mattyh77
Well-Known Member
So I finally got my Robobrew with in-biult pump and put a brew down yesterday.
Recipe was a SMaSH, using 5.5kg of Maris Otter and Cascade. Wanted 25 L in the cube.
Just thought Id do a step-by-step of what I did, what I found and problems encountered that maybe people could shine some light on. (Some pics included)
Robobrew:
Step 1: Heated 20L of water to use as sparge water. Since I don't have a big enough pot, I used the Robobrew. Transferred it into a 20L Cooler that I picked up from Bunnings for $39. Heated water to 82 deg. It held temp till required (I think it got to about 76 deg after almost 2 hours) Took 40 mins for water to get from 24 deg to 82 deg.
$39 Cooler:
Step 2. I then filled Robobrew back up with 20L of strike water. Set temp to 71 deg for a 66 deg mash in. I found that once I mashed iin, temp only dropped to 69 deg, took another 10 mins to drop to 66 deg. I also had to add an extra 1 liter of water that I got from my sparge water as the grain seemed to need more. I guess it was too sludgy? After the added liter, it was good.
Step 3: Turned on the pump for recirc, and mashed in for 60mins. The valve on the pump only needed to be open about a quarter of the way. Any more it would go through the overfvlow. I know it doesn't matter, but thought its beeter to go straight through the grain bed.
Step 4: After pulling the malt pipe out and letting that drain, found the water level to be around 16l. I then sparged with 12L of water at 76 deg to get the total volume to 28L.
Note: Sparing seemed to take a long time to drain through. Not sure if normal, or need rice hulls to help spread the grain bed out.
Measured pre-boil SG. Expected from Beersmith was 1.047. I got 1.068???? WTF I thought. More on that later.
Step 4: Bought to the boil and added 1st hop additions of 30g Cascade for a 60 min boil.
Step 5: After 40 mins, added the next hop addition for a 20 min boil. Ran out of pellets so used 25g of pellets and 15g of dried flowers.
Step 5: With 15 mins to go added Warlock tablet
Step 6: With 5 mins to go added last hop addition of 50g of dried flowers.
Note, I need o get a hop spider. The robobrew has a false bottom, but some of the flowers seemed to get underneath.
Step 7. After boil finished had 25l of wort. Seemed to have hit my volume target.
Step 8: Measured Post boil SG. Beersmith expected 1.055, I got 1.056. My mind was thinking away as to what was going on with pre and post boil SG. Will discuss later.
Step 9. Tried a bit of a whirlpool, not sure what I was doing. Let it sit for 20min then transferred to a cube. I got a 25 L cube so thought perfect.
After filling, it seemed that only 23 litres went in. So there was a heap of air above the wort on lid. So I tried to squeeze as hard as I could but there was still a heap of air above the wort. So I ten grabbed my CO2 hose, placed it in the opening and started pumping some CO2 into the space, thinking I'd force the O2 out. Not sure how that will wort, but hey see how it goes. Placed the lid on and let cool overnight.
Came out in the morning and the cube had contracted a fair bit, due to cooling and there was bugger all air left above the wort now.
Now I realise I forgot to take the 1.8L dead space below the robobrew, stupid me. I know for next time though.
AS for the pre-boil SG ( I did cool both samples in fridge to 20 deg before taking the readings, I'm not that silly) I realise I didn't stir up the wort after sparging. I think it was really concentrated on the bottom which accounts for the high reading. Next time, stir before boil and take reading. Think I will have to get a refractometer as well, to make it easier.
So today I will place it in the FV and go from there. Do you think this will need 1 or 2 packs of US-05 rehydtrated? Beersmith has it down as 2.
Anyway that was my day doing my first AG brew. Took about 5 hours from start to end cleanup.
Recipe was a SMaSH, using 5.5kg of Maris Otter and Cascade. Wanted 25 L in the cube.
Just thought Id do a step-by-step of what I did, what I found and problems encountered that maybe people could shine some light on. (Some pics included)
Robobrew:
Step 1: Heated 20L of water to use as sparge water. Since I don't have a big enough pot, I used the Robobrew. Transferred it into a 20L Cooler that I picked up from Bunnings for $39. Heated water to 82 deg. It held temp till required (I think it got to about 76 deg after almost 2 hours) Took 40 mins for water to get from 24 deg to 82 deg.
$39 Cooler:
Step 2. I then filled Robobrew back up with 20L of strike water. Set temp to 71 deg for a 66 deg mash in. I found that once I mashed iin, temp only dropped to 69 deg, took another 10 mins to drop to 66 deg. I also had to add an extra 1 liter of water that I got from my sparge water as the grain seemed to need more. I guess it was too sludgy? After the added liter, it was good.
Step 3: Turned on the pump for recirc, and mashed in for 60mins. The valve on the pump only needed to be open about a quarter of the way. Any more it would go through the overfvlow. I know it doesn't matter, but thought its beeter to go straight through the grain bed.
Step 4: After pulling the malt pipe out and letting that drain, found the water level to be around 16l. I then sparged with 12L of water at 76 deg to get the total volume to 28L.
Note: Sparing seemed to take a long time to drain through. Not sure if normal, or need rice hulls to help spread the grain bed out.
Measured pre-boil SG. Expected from Beersmith was 1.047. I got 1.068???? WTF I thought. More on that later.
Step 4: Bought to the boil and added 1st hop additions of 30g Cascade for a 60 min boil.
Step 5: After 40 mins, added the next hop addition for a 20 min boil. Ran out of pellets so used 25g of pellets and 15g of dried flowers.
Step 5: With 15 mins to go added Warlock tablet
Step 6: With 5 mins to go added last hop addition of 50g of dried flowers.
Note, I need o get a hop spider. The robobrew has a false bottom, but some of the flowers seemed to get underneath.
Step 7. After boil finished had 25l of wort. Seemed to have hit my volume target.
Step 8: Measured Post boil SG. Beersmith expected 1.055, I got 1.056. My mind was thinking away as to what was going on with pre and post boil SG. Will discuss later.
Step 9. Tried a bit of a whirlpool, not sure what I was doing. Let it sit for 20min then transferred to a cube. I got a 25 L cube so thought perfect.
After filling, it seemed that only 23 litres went in. So there was a heap of air above the wort on lid. So I tried to squeeze as hard as I could but there was still a heap of air above the wort. So I ten grabbed my CO2 hose, placed it in the opening and started pumping some CO2 into the space, thinking I'd force the O2 out. Not sure how that will wort, but hey see how it goes. Placed the lid on and let cool overnight.
Came out in the morning and the cube had contracted a fair bit, due to cooling and there was bugger all air left above the wort now.
Now I realise I forgot to take the 1.8L dead space below the robobrew, stupid me. I know for next time though.
AS for the pre-boil SG ( I did cool both samples in fridge to 20 deg before taking the readings, I'm not that silly) I realise I didn't stir up the wort after sparging. I think it was really concentrated on the bottom which accounts for the high reading. Next time, stir before boil and take reading. Think I will have to get a refractometer as well, to make it easier.
So today I will place it in the FV and go from there. Do you think this will need 1 or 2 packs of US-05 rehydtrated? Beersmith has it down as 2.
Anyway that was my day doing my first AG brew. Took about 5 hours from start to end cleanup.
