HELP! Equipment fail between mash and boil.

[Andyburgs]

Advice needed. I am a Robobrew, no chill brewer.

After mashing in my Robobrew and sparging, I set Robobrew to boil, (both elements on) only to see that the 500w element is the only one going, 1900w element light is off, temperature not going up and no sound of the usual build up to boil.

Didn’t know what to do, so as an attempt to save my pre boiled wort, I split my 30ish litres into 2 20l cubes and topped both up with boiling water and sealed.

My questions are,
Am I wasting my time, will my wort be useless?
My plan was, once robobrew is repaired, to tip cube back into it, bring to boil, add some dry/liquid malt extract and hop as usual and re cube.
Has anyone done anything similar to this and it turned out ok or should I just dump it now and start again?
Any other tips are welcomed.

Cheers. Brewer in distress, Andrew.

 

[Fro-Daddy]

Did any errors come up on the screen?
Are you using an extension cord? Some people have reported problems with cheap ones.
I had a small issue like this, I simply unplugged it, waited about 10 seconds and plugged it back in, was smooth sailing after. I was also using a crappy extension cord.

Not quite the answers to your question, but may as well figure out the problem so it doesn't happen again.

 

[MHB]

You need to get the wort up to boiling point to prevent bacteria getting a foothold.
If you have a decent sized pot, fill it (to a manageable level) bring to the boil, send to cube. Repeat until all is boiled and cubed.
Should keep until you get the Robo fixed, (fingers crossed)
Mark

 

[Andyburgs]

You need to get the wort up to boiling point to prevent bacteria getting a foothold.
If you have a decent sized pot, fill it (to a manageable level) bring to the boil, send to cube. Repeat until all is boiled and cubed.
Should keep until you get the Robo fixed, (fingers crossed)
Mark

So 78 deg wort approx 15l with 5 litres of 100 deg water dumped on top still not enough?
I do have a 15 litre urn I use for sparge water, but would take me 4 goes now I’ve watered it down to 40 litres.
How long do u think I’d have to get it done? It happened about hour and a half ago now

 

[MHB]

Well unless you want to make a Shati - get your finger out!
Ever smelt your expended malt the next day?
Mark

 

[Andyburgs]

Did any errors come up on the screen?
Are you using an extension cord? Some people have reported problems with cheap ones.
I had a small issue like this, I simply unplugged it, waited about 10 seconds and plugged it back in, was smooth sailing after. I was also using a crappy extension cord.

Not quite the answers to your question, but may as well figure out the problem so it doesn't happen again.

Nah mate no errors came up, and yes I tried the unplug and plug it back in trick. Will have a better look tomorrow

 

[Andyburgs]

Well unless you want to make a Shati - get your finger out!
Ever smelt your expended malt the next day?
Mark
View attachment 112779 View attachment 112780

Thanks for the advice mark, these cubes will be getting dumped tonight or tomorrow.
Ah well, first batch I’ve had to dump in a few learn on the run years of all grain brewing, can’t complain too much.
Double brew day next time I guess.

 

[fdsaasdf]

Unboiled berliner weisse anyone? You could chuck some IBS tabs or grain in the cubes and see what happens...

 

[Outback]

I know I'm only new into the Robo scene but i noticed with mine the 1.9 killer wasp switch seems to catch on the clear splash cover, it takes an ambidextrous 200lb gorilla to make sure it really is on a and not just pretending.

Maybe of no help but worth a gander.

 

[Andyburgs]

Well, after some tinkering around after dinner, the robo seems back in action.

The watered down wort in the cubes is still warm, so I’m giving it a crack.
2 batches, first one will be about 1.3 cubes with an amount yet to be determined of dextrose thrown in to boost the abv a bit and hop as per golden ale I was aiming for.

Second will be, 2/3rds of a cube some water to make up volume and a 1.5kg can of unhopped dark malt extract, and maybe some dextrose too, and probably hopped as per my last dark ale.

Hopefully it’s not too late to resurrect these to something that resembles beer.

What do you think Mark? You seem quite well educated, I have read a lot of your posts and learnt a lot.

 

[MHB]

Thanks - Go for it!
Perhaps not an ideal brew day but probably come out fine.
Mark

 

[Wobbly74]

You should be fine...even in the cube the way you had it would have been well over 80C. If it stayed there a while then it's at a decent pasteurisation temp. Lots of people (myself included) drop wort in to cubes at 80C. Yes, yours wasn't boiled, but extended time above 80C should pasteurise.

 

[MHB]

You willing to bet a whole brew on that?
The strain of Lacto on the outside of malt has survived the malting and kilning process, remember that most malts are taken over 100oC during drying (kilning), so we have selected for heat tolerant bacteria.
No surprise really that plenty of the Lacto survives right through Mashing and for even some time in the kettle.
Mark

 

[Andyburgs]

Well that definitely wasn’t the double brew day I had in mind.

I was just guessing and throwing things in a bit willy nilly.
But at 12.30am I ended up with 1 cube of golden coloured wort and one cube of dark, nearly black wort. I’m sure both will lack a depth of flavour and a fair bit of body.(will just have to feed them to the plain beer drinking mates)

Hopefully the time between first cubing and boiling wasn’t too long to cause too much damage.

Time will tell the rest of the story, I will report back in a few weeks with results of the first cube.

Thanks for everyone’s feedback and advice.

Fingers crossed
Andrew

 

[tanked84]

Is the robobrew fixed? How long did it take to get repaired?

 

[Andyburgs]

Is the robobrew fixed? How long did it take to get repaired?

Well after dumping all the wort and pulling it apart to test switches and elements, everything looked fine so put it all back together and tried it again it worked.
So not sure what was going on, to me it points towards the controller not outputting to switch the second element on maybe?
Haven’t looked into it further yet.

 

[Sidney Harbour-Bridge]

Had a similar incident with my robobrew, wouldn't power the big element, display showed E3 which is code for boiled dry, I had burnt crap stuck on the bottom of the urn which must have overheated the element, after I cleaned it everything worked fine.

 

[madscientist]

Had a similar incident with my robobrew, wouldn't power the big element, display showed E3 which is code for boiled dry, I had burnt crap stuck on the bottom of the urn which must have overheated the element, after I cleaned it everything worked fine.

It is concerning that this can happen mid brew....wondering if it would be worth to invest in a heat stick as a backup?

 

[DU99]

for issues like that i have small immersion element just in case

 

[madscientist]

It is concerning that this can happen mid brew.... guess it would be worthwhile to invest in a heat stick as a backup.