Keg King ROBOBREW 35L SINGLE VESSEL BREWERY

[stm]

Seems more stressful, more complicated and more prone to failed mashes than a simple Crown urn and a bag. (And a stick thermometer.)

 

[sparkatron]

So my Robobrew took a dive yesterday.

I was doing the boil and it had been going for about 10 minutes, sitting at 102c and then suddenly started dropping. I was getting a little concerned as it was a fairly warm day (26c here in Melbs).

98c - I move it from out of the shade and into the sun.

96c - I grab my homemade heat jacket and throw it around it.

93c - I'm fairly certain I need to panic now.

90c - I call my mate who lives around the corner and he brings his Jomack urn around. I get it back up to a rolling boil in that and we're back in business.

Saved the brew (thankfully) but yeah, I'm quite certain an element died. My best guess is the 500W, since it was dropping fairly slowly. I went to call KegKing, but they would've been closed. I'll try them again tomorrow. I don't know where they stand with warranties. It's almost bang on a year ago that I bought it, so hopefully they won't give me any grief, but I can't find the proof of sale.

I've got a mate who bought one from them, and an element died a few monthslater. They fixed it up - no questions asked. So I'm hoping they're just as responsive for me.

 

[peekaboo_jones]

Ah dang! That's a bugger man... glad you saved the beer, great effort.
They should be OK with it. its early days for them so you'd think they'd help a brother out and keep some good customers

 

[Gigantorus]

Hi All,

Just got my Robobrew this week and plan to use it this weekend. Are there any do's and don'ts I should be aware of before I start using it? Tricks and tips also welcomed.

Also what's the best way to clean thoroughly at the end of the day?

Thanks,

Pete

 

[peekaboo_jones]

Hi Pete,

Congrats on your new purchase.
I'm sure you will have plenty of fun making beer with this!

Which model did you get, with or without pump?

I have v2 (without pump, which I believe there were three versions without pump) and I find the best way to clean after a brew is to:
- rinse out with water
- wipe any Hop or grain debris with a wet sponge or small towel etc
- add about 4L water with regular dish washing liquid and give her a good old cleaning.
- keep in mind that the electronics buttons and switches on the outside aren't waterproof so be careful with that.

During the brew, keep an eye on the mash temp with an additional thermometer of your own, just for info. Gash from the tube doesn't seem to think it's a big issue but others here clearly do believe the robobrew s thermometer is out of accuracy.

***Use a Hop sock or bag *** makes life easy at cleanup and also clearer beer.

I heat sparge water with a camp stove, but may also pre heat my sparge water in the robobrew to say 100 then transfer to another vessel with an old doonah draped over it.

So far I have only no-chilled.

Hope this helps mate.

Cheers
Nick

 

[TonyF]

I do similar to Nick but use PBW for washing out my Robobrew.

I also use a hop sock to try and keep the amount of crap at the bottom to a minimum.

I've just purchased a pump for recirc which I find helps keep the temps a little more consistent. I found the temps at the top of malt pipe could differ by as much as about 6 or so degrees lower than what the Robobrew was reading, but that's hardly surprising considering the thermometer probe is down at the bottom where the elements are.

When chilling at the end I use the immersion chiller. I run tap water to get it down to about 45 and then use a submersible pump inside my esky with ice water that gets recirculated to get it down to pitching temps.

Hope you enjoy your new toy

 

[Gigantorus]

Thanks chaps. Very much appreciated.

Nick, I got the 2017 model without the pump.

Cheers,
Pete

 

[TehCrucible]

RoboBrew's rocked up yesterday. 2x new model with pump. Getting a test run today. Initially I wasn't very impressed but I'm starting to come around. I'll add some further comments when I've had a chance to collect my thoughts, however happy to field any questions in the meantime.

 

[Coldspace]

Looking more like a gf copy now. Malt pipe remove and position looks the same etc.
Good luck with them, I'm sure they will brew good beer

 

[Yob]

anybody done a reiterated in one of these?

 

[LAGERFRENZY]

if you can do it on a GF then there's not much reason why you couldn't do it on the Robo:

https://www.grainfather.com/blog/week-74-reiterated-mashing/?___store=au

 

[TehCrucible]

Looking more like a gf copy now. Malt pipe remove and position looks the same etc.

Yep, the whole malt pipe / re-circulation setup is an exact replica of the GF, which is a good thing I think. Overall I'm pretty happy with them however Keg King clearly has some quality control issues to sort out as well. Here's a few of my notes and musings from today in no particular order:

• Construction and build quality does feel 'cheap' but not necessarily bad. I think its perfectly acceptable for this price point. However...
• One of my malt pipes was missing a foot (the little lug to stand when in sparge setup). Like, not broken off or damaged, just straight up never welded on in the first place. I'll be onto KK on Monday to try and sort that out.
• On the same unit, the LCD panel and button assembly was not screwed in correctly. Didn't hamper usage and easily fixed but still clearly another quality control oversight.
• One of my lid clips was pretty busted up but they're basically useless anyway.
• The volume markings inside the unit are hilariously inaccurate. Seems to be bang on at 30L however is increasingly out in equal gradations until the lowest mark, the 10L which looks to be out roughly 2L. They are however, both exactly the same between the two units, so that's something I guess lol.
• Struggled to hold a consistent, rolling boil, however this one might have been more my fault. I was using it in air conditioning and directly under a ceiling fan. Also seemed to experience the 'surging' I've read about from others using urns with false bottoms, where the water under the false bottom heats and boils but isn't distributed evenly. I'm tempted to try without the false bottom next time however there isn't really any other method for screening the pump input so not sure how that will work.
• Speaking of pump, it's actually pretty good. I was expecting one of those little brown suckers at the price point however it looks like a decent little magnetic drive unit. Not going to set any records for flow rate but handled back pressure ok etc. Looks solid.

Overall, I feel like it was a good buy. It actually stands up really well to the obvious comparisons with the GF and in fact, does somethings better. (Like the added ball valve to drain without using the pump. If you're lucky enough to get a good unit without some of those manufacturing issues, its an absolute bargain IMO.

 

[peteru]

The recirc pipe on the Robobrew seems to go higher than on the Grainfather, which can only be a good thing. They also don't have the stupid ball and spring dirt catcher.

If the recirc pipe can connect to a GF, I might buy one from Keg King to upgrade my Grainfather.

 

[TonyF]

• The volume markings inside the unit are hilariously inaccurate. Seems to be bang on at 30L however is increasingly out in equal gradations until the lowest mark, the 10L which looks to be out roughly 2L. They are however, both exactly the same between the two units, so that's something I guess lol.

Is it possible the markings are for when the malt pipe is in/out i.e. you were reading 2L under and it would be correct with the malt pipe in OR it was 2L over with the malt pipe in and would be right if you took the malt pipe out.

Not sure there is enough mass to put it 2L out, but then again I've never tried checking the volume markings on mine either.

Just a thought.

 

[peteru]

Good theory TonyF, but the largest error would be at the 30L mark. As the water level drops, the amount of water displaced by the malt pipe would be less and less and as a result the absolute error should decrease.

However, the fact that TehCrucible checked is great. I've never bothered checking my Grainfather, but I just might do that next time I'm using it.

 

[TehCrucible]

Yeah that's right. I'd also find it strange that they factored the malt pipe in at all, given that you can't actually see the volume markings when the malt pipe is inserted.

Just realised that I didn't specify that the reading is actually under volume, so after adding a measured 10L of water, the robobrew reads ~12L. If you were to fill to the 12L line, you would actually be 2L short. However your only about 1L short at 20L and as mentioned, accurate at 30L. I'm still working out the best way to account for this in my process, without having to actively think about it too much. Given that most recipes are going to be calling for around 15 - 25L of strike / sparge water, it's probably safe to assume you're roughly a litre short if you use the robobrew markings. Currently I'm using the other unit for heating / pumping sparge water so assume I'm out ~ a litre there as well.

So right now, I've just added 2L to the 'Misc Losses' field in BrewersFriend to ensure BF adds an extra two 'phantom' litres when working out water requirements. That way, in theory, I can use the guides through the process, but still end up with the right amount of beer in the fermentor. I'm going to give that a test run today and see how it goes.

Some other numbers if your using BeerSmith or BrewersFriend etc:

• I increased the mash thickness to 3.5 L/kg to try and account for the few litres of dead space underneath the malt pipe.
• Dead space when draining the unit from the pump was around 1.25 L
• Default boil off rate of 3 L/hr seemed pretty accurate, I didn't have a great boil though so I'll be testing this again today.
• I used a grain crush of 0.039, to 81% mash efficiency, however sparging took nearly an hour and needed a stir at one point. I'm going to try a coarser crush today.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Looking more like a gf copy now. Malt pipe remove and position looks the same etc.
Good luck with them, I'm sure they will brew good beer

They could all be coming out of the same stable, I have ordered the Guten which is similar again but at the bottom of the pic in small letters www.waterurn.net which led to this company Zhongshan Hongxi Industry Limited, which besides making their own range of goods are a contract manufacturer.

 

[peteru]

I used a grain crush of 0.039, to 81% mash efficiency, however sparging took nearly an hour and needed a stir at one point. I'm going to try a coarser crush today.

The mash/sparge physics are going to be the same as on Grainfather. My experience there was that the crush made less of a difference than how I work the mash. First, don't stir the mash too much when you dough-in. Only agitate it enough to wet the grain and avoid dough balls. If you work the mash too hard at this stage, you'll precipitate all the flour and end up with an impenetrable layer of dough. In extreme cases, it'll go all the way to the bottom and the sludge will scorch and cause the element safety to cut out.

Second, when sparging, start adding sparge water immediately and don't allow it to drain dry. I found that once all the water drains from the top, the liquidity of the mash changes and it starts collapsing and compacting. When you top it up again, you either end up stuck or develop channelling. Stuck is actually better, because you usually end up agitating the mash, which will get it going without killing efficiency.

 

[jayahhdee]

They could all be coming out of the same stable, I have ordered the Guten which is similar again but at the bottom of the pic in small letters www.waterurn.net which led to this company Zhongshan Hongxi Industry Limited, which besides making their own range of goods are a contract manufacturer.

I looked at the Guten, tempting for the right price, mind if we ask what you paid delivered and from whom?

 

[wide eyed and legless]

I bought it from Foshan Shunde Guten Kitchen Equipment $498 usd, there are a few on Alibaba all similar and a real cheapy which is the same set up but a hose coming from the tap to a pump, then a hose into the top. Funny thing is why haven't they copied the Braumeister, some one copied the other German machine I think it was called the Brau Owl.