Ferment in Robobrew?

[RePete]

I have had a Robobrew V3.1 w/pump for over a year now. Love it, it’s been great. The only issues for me, really, are that it takes a long time to heat the water, and there isn’t a good way to see how much volume I have. There is no sight glass. With the grain pipe in, it’s hard to see how much water is there. So, there is some guesswork. I’ve done enough batches in it now that it usually comes out about right.

I don’t have a sparge water heater. So the process I’ve developed has been to heat a full vessel of water to boiling, and drain off about 5 gallons or so into an old cooler. It’s the one I had previously used as a mash tun. I set that off to the side, and then add some cold water to the remaining water. I heat it to temp, and the proceed to mash. By the time I get ready to sparge, the sparge water temp is about right.

I normally cool the wort after the boil, and then drain the wort into a sanitized fermentation vessel. I have been using a 6 gallon glass carboy. It has occurred to me recently to just ferment in the Robobrew. Everything would be sanitized due to the heat. There is a lid that clamps down, with a hole where I could place the fermentation lock. Is there a reason not to do this, other than that it ties up the unit until fermentation is complete?

 

[lbu1fan]

Reviving this thread since I am actually considering this option with my standard setup. It has a PID that can control the wort temp, setting this to the fermentation temperature and letting it sit is what I am thinking of doing. It would allow you for a fraction of the cost get a temp controlled fermenter. Did you end up doing this? it drains from the bottom right? Only thing I see is that you would deal with sediment racking, but this is normal

 

[RePete]

Reviving this thread since I am actually considering this option with my standard setup. It has a PID that can control the wort temp, setting this to the fermentation temperature and letting it sit is what I am thinking of doing. It would allow you for a fraction of the cost get a temp controlled fermenter. Did you end up doing this? it drains from the bottom right? Only thing I see is that you would deal with sediment racking, but this is normal

No, I have never tried it. Yes, there is a drain valve near the bottom. My concern was getting sediment at the bottom into the pump. But I've since dealt with a clog and am not so worried about that now. They blow out easily enough with an air compressor. Now the main reason is that I've been brewing just about every week, and haven't wanted to tie up the unit.

Let us know how it works?

 

[lbu1fan]

will do, i pinged the company and they are concerned that the element can maintain the temp but if you have it indoors at room temp or around room temp, the element doesnt need to be on that much, operates more like a RIMS setup except its not circulating, just heating from stand still.