Keg King ROBOBREW 35L SINGLE VESSEL BREWERY

[Exile]

I can't help but notice your robot has lid clips is this from keg king or an overseas model? Any changes with the malt pipe?

Its the keg King updated version.
It has litre and gallon markings in the body of the vessel, a hole in the lid for a airlock or a sparging arm.
Unfortunately it hasn't got the malt pipe clips like in the above video

 

[Exile]

I have finished tweaking my Robobrew Beersmith Profile and believe this is close as i'm going to get.
Thanks to Gash from cellardweller.net for his Beersmith Profile that I could start with :beerbang:

View attachment RoboBrew Equipment Profile.bsmx

View attachment RoboBrew Mash Profile.bsmx

 

[blotto]

So I then had 27 litres pre boil and a pre boil gravity of 1.049.

After the 60 minutes boil I ended up with a post boil gravity of 1.054.

Hi Exile,
I could be wrong here but I've been told to not trust the sg readings in a lot of hydrometers as the scales are based on an old flawed BYO article. If you put 14 brix into a few online calculators you'll find its around 1.057 sg. I always use the brix and use an online calculator.

 

[Exile]

Hi Exile,
I could be wrong here but I've been told to not trust the sg readings in a lot of hydrometers as the scales are based on an old flawed BYO article. If you put 14 brix into a few online calculators you'll find its around 1.057 sg. I always use the brix and use an online calculator.

ahh ok, I will have to check it out.

 

[Ghizo]

I have finished tweaking my Robobrew Beersmith Profile and believe this is close as i'm going to get.
Thanks to Gash from cellardweller.net for his Beersmith Profile that I could start with :beerbang:

Been playing a bit with mine as well,
I only have beersmith mobile, can't open this is it possible to get a screen shot of you profile?

 

[Exile]

Been playing a bit with mine as well,
I only have beersmith mobile, can't open this is it possible to get a screen shot of you profile?

here ya go ghizo

 

[Ghizo]

Thanks for that

 

[Ghizo]

Just finished my fourth batch on the robo brew, the more I use it the more I like it, 4 1/2 hours today with a 90 minute boil including cleanup.
And the best part is the beer is good.

Each time I do something different, today no hop spider, I don't think I will ever use it again. I always looked at it on previous brw days noticed can there was little water movement in the hop spider,
After 4 brews I am able to predict where my gravity reading will be, just can't get beersmith to give me those numbers, will try exiles profile above and see how it goes,

 

[VanDrago]

Robobrew set-up with lid closed during mashing.

 

[Dinham]

I did my first Robobrew (and first all grain) batch a couple of weeks ago. I had 2 problems. Firstly the vorlauf and sparge took ages because the grain bed took ages to drain though. The sparge took like 40 minutes to go through (it was still coming through after 40 mins but the flow had slowed quite a lot). This was with a 1.2mm crush from my LHBS. They sell Robos and apparently I was the first robo customer to report this issue with the crush to them. So who knows. Maybe I did something wrong.

Also, I ended up with a heap of hop matter in my fermenter. Heaps. I didn't use a hop or a sock. I did whirlpool but I guess it looks like not enough. I've seen some people saying their Robo has 3.5L of dead space at the bottom. Mine has 1.75L. I have the newer model with the top clips so I assumed that they'd maybe lowered the tap since the first model. I guess this lower amount of deadpsace might increase the importance of getting a really good whirlpool going.

I'm not overly fussed about beer being clear so I didn't worry about it and I kegged it yesterday. Turns out that it's so thick with hop particulate I can't even get it out of the keg. It just instantly clogs.

Not really a great first all grain experience! I thought I was super prepared.

Just FYI for people: the hole in the lid of the new one is not for an airlock. The lid has a vent in it in another spot, so you couldn't use a robo as a fermenter.

 

[Dinham]

Apparently I can't edit my above post. Meant to say: "I didn't use a hop spider or sock".

Just looking at my unit compared to the product photos from Keg King. My unit's tap is about 2cm from the base, where it's a good 4cm or so in the original units. You can see the lower tap in VanDrogo's photo.

I'm wondering if a T shaped bazooka screen might help me out with reducing the hop matter.

 

[honesmo]

I did my first Robobrew (and first all grain) batch a couple of weeks ago. I had 2 problems. Firstly the vorlauf and sparge took ages because the grain bed took ages to drain though. The sparge took like 40 minutes to go through (it was still coming through after 40 mins but the flow had slowed quite a lot). This was with a 1.2mm crush from my LHBS. They sell Robos and apparently I was the first robo customer to report this issue with the crush to them. So who knows. Maybe I did something wrong.

Also, I ended up with a heap of hop matter in my fermenter. Heaps. I didn't use a hop or a sock. I did whirlpool but I guess it looks like not enough. I've seen some people saying their Robo has 3.5L of dead space at the bottom. Mine has 1.75L. I have the newer model with the top clips so I assumed that they'd maybe lowered the tap since the first model. I guess this lower amount of deadpsace might increase the importance of getting a really good whirlpool going.

I'm not overly fussed about beer being clear so I didn't worry about it and I kegged it yesterday. Turns out that it's so thick with hop particulate I can't even get it out of the keg. It just instantly clogs.

Not really a great first all grain experience! I thought I was super prepared.

Just FYI for people: the hole in the lid of the new one is not for an airlock. The lid has a vent in it in another spot, so you couldn't use a robo as a fermenter.

Ill start by saying I'm fairly new to all grain but have the same Robobrew and have had similar issues.

How much grain did you have in there? What temp was your sparge water? I've noticed my sparge slows down in proportion to how much grain I put in there goes at a good rate at around 4.5kg but really slows around 6 so I set it on the way to boil while I wait. I also try not to compact it by sitting too much water on top that speeds it up.

Did you give the whirlpool a good chance to settle then slowly drain it to not disturb the sediment? I've got the same unit and ended up spewing a good inch worth of crap into my fermenter on my second brew but managed to leave most of it behind when moving to the keg.by pouring it off above the sediment.

Don't worry about it all grains a sharp learning curve I learned more in 5+ hours of my first brew then weeks of researching beforehand. Each time goes a bit smoother and the beer gets better.

 

[VanDrago]

Apparently I can't edit my above post. Meant to say: "I didn't use a hop spider or sock".

Just looking at my unit compared to the product photos from Keg King. My unit's tap is about 2cm from the base, where it's a good 4cm or so in the original units. You can see the lower tap in VanDrogo's photo.

I'm wondering if a T shaped bazooka screen might help me out with reducing the hop matter.

I used bazooka screen few times and it gets clogged up. It can be frustrating during wort transfer. Now I use brew bag during hop addition. It's big enough for a proper hop isomerisation.

 

[ctagz]

Are you guys new to all grain or did you come from BIAB? SOunds like youre not setting the grain bed, and just running off your wort thru the tap too fast in generall... Good things take time yaknow

Um so with the vourloauf, go very slow, im talking a Litre/Min for the first few. This get the flour and small grist stuch throughout the grainbed and not all pulled to the bottom.

With your whirpooling I use whirlfloc to clump that sutff together and drop it. Even if you dont have it, Whirlpool with spoon/paddle, then let it sit for 30min to all drop into a cone. Then once again open up the tap slowly so its not dragging the trub (hotbreak/hops) in. I dont have a robobrew, but if the tap has a threaded pipe (1/2" i assume) buy an elbow and point it up, this way it will not suck up the trub, yes you will miss out on a litre or two. If you put it sideways you can make it whirpool with a recirc pump easy peasy. Anyway you can experiment with ideal placement.

Im assuming you dont have a recirc pump (i just got one, its a cool toy and worth the investment)

So now even if you screw up filling your fermenter, rack of the top into your keg, all those hops and break settle in the fermenter. Theres no way enough should've made it into your keg to block it. I have a glass carbouy so i can easily see when activity has finished and time to transfer/bottle. If you have plastic, get one of those "sediment reducer" make sure the slit is pointing up and it will not suck trub off the bottom of the fermenter

Hope some of this helps

 

[Exile]

I have been using the Mangrove Jack's Hop Spider and don't have any problems with hop matter etc going into the fermenter after a whirlpool. http://mangrovejacks.com/products/hop-spider

 

[CmdrRyekr]

Gotta go a bigger vessel mate! 40L is the magic batch size, two kegs and a couple of longies from that - perfect!

 

[CheekyPanda]

Hey,

So I've bought a Robobrew and just did a practise run on getting it up to temp etc.

Planning on doing the 1st brew on Mothers Day so will put an update then.

Going on todays efforts it took approx 40min to get to 73 and then from 70 it took just under 30 min at an air temp of around 20-22.

Are those figures standard?

 

[ctagz]

Those times sound about right.

remember the more water, the more energy it will take to heat up. You can only put in so much energy (2400w? 1900+500?) so more water more time. The more dense the liquid (more sugar, higher SG) the longer it will take as well.

 

[quadbox]

What are people using at the return end when recirculating? just resting the hose on top of the mash, or some sort of sparge arm or dish?

 

[cliffo]

just resting the hose on top of the mash,

This.

Seems to do the job well enough.