Keg King ROBOBREW 35L SINGLE VESSEL BREWERY

[Stu Brew]

Its decent. I was just wondering if people have had trouble in low air temps before? I can set it to 140 and it wont show hotter than 100 well hasnt so far with no insulation and ambient temps below 18degrees.

 

[cliffo]

At 400m above sea level the boiling point of water is about 98.5 degrees.

That boil looks fine to me.

 

[Exile]

Doing a brew now
Mine doesn't start to boil till 103°


Accurate Altimeter app

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.arlabsmobile.altimeter&hl=en

boil

 

[Stu Brew]

At 400m above sea level the boiling point of water is about 98.5 degrees.

That boil looks fine to me.

Ah-ha......yeah didnt think of that hey.....thanks mate. 100 should be fine they

 

[Stu Brew]

Doing a brew now
Mine doesn't start to boil till 103°


Accurate Altimeter app

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.arlabsmobile.altimeter&hl=en

boil

Accurate Altimeter.png

392m mate cheers!!

 

[Exile]

Anyone have problems with surface rust on the lid?



A mate of mine recommended this stuff to me http://www.ibrew.com.au/products/innogel-b450-organic-cleaning-product-for-stainless-steel

1 hour after applying it



Highly recommend it...... no affiliation blah blah blah

 

[Adr_0]

So a mate has asked about Grainfather vs Robobrew. RB has caught his eye due to the lower price, but he's going in with a mate so it might not be that big an issue.

Sounds like there are a couple of niggling issues, and maybe a couple of small mods required to get the best out of it. For somebody new to brewing, are people thinking the Robobrew is solid or would people go with the Grainfather? Apologies if this isn't the appropriate place to ask the question...

 

[AJS2154]

Anyone have problems with surface rust on the lid?

rust.jpg

A mate of mine recommended this stuff to me http://www.ibrew.com.au/products/innogel-b450-organic-cleaning-product-for-stainless-steel

1 hour after applying it

no rust.jpg

Highly recommend it...... no affiliation blah blah blah

Hey Exile,

I am a bit of a cleaning nazi......OCD issues. Anyhow, when I finish a brew day I clean everything thoroughly, and all my stainless steel gear gets a going over with my all time favourite product; Barman's Friend. It is designed specifically for stainless. A largish container costs maybe $8-10 and it lasts forever. Make everything moist and use a soft cloth to rub the powder onto surfaces. I will bet when you use that stuff any issues with surface rust will be prevented.

See you, Anthony

 

[Dinham]

I bought mine as a second from KK. It had some rust in the inside of the lid. I soaked it overnight in PBW and then it scrubbed right off.

 

[quadbox]

I've just bought one and recirc pump/camlocks, after much procrastination. Be nice to be brewing allgrain again in this shoebox of an apartment

Out of interest what's the outside dimensions of the immersion chiller tubing? I'll see if I can find a compression fitting for it so I can camlock that too

 

[jayahhdee]

I bought mine as a second from KK. It had some rust in the inside of the lid. I soaked it overnight in PBW and then it scrubbed right off.

Ohh thats interesting, mind if I ask how much KK charged for a 2nd? Also any idea if they have more?

 

[quadbox]

Mine arrived this morning, just recircing some hot sodium perc while I check everything's working . Also plumbed a camlock outlet into an existing water connection under the kitchen sink, with a tap (for filling and chilling). This is a rental apartment, so needed a solution I can take off when we move, without damaging anything. This seems to work fine

https://goo.gl/photos/7LNTnC3bNrcofkxC8

There's a couple of fittings not shown cause I'm waiting for them off ebay, such as the camlock inlet/outlet connections to the chiller (using 12mm to half inch bsp female compression fittings), and camlocks on the outlet tap

 

[quadbox]

Sorted the one thing that was most annoying me today...



Camlocks on the inlets and outlets of the immersion chiller

 

[pat_00]

Just did my first beer big beer in my RB over the weekend.

An imperial stout which was supposed to come out at 1.096 OG, but only hit 1.090.

I had to split the mash as I couldn't fit the 10kg of grain in the malt pipe, I think this is where I lost some efficiency as I could only sparge the second mash. Any tips for beers like this? I see myself making a few really strong beers over winter.

 

[takai]

Sorted the one thing that was most annoying me today...



Camlocks on the inlets and outlets of the immersion chiller

Nice. But why not use hose fittings? Would be easier to connect to water pipes then.

 

[Dinham]

Nice. But why not use hose fittings? Would be easier to connect to water pipes then.

Not to mention a heck of a lot cheaper.

 

[Dinham]

Ohh thats interesting, mind if I ask how much KK charged for a 2nd? Also any idea if they have more?

About $50 off I think. They didn't have any more at the time and I got the impression factory seconds don't come up often.

 

[quadbox]

Nice. But why not use hose fittings? Would be easier to connect to water pipes then.

Already using camlocks for everything else. They're secure, inexpensive, just dont leak, last forever, have bog standard pipe threads, you can visually see they're locked, ...

This setup lets me just rip the camlock silicone hoses off the pump and throw them on the immersion chiller for the boil.

As to connecting to the waterpipe end, I've got a camlock outlet there too, which I also use for filling the robobrew before mashin too

Not to mention a heck of a lot cheaper.

Not really? Those are all ebay parts, think it cost me about $12 a side (EDIT - no my bad, $20 a side) including female barbed camlocks for the hose ends... that's about exactly what garden hose fittings cost alone, and I'd still need a 3/4" bsp or 1" bsp to 12mm compression fitting to get the thread on there

EDIT - The elbows are to stop hose kinks btw if that wasnt clear

 

[Dinham]

$40 for two hose connectors? You and I clearly shop at different hardware stores.

Hose coupling - $2
Hose connector - $2
2x hose clamps - $1.75 ea (something like $0.85 ea if you buy a box of 10)

Max $7.50 per side by my calculations.



I'm not knocking your choices, it just seems like an expensive way to go for me.

 

[quadbox]

Ahh well. To each their own.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

For those that don't have the newer Robo's with volume etchings on the inside, what are you using for water measurements?

I made a crude measuring stick with 1L increments before my first brew but I fear that it may be inaccurate as I ended up with about 1.5L too much wort yesterday and undershot gravity by 11pts. My efficiency numbers from yesterday are included below:


Conversion: 66.4%


Pre-Boil: 84%


Ending Kettle: 64%


Brew House: 54%

As you can see I appear to be getting decent numbers out of my mash, but I can't quite wrap my head around where the extra water would be (too much sparge water, less lost to evaporation in the boil, too much in the mash, less lost to grain absorption etc) and whether that should affect OG.

Expected Volume - 20L
Volume in Fermenter - 21L
Volume left in Kettle - ~4L - note that this is not the volume of dead space as I turned off the tap once I noticed I some trub starting to come out and then noticed I already had 21L in the Fermenter.

I'm using the water calculations below:

Expected Volume - 20L
Dead space - 3.5L
Boil Off - 3.5L
Grain Absorption (1L/kg) - 5.63L

Mash Volume - 20L
Sparge Volume - 12.63L

Lately I have been placing the malt pipe (still with sparged grain in it) in the left over sparge pot while boiling and periodically pouring left over runnings from the grain back into the kettle to help with efficiency. I can see how this will give me a little more wort, but not a drastic undershoot of gravity - if anything it should be improving my efficiency.

It makes sense to me that I could be measuring out too much sparge water. Does that correlate to the numbers above?

Cheers in advance.

 

[JayP]

Hi. New Perth member here. I am also interested to see the response to this Bob. Your expected volumes are consistent with the Gash Slugg Robobrew Water calculations video.

Overall are people happy with their purchase ? How many have ended up adding a pump ?

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Hi. New Perth member here. I am also interested to see the response to this Bob. Your expected volumes are consistent with the Gash Slugg Robobrew Water calculations video.

Overall are people happy with their purchase ? How many have ended up adding a pump ?

I suspect it's my sparge water measurements that are out - just trying to confirm if this would be the absolute reason for missing OG.

I am very happy with the purchase. I have a recirc pump too and given the low cost I believe it is a must have item.

 

[Dredd]

Here is my experience

Prior to initial use I styled a cover from a reflective mat from Daiso and a Yoga mat from Target held in place with luggage and freight straps which held very well. Daiso also sell non-scratch toilet brushes which I find great for cleaning kegs/fermenters etc.

Setup was very straightforward, After cleaning the kit for first use, I heated up 15l of sparge water for later use and proceeded to heat up my mash water.

I measured the dead space and found that there is 1.65l between the base and the spout and started by filling the chamber up to the 20l mark with a strike temp of 71.

Grain addition was straightforward, the temp was reset to 65, but found the temp in the mash was between 63 and 64. I found the mash was quite loose and while it was in the mash stage, I found a few articles showing that while this is not a problem, a longer mash may produce a better result, so I mashed for 1.5 hours. I heated the system up to 75 for the mash out (If anyone can answer - does the grain bed need to get to 75? or just the wort?)

Sparging was straightforward. The pre-heated water was up to 75 degrees after a minute on the stove and sparged up to 27l for the boil.

Another lager article I read recommended a boil time of 90 minutes to reduce Dimethyl Sulfide impacts (beersmith.com/blog/2012/04/10/dimethyl-s...in-home-brewed-beer/) so went for 90 minutes boil with a few grams of Saaz added to minimise boil over.

The boil was straightforward and went with a 50g @60min, 25 @ 30min and the balance in the last 10 minutes. Worfloc added with 20 minutes to go.

The much derided Robobrew immersion chiller did a very good job. I connected this up to my spa which is not in use, so recirculating the water with a submersible pump got the wort down to pitch temp of 15 degrees in about 25-30 minutes, possibly sooner since I broke my probe thermometer during the boil stage.

At the end, I produced about 18l of Wort with an OG of 1.054. Probably higher than I was aiming at, I did consider adding a bit more water to hit 1.048, but decided to suck it and see. The wort tasted great, so it is a promising sign, I went with S23 yeast and activated it during the chill stage. If is already bubbling slowly in the fermenter 12 hours on which is again what I was aiming for.

So my estimate of efficiency is around 67% which isn't bad for a first effort.

So my final takeaways from the Robobrew

- At 1/3 the price of a Grainfather and 1/5 the Braumeister, it is a good toe in the water for those that want to go from extract to mash
- The unit is remarkably small and compact
- The niggles that other have pointed to such as the stand for sparging and the chiller are not as bad as what they make out, I coped with both fine
- The sensor doesn't seem to deal with low range temperatures too well. But I will look in to this later once I have a new probe thermometer.
- Emptying the hop spider made me question the effectiveness of extracting maximum from the hops. The colour was mostly uniform with pockets of lighter and darker colour.

 

[Adam Howard]

Just did my first beer big beer in my RB over the weekend.

An imperial stout which was supposed to come out at 1.096 OG, but only hit 1.090.

I had to split the mash as I couldn't fit the 10kg of grain in the malt pipe, I think this is where I lost some efficiency as I could only sparge the second mash. Any tips for beers like this? I see myself making a few really strong beers over winter.

Perhaps mash as big as you can and goose up with a portion of extract/sugar. People may turn their nose up at the idea but it's endorsed by people like Jamil Zainasheff and Tasty McDole. On a big 1.080+ beer you're not going to notice a 10% addition of extract.

 

[Siborg]

Apologies if its already been mentioned, but has anyone had an issue with kettle caramalisation leading to perceived diacetyl? I've entered my last few batches in a few comps, and they've all been slammed for diacetly, despite me doing a D rest at the end of each fermentation, and going from springling in dry, to rehydrating one packet, to using 2 (rehydrated) packets. All have been fresh packets of US05 bought from my LHBS.

It's been a while, but I think I've been running both elements to get a really vigorous boil, I might turn one off when it starts foaming, but fire them both back up once that calms down. During cleanup, there's usually a bit of wort scorched onto the bottom, but nothing I'd call excessive - maybe 1/5th of the bottom circle covered. I'm thinking that running both elements full blast is contributing a caramel-like flavour, which the judges are perceiving as diacetyl.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Apologies if its already been mentioned, but has anyone had an issue with kettle caramalisation leading to perceived diacetyl? I've entered my last few batches in a few comps, and they've all been slammed for diacetly, despite me doing a D rest at the end of each fermentation, and going from springling in dry, to rehydrating one packet, to using 2 (rehydrated) packets. All have been fresh packets of US05 bought from my LHBS.

It's been a while, but I think I've been running both elements to get a really vigorous boil, I might turn one off when it starts foaming, but fire them both back up once that calms down. During cleanup, there's usually a bit of wort scorched onto the bottom, but nothing I'd call excessive - maybe 1/5th of the bottom circle covered. I'm thinking that running both elements full blast is contributing a caramel-like flavour, which the judges are perceiving as diacetyl.

I've definitely noticed a bit of scorched grain dust on the elements when cleaning up. I can't say I've detected any caramel flavours in my brews though.

Efficiency and water volumes are still taking up the majority of my energy at the moment sadly.

 

[pat_00]

Me neither, my most recent brew was a really dry pale ale which had a bit of crud on the element afterwards.

 

[peekaboo_jones]

Efficiency and water volumes are still taking up the majority of my energy at the moment sadly.

Hi Bob, I've been researching the Robobrew recently and came across this helpful video for water and wort calculations from Gash on YouTube

I believe he's made a decent Beersmith profile for the Robobrew too, might be able to find it on his cellardweller forum?

I'm thinking the Robobrew is the right bit of gear for me to make the switch from kits and bits.
At this stage I'm not interested in a 3 vessel system, also can't spend all day doing a brew.

I was looking into an urn but, meh this one has a nice temp controller for mashing and heating, plus 2 heat elements, chiller and B malt pipe.

Robobrew ticks all the boxes for me!

 

[Ghizo]

Peekaboo_jones
Love my robo brew, brew day is 4.5 hours (using hot water to start).
I usually have 28-29 litres in the boil.
Mash in with 20 l and 13l sparge. Gets around 23 litres in the fermenter.
Lifting the malt pipe and sliding the stand under is a bit of juggle, not difficult but could have been designed better.
I use a hop spider bit wonder if a hop sock would be better, there is no boiling inside the spider, not sure if this is an issue