This would be our indignant reaction, if it were only possible in Germany secretly instead of domestically. Moistly, all citizens of Germany are allowed to brew their own beer. However not the way you want. As typical as the enjoyment of beer is in the local latitudes, so logical are official rules. According to them, you have to inform the responsible main customs office about every bridal activity – but an informal notification is sufficient.

In principle, the maximum quantity is open, but if you brew less than 200 liters of beer per calendar year, there are no tax obligations. If you produce more than the stated amount in a year, you have to file a beer tax return – no joke. The same is true if you want to go from being a home brewer to a hobbyist and sell your home brew. In case of doubt, it is always a good idea to consult the customs office first.

To turn your home into your own brewery, you’ll need some tools or one of Klarstein’s handy brewing systems. In addition, the ingredients permitted by the Purity Law – hops, malt, yeast and water – are important – exact quantities are given in the recipes. Empty bottles are less popular with beer lovers, but they are useful for decanting and secondary fermentation. The most important thing, however, is time, patience and passion, because good cheers take time.

First of all: Would you have thought that beer consists of more than 90% water?? Therefore, quality plays a very important role, so some breweries even use their own wells. The minerals are decisive for the taste: While light beers tend to rely on soft water – i.e. with a lower mineral content – dark products prefer harder water.

This is where opinions differ. While some see mostly the aesthetic benefits and keeping with tradition, others also recognize the functional benefits of copper kettles. The material scores with a very good thermal conductivity and is said to have a positive effect on the taste by releasing copper ions and a negative effect (in the sense of reduction) on molds as well as bacteria.

But natural! And the name doesn’t matter: wheat beer, hefeweizen or wheat beer. The question is rather how you can brew the beer, which is especially popular in summer beer gardens and will certainly cut a refreshing figure on your balcony as well. The recipe is important, because the main difference between wheat beer and, for example, Pilsner is the use of top-fermenting yeast.

An important step in brewing beer is boiling the wort that is created during mashing. Should you recognize white flakes in it: Calm down and continue brewing your beer in peace. This is just protein flocculating during boiling – the process is also known as wort breakage.

Many believe that people have been brewing beer since they started eating grains. Yes, fermented bread dough is probably the reason for the production of today’s beer. However, the high art of brewing beer, which is the closest to the established process, dates back to the Middle Ages. Monks and nuns wanted to create a drink that accompanied their meals tasty. In this sense: thank you very much!

Please do not stress and do not rush, because brewing beer requires time. Mashing, lautering and boiling alone can take up to eight hours. Sounds fair? But that is not all. Hobby brewers really need patience, because the fermentation time in the bottles includes another two to three weeks. No, unfortunately, this is not a spelling mistake.

Water, hops, yeast and malt are the most important ingredients of a beer. If you want to brew particularly creatively, however, you can of course extend the list. To ensure that the taste of your homebrew can keep up with your zeal and patience, you should always use high-quality ingredients. We also recommend that you talk to knowledgeable people before you buy – that works conveniently online these days too.

The diplomatic answer: because tastes differ. In fact, however, there may also be objective reasons. The most common causes are incomplete or incorrect recipe information and too much carbonic acid.

Low carbonation is not negative per se, because some like their beer just so. If you want more sparkle in your own barley juice, the question arises: How does it get into the drink during brewing?? Carbonic acid is produced during fermentation. Just get your products out of the fridge and let them ferment at room temperature for about seven days.

beer lovers love a pronounced head – despite the monarchy at least outside England. If your beer comes across as less than regal, it may be due to an uncleanly rinsed glass that still has a film of grease in it. As a rule, however, the lack of foam is due to insufficient carbon dioxide content.

This is the problem many hobby brewers face in the course of their golden career. No begging and pleading will help here. If the beer is sour, it was unfortunately. In most cases, contamination due to poor hygiene during brewing is to blame.

We can not give a blanket answer to this, as it depends on various factors. But we can always advise to give the beer the necessary rest. A homebrew like this is not a D-train, even if after enough time it takes us easily to the fast lane in terms of taste. As a rule of thumb, fermentation is complete when the measured value remains constant for three days.

Yes, that’s exactly right, because foam is a byproduct of the working yeast. And it’s just as correct when it’s gone after the main fermentation is complete.

The most likely reason is that the outside temperature is too low (below 18 to 22 °C). Simply turn up the heating or otherwise let warm air into the room. The fermentation process is still bitching? Maybe you used too little yeast. In that case, patience is needed, because the fermentation process will then take a few days longer.

Clean equipment, like hops and malt, is essential in brewing beer. Thoroughly clean each accessory with a sanitizer to extend the shelf life of the beer and prevent fungal growth – because we like pilsner better with an "s" in context.

Once your finished beer is in the fridge, it will keep there for up to twelve weeks – provided you’ve worked cleanly. Storage at room temperature shortens the shelf life to about eight weeks.

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