First Robobrew 3L short

[Mac MacFarlane]

Just pick up a robobrew, did my first brew today everything went well other then my calculation must of been off. I used the grainfathers calculator on thier website but I was about 3L short. My OG was high i added 3L to the end to make up the difference. What does everyone use to calculate their water?

 

[rjhoff]

I use Beersmith which has decent profiles for equipment and mash. Are you sparging? For similar grain weight and boil time, I’ve got 5.5 gal mash in, 6.75 gal pre boil, for 5.25 gallon output. I sparge enough water to get 6.75 pre-boil (usually ~2.6 gal). My mash grist ratio is always 1.7 with Beersmith.

 

[Mac MacFarlane]

Yea i heated 3gal and sparged with it.

 

[rjhoff]

How do your volume numbers compare to mine?

 

[Mac MacFarlane]

So you loose about 1.5gal/hr? I think i might to check and make sure the measurements are right on it.

 

[rjhoff]

No, 5.75 gal post boil in the Robobrew, 5.25 gal in the fermenter. So, 1 gal per hour.

 

[RePete]

No, 5.75 gal post boil in the Robobrew, 5.25 gal in the fermenter. So, 1 gal per hour.

Those numbers are close to mine. I probably do initial mash with less, and sparge more, although it depends on the beer. But yeah, I sparge until I get around 6.75 gallons, boil for an hour, and end up with roughly 5.75. That’s about what you need to get 5 gallons into the keg.

 

[Mac MacFarlane]

I was doing 6gal but should still loose about the same, im going to check the measurements on the side and I should be good next time.

 

[rjhoff]

Yeah, I shift volume between mash and sparge all the time. Theres a couple things I do to make sure I hit volume: I set up a sight tube off the dump valve to be sure I sparge to pre boil volume and using the Robobrew pump, tilt the RB to get everything possible Into the fermenter.

 

[Mac MacFarlane]

What are the advantages of changing the amount of water between the two?

 

[rjhoff]

What are the advantages of changing the amount of water between the two?

Mostly I let Beersmith set the volumes but I like big beers and if the grain bill is over 16 lbs I shift some water into the sparge So everything fits.

 

[Mac MacFarlane]

Thanks for the info and help, im going to do another brew on Saturday.

 

[RePete]

I'm generally doing beers with more like a 12lb grain bill. I start out with 4 gallons, and add if I need to. The Robobrew capacity is maybe 16lbs? So it becomes tricky to do bigger beers.

 

[rjhoff]

I'm generally doing beers with more like a 12lb grain bill. I start out with 4 gallons, and add if I need to. The Robobrew capacity is maybe 16lbs? So it becomes tricky to do bigger beers.

I think the most I’ve done is 16.5 lbs. For anything bigger I’m swapping some base malt for DMS.

 

[rjhoff]

Heres what a 16 lb grain bill looks like!