Keg King ROBOBREW 35L SINGLE VESSEL BREWERY

[Siborg]

Has anyone tried a small batch on the Robo? I'm thinking of doing a 10L batch. The only thing I can think that would hold me back if the immersion chiller might not be submerged in only 10-12L of wort.

Allow for a couple of litres loss to trub in the kettle and fermenter. Try filling it with water to see if it'll be submerged.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Yep. I'm thinking my boil amount will be 15-16L. I've gone ahead and bought the grain/hops anyway so will just wing it on brew day. All the gear is packed away at the moment and I'm too lazy to check.

 

[Siborg]

Put my third brew down on the weekend with this. Made some significant improvements over previous batches:

• I put 6.7Kg of grain in and got 1.064, 1 point lower than the estimated 1.065
• I didn't recirculate the whole time. I only did a slow recirculate whenever the element came on. Lid on the whole time. I'm thinking I might invest in some sort of cheap insulation like a yoga mat or something, especially getting into the colder months here in Melbourne.
• For mash out, I dumped 1.5 litres of boiling water from the kettle in there and heated right up to 77 degrees (I think my last ones only got up to 73-74). I think this really helped with the sparging time (no rice hulls) as the mash was looser and went through much quicker than the last times. It was slowly recirculating during the heat up to mash out temp, then held for 10 minutes.
• I used my grainfather sparge water heater that I got for my birthday. Much easier and safer than climbing a step ladder and pouring multiple pots of 75-77 degree water into the malt pipe!
• This is the biggest improvement: Recirculating after the boil to create a whirlpool. I made sure the wort was spinning in the opposite way to which the water was flowing in the chiller and it reduced my chilling times immensely. I got it down to 25 degrees in under 30 minutes. In fact, I think it dropped to under 50 within 5-10 minutes. The way I did it probably wasn't the best. I just had the output hose from the pump angled in such a way that it created a whirlpool on return to the kettle. Only problem with this is that it slipped out and sprayed near boiling wort all over the garage and my hand - lucky it only got a couple of knuckles on my left hand. I have an idea for this, though. I was thinking I could drill a whole about halfway down, fit a threaded, weldless fitting and attach a right angle elbow to it on the inside and a barb on the outside. This way, I could attach the hose to the barb and it would create a much better whirlpool (mine wasn't that great). Thoughts on doing something like this?
• I was in such a rush to get finished that I forgot to let the whirlpool finish and settle all the gunk to the bottom, so I inadvertently put it all into the fermenter. Lucky I was using a hop sock so not much hops got in, just a lot of break material.
• On the break material, I really want to try a fine mesh screen on top of the grill at the bottom of the malt pipe to prevent anything from falling through. Has anyone tried this or something similar?

All in all, a big step up from previous brews. Looking forward to improving it more.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

I brewed my 10L batch yesterday and I'm happy to report the immersion chiller works quite well at this volume. Even though only the last 3-4 coils of the chiller are submerged, it is just as quick (if not quicker) to chill due to the lower volume.

Obviously it was much quick to get to mash temps and also to boiling temp. The Robobrew can certainly handle mini-batches,

 

[Siborg]

Just found this video online. Appears to be a European version of the robo brew:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY0BWtgv6lM

The interesting thing I noted were the hooks on the malt pipe that automatically release once you lift it out of the main pot. I'd love to have a go at adding something like this to make lifting the malt pipe out easier.

 

[honesmo]

Just bought one of these looks like I should have waited for the next generation with the improved malt pipe.

 

[Andyburgs]

So I managed to do my first brew in this the other weekend. And being that it was my first AG brew ever, wasn't sure what to expect and now have a few questions. Reading this topic and others on here has been great.

So my setup is Robobrew, keg King recirc pump, and grain father 16L urn for spare water, hop spider for boiling hops. And I did an ESB recipe kit for my first brew and decided to no chill.

What size is best for grain miling for the Robo brew?
How much water do you mash with? Including dead space.
How long for and when do u stir mash? Just at start? I stirred at start then waited 10-15min before slow recirculation.
For 0min hop additions, how long do you leave them in for before transferring wort to cube? Considering the hop matter pretty much stays in the hop spider.
How long do you mash for? I did 60min.

I may think of more questions later but if someone can help,out with those would be great. I was aiming for a full strength and will end up with a mid strength but oh well. I ended up having to pour approx 1.6L boiling water into my 22L cube because I couldn't squeeze enough air out of it.

All in all it was an enjoyable brew day and by the taste of a little sample out of the fermenter yesterday (been in 1 week), I'm very impressed by this whole AG thing....can't wait to taste the finished product.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Clevo]

Hi guys, has anyone maxed out one of these with grain yet? Interested to see if they can actually hold the 8-9kg that they claim.
Cheers

 

[Siborg]

So my setup is Robobrew, keg King recirc pump, and grain father 16L urn for spare water, hop spider for boiling hops. And I did an ESB recipe kit for my first brew and decided to no chill.

I have pretty much the same setup except I don't have the hop spider and I have been using the chiller after dozens of brews on my previous system no chilling.

What size is best for grain miling for the Robo brew?

I haven't measured mine, but you want it a bit coarser to avoid slow sparges. Some people have been using rice hulls because they are buying their grain milled from their LHBS and it's too fine.

How much water do you mash with? Including dead space.

I've just been mashing with 14-15L, then sparging until I reach pre-boil volume of 26-27 litres. This leaves me with about 23L at the end and I get 20-21 into the fermenter.

How long for and when do u stir mash? Just at start? I stirred at start then waited 10-15min before slow recirculation.

I just stir at the start, then do slow recirc after 10-15 mins. I generally only run the pump when the heater is running, but if you want a hands-off experience, you could just run it slowly the whole time. I have been thinking about stiring halfway through, but I think this might have an effect on clarity. And if recirc is slow enough, it doesn't compact the grain bed too much and allows it to drain reasonably well. The first time I did this, I think I was recircing too fast and long and it took ages to drain and sparge.

For 0min hop additions, how long do you leave them in for before transferring wort to cube? Considering the hop matter pretty much stays in the hop spider.

When no-chilling, 0 minute hops become 15 minute hops. This is due to the wort being above hop isomerization temperature while it is slowly chilling. The way I used to do my hop additions when I no chilled was take whatever the recipe said, and subtract 15mins. So, 60 min additions become 45min additions, 15 min additions become 0 min additions. Anything that comes out to be a negative number, I used a coffee plunger. Add your addition to a large plunger (mine is a litre), with 500mL boiling water, then wait a minute, plunge and pour (while hot) straight into the fermenter - this is after a few days of fermentation, so that the produced CO2 doesn't take all the hop volatiles with them while they escape the ferment. Depending on the recipe, I'd add a second lot of 500mL boiling water to the plunger, stir, wait 10 minutes, then plunge and add that as well.
If this sounds like a pain (which it could be), it was for me. So I didn't make a lot of brews with late hopping instead. Others have had reasonable amounts of success with cube hopping for late hop aroma and flavour. Going OT here, so ask around for more advice for late hops and no chilling.
Suffice to say, my 0 min additions are added at 0 mins, and my elements are turned off straight away and the water starts running through my chiller which is already in the boilpot which santises it.

How long do you mash for? I did 60min.

Your standard, single infusion mash is fine at 60mins. I through in a mash out at 77 degrees for 10 minutes. Ramp it up to 77, wait 10 mins, then lift your malt pipe out and sparge with 77 deg water. This helps loosen the mash up a little and stops conversion.

Hi guys, has anyone maxed out one of these with grain yet? Interested to see if they can actually hold the 8-9kg that they claim.
Cheers

I put 6.7kg in to get 1.064 on my last batch. Thinking of trying something a little higher, but it's gonna be tight. For bigger grain bills, I was considering doing a simultaneous mash in my GF urn BIAB method. Then I'd just sparge with a couple of litres from a pot on the stove. There should be enough pre-boil volume between the two. Not sure about this yet. I may try a bigger beer in the robobrew alone and see how I go.

 

[Mr B]

Nice post Siborg

Edit: A question, do you know what gravity you get in the mash before you sparge?

 

[Andyburgs]

Cheers siborg, very informative, I'm sure the more brews I do the more confident I will be in what I'm doing.

 

[Siborg]

Nice post Siborg

Edit: A question, do you know what gravity you get in the mash before you sparge?

I have a final total OG estimate. I've hit them in the last two brews +/- 2 points. I probably should work this out, but it's not too much of a concern to me.

 

[Clevo]

I put 6.7kg in to get 1.064 on my last batch. Thinking of trying something a little higher, but it's gonna be tight. For bigger grain bills, I was considering doing a simultaneous mash in my GF urn BIAB method. Then I'd just sparge with a couple of litres from a pot on the stove. There should be enough pre-boil volume between the two. Not sure about this yet. I may try a bigger beer in the robobrew alone and see how I go.

Keen to hear how much you fit in the Robobrew if you try it that way and if the efficiency goes out the window?

Cheers

 

[chaositic]

Hey guys, thought I'd throw up a quick Robobrewday and thoughts after first run with the machine.

Was feeling a bit scottish with my insulation mat today. Mashing was fine, my magnietic drive pump didn't arrive in time so no recirc for the maiden run. Missed my OG by 2 points, still trying to tune my volumes being a brand new bit of kit. I ended up with and extra liter in the FV so thats where my gravity points went so I'm not fussed in the slightest.

Sparge was a bit slow, I had a fair whack of wheat in my grain bill so that may have contributed or I just have no idea how to manage a grain bed coming from BIAB.

Still had the pulley and tie off hook from brew in a bagging so I decided to bypass the fiddly cake rack that it comes with which causes lots of people problems and hang it from the roof.

Boil vigor was better than I predicted with 2.4kw combined elements, nearly had a big boil over even with staying short of the max fill line. The photo below was after it was under control and rolling along nicely.

I tried using the keg king hop spider to keep the hop matter contained but as you can see below it clogged up in about 2 minutes flat and became as still as a swimming pool, so my utilisation will probably be low on this one. Next time they're freeballin and I'll pay more attention to keeping trub and crap out of the FV.

I decided to test the stainless chiller it comes with as I didn't feel like rewinding my copper one to fit the new vessel. It worked quite well, my groundwater was about 29-30 degrees so obviously wasn't going to hit pitching temps this side of the new millenium but got down to ~35 in about bout half an hour, i wasn't running a timer just glancing at my watch when the mood struck.

Clean up was a breeze and from start to finish including cleaning the brewday was about 4.5 hours. I'll be adding a pump and put together a sparge arm or drill a shower head through the lid.

Decent bit of kit for the price. I really really wish I'd seen this earlier in my brewing career before I spent hundreds on giant pots, rolls of copper and chinese elements with plug fittings that don't exist on planet earth anymore.

Anywho if you're leaning toward 1v all grain or want to ditch your mouldy BIAB bag for something shinier, this thing is an easy way to beerify your tap water.

 

[VanDrago]

Anyone had issues with the temp display going blank?

Did another test last night with the pump, all was going well and as I got to mash out temps the blue back light was there but no numbers. I turned it off from the mains and then it was fine....

Have let my LHBS know - hopefully just a one off glitch...

Yeah I had that happening on day one. I had pump connected to the same power board as Robobrew and as soon as I switched the pump off the display went blank. Then I moved pump to a different power socket and the problem disappeared.

 

[VanDrago]

About to put down my third brew over the Aus day long weekend. To date my brewhouse efficiency has been realy poor. Is there a consensus yet as to what size the grains should be crushed? Currently milling at 1.1 mm but plan to increased to 1.25mm. I recirc the wort with a pump and I guess there is a fine balance b/w efficiency and also having a stuck sparge
.

I have tried this Malt conditioning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYnbvPu4m78, seems to be doing a job. Never had a stuck sparge yet.

 

[Ghizo]

Anyone had issues with the temp display going blank?

Did another test last night with the pump, all was going well and as I got to mash out temps the blue back light was there but no numbers. I turned it off from the mains and then it was fine....

Have let my LHBS know - hopefully just a one off glitch...

I have had this happen during cooling, i had my chiller running off water tank, I am pretty sure it was the pump, I plugged the water tank pump into a different power point instead of a power board with the robo grew and seemed to work fine.
But I am watching it

 

[Exile]

First brew with the Robobrew down

The Recipe

My system

Crushed grain and no stuck recirculation

Almost a boil over

After mashing in with 14.60 litres of water, it clearly wasn't enough so I took it up to 20 litres.
Once the mash was done, I then took off the 5 litres I added previously and sparged with 13 litres of water.

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.

I emptied the RoboBrew and had 21 litres in the fermenter without needing to touch the deadspace.

So after the first brew, I slightly need to adjust a couple things.

 

[altone]

used the robobrew to cook some ribs sous vide style today before smoking them in the Weber. turned out wonderful!
This baby just doubled in value!

ImageUploadedByAussie Home Brewer1458371166.038588.jpg


Oh yes! so it's a kitchen appliance.
Maybe i can get this past the wife after all

I was looking at the Grainfather but found this just before I bought one, seems like with a recirc pump it will do just what I want.

My old big AG system has been sitting in storage as I just don't have space in the new home to brew that way.
The smallish brew size on this is no issue for me as it will give me more opportunity to experiment and I don't drink that much anymore.

The Swedish one with clips on the grain pipe is a far better option imo and I might have to modify the Aus one to be similar -
The chiller would end up on Fleabay or in the bin and I'll use my nice plate chiller instead.

Yay! no more cans, back to all grain, thanks to the sous vide unit i'll be buying for the kitchen.
The wife loves MKR and Masterchef.

 

[chaositic]

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?