Robobrew/Brewzilla Discussion

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DuncB said:
Does the 65L have a sight glass ?
I do recirculate slowly as I dough in using the sight glass on the Guten to check that I'm not empty, that way I get more available liquid at the right temp into the mash as quickly as possible. This would mean a less thick mash as your using that unavailable water.
As things settle, grain hydrates then add more water.
I normally aim for 3 litres per kg and find that the grain tends to hold about 1 litre per kg ( but does have volume of course ), I really should measure the volume of dry grain in malt pipe and then see what volume it takes up after mash is complete.
A useful figure to know especially if you check the weight of grain after mashing.
Will get that info next time.
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I put a sight glass on my 65L.

Never thought about recirculating during dough in. I might consider that next time I do a big beer.
 
I do it with the batches for 30 litres as well. Much less effort, just watch that you don't empty the reserve at the bottom and I find that I start off with slow flow and then after 15 minutes or so it's at full flow.
 
FWIW it's fine on the Guten factory fitted but a right pain to clean. I put the recirc tube with another narrower tube that fits inside it into the top of the sight glass and recirc the warm pbw through it and slide the " inner tube up and down a bit as well. Before finding this tactic it was getting browner and browner.
 
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Hi, is there anyone who can provide a picture of wire connection of a Robobrew v3 control board to the thermal cutoff switches and the heating elements? All I found are pictures with the wire bundle (see attachement) but not with single wires from end to end.
Screenshot_20210317-125417_Chrome.jpg
Screenshot_20210317-125523_Chrome.jpg
 
It's what is commercially available. No problems with mine so far. But yeah, it is a little flimsy. So I am careful with it. If it breaks, I'll use the fittings and find a different tube.

I bought more grain yesterday. Have started up the Robobrew with 5 gal of water, now to decide what to make!
 
RePete said:
It's what is commercially available. No problems with mine so far. But yeah, it is a little flimsy. So I am careful with it. If it breaks, I'll use the fittings and find a different tube.

I bought more grain yesterday. Have started up the Robobrew with 5 gal of water, now to decide what to make!
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I’m queuing up a simple IPA with Kviek yeast for tomorrow, first time with Kviek.
 
rjhoff said:
White Labs WLP518 Opshaug Kveik
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I have two packs, not cheap. I’m used to 1/2 cost dry yeast and I hate doing starters. I just bought a load of nutrient. For Kviek, do you add it to the boil or when you pitch the yeast?

I‘m going to control the fermenter temp at 86 degrees As an experiment. If I like the result I may let some beers rip on my back porch this summer!
 
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I've been using the Opshaug, half a packet absolutely fine for 8 gallons or so.

After my first use of it I dried the yeast out as per David Heath instructions in the second half of this video

and froze it in freezer. Subsequent brews have just lobbed a few flakes in, area of about 2inch by 2inch I suppose and it's gone great.
I reckon that I dried enough yeast and stored it for 50 first generation brews.

Don't make a starter, underpitch is important, I just put the nutrient in the boil with 5 minutes to go. Kveik is fine with oxygen as well.

There a lot of good info in the David Heath Kveik playlist.
Also some interesting ideas about co ferment kveik with others ( haven't tried it myself yet) .


Realised that my link was not copied across first time and I sent the wrong one. Hope this is a better pointer
 
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I'm jumping into this thread midstream and maybe this has been covered before but I've read 14 pages and not seen an answer. So here's my question. I've brewed two batches with my BrewZilla and I've had trouble circulating during the mash. I can only run a tiny bit with the pump without overflowing the pipe. It seems that the fine screen at the bottom of the mash tube is probably causing the trouble or maybe not enough water at mash in. Have any of you tried without that fine screen and what have you encountered if you have. Thanks!
 
Well Ziller I started with a Robobrew 3.0 35 litre. I always used it with both of the bottom screens in place.
I did have trouble circulating with a mash with lots of oats, and flaked ingredients.
Personally found that I started off with a slow flow and then turned it up. If your grains are mashed too fine ( as for a BIAB ) then you will find that recirc more difficult esp if adjuncts.
So check the crush and consider less fine or part of it less fine and if lots of adjuncts consider rice or oat hulls mixed in or glucanase ( I use this now on all my brews) .
What volume of water to grain are you using ? I tended to use about 3 litre per kg but many use less.
So for 5 kg of grain about 15 litres or more of water, recirc slowly as doughing in and not scared to give the mash a bit of a stir after 10 mins or so. Found that I could then sparge with about 18 litres of water to give me 27 or 28 litres to boil ( quite full ) as I aim for 25 plus litres in the fermentasaurus.
 
I agree with @DuncB on suggestions. I use both bottom screens. I taper the recirculation flow down on all recipes, turn the pump on/off as required, and stir the mash every 15 minutes. With a couple recipes I‘ll use rice hulls but not with most. Mill gap can affect it but I’ve dialed down my gap to 0.032” to achieve efficiency - it works for me. I feel that malt pipe geometry is an issue here, seems to quickly compact the grains.
 
I’ve seen comments about this extra, fine malt pipe bottom screen. My BrewZilla 65 only came with the one screen. Maybe it’s the 35 that comes with two screen options. Anyway, I wouldn’t call the one I have fine, and it works well. I can recirculate at full flow any time I want, though I throttle it back a bit as I’ve read it’s better for the wort.
 
You are right
Cloud Surfer said:
My BrewZilla 65 only came with the one screen. Maybe it’s the 35 that comes with two screen options. Anyway, I wouldn’t call the one I have fine, and it works well.
Click to expand...
the Guten 70 is basically the same as the 65 malt pipe. I do think it's a crush thing, will have to fire up the little one at some stage to test that theory.
Shouldn't be any harm to your mash recirc at full speed as long as temp control is good.
 
Just watch if you’re going full flow recirc, you run the risk of compacting the grain bed. This will starve the pump. You won’t hurt the pump but the elements will be dry, and your malt pipe will overflow. Don’t ask me how i know haha
 
DuncB said:
You are right

the Guten 70 is basically the same as the 65 malt pipe. I do think it's a crush thing, will have to fire up the little one at some stage to test that theory.
Shouldn't be any harm to your mash recirc at full speed as long as temp control is good.
Click to expand...
I’ve written in my notes to recirculate the wort slowly to avoid denaturing the wort proteins as they pass through the system of valves and pump. I don’t recall where I read that information. It may not be that important in the scheme of things. I open the valve fully, then back it off a touch to keep the flow speed down slightly.
 
I will let you know how it goes. I've been watching a bunch of videos, and I definitely was not using enough water at mash in. I have a grain mill coming and will crush my MoreBeer pre-milled grains finer. That should increase my efficiency.
The 65L and the earlier iterations of the 35L didn't have the fine screen, and the Aussie brewers I've been watching tossed the fine screen and don't have pump problems.
 
I don’t know if it helps but I always use the same volume of strike/mash water in my 35l robo. 20 litres regardless of OG. Then 8 litres of sparge water. My Original gravities range from 1.035 - 1.045, all the same volume.
 
Ziller, That being said no problem with the Two screens when I used it. Not sure that a finer milling is going to help the flow could be worse, I'd try more liquid in the mash first with 2 screens and then one screen. But your choice, however difficult to decide which variable caused you trouble if you change all at once.
 
DuncB said:
Ziller, That being said no problem with the Two screens when I used it. Not sure that a finer milling is going to help the flow could be worse, I'd try more liquid in the mash first with 2 screens and then one screen. But your choice, however difficult to decide which variable caused you trouble if you change all at once.
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Yeah, that's good advice not to change too many things at once. Thanks
 
Twinkeelfool said:
I don’t know if it helps but I always use the same volume of strike/mash water in my 35l robo. 20 litres regardless of OG. Then 8 litres of sparge water. My Original gravities range from 1.035 - 1.045, all the same volume.
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Yeah, thanks. I used just 18 liters both batches. Two liters doesn't seem like much, but it should make a difference I would think. Both batches had a 14 pound grain bill. How about your brews?
 
You will find your efficiency goes down as your bill goes up.
But If you have 20 litres to mash with and then lose roughly 1 litre per kg of grain, you'll have 13.5 litres pre sparge. So then sparge with 12 litres will give you about 25.5 litres, boil loss as you find but then you should get bang on 19 litres in the keg ( with hop and yeast loss ) and just bottle any excess.
 
Ziller said:
Yeah, thanks. I used just 18 liters both batches. Two liters doesn't seem like much, but it should make a difference I would think. Both batches had a 14 pound grain bill. How about your brews?
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Hey mate, I use around 3-4kg of grain ( 7.5-8.25 lbs? ).
 
Also, for those having flow issues if you want to continue using the fine mesh screen just use a few handfuls of rice hulls. I have used mine for 2 years now with no issues. I crush my grains at about 0.038 (I don’t use feeler gauge - I use credit card as a “feeler”).
 
A lot of people use a credit card to set their mill, so I finally web searched credit card thickness - typical is 0.030”.

I gradually reduced my mill thickness from 0.039” to 0.032” to dial in my mash efficiency. And related to discussion, I’ve always used the fine mesh screen...
 
Agreed rice or oat hulls ( strangely rice hulls not available in NZ ? biosecurity issue) but they do take up volume which can be a problem in the robobrew 35 if you have a bigger grain bill.
Worth trying glucanase, it's cheaper than oat hulls and you just add 3ml with the salts and then dough in, it's really effective.
 
DuncB said:
Agreed rice or oat hulls ( strangely rice hulls not available in NZ ? biosecurity issue) but they do take up volume which can be a problem in the robobrew 35 if you have a bigger grain bill.
Worth trying glucanase, it's cheaper than oat hulls and you just add 3ml with the salts and then dough in, it's really effective.
Click to expand...
Tell me more about the glucanse, it’s been mentioned on this thread a couple times. It’s not widely available in the states, at least in brewers form (there’s a lot of dietary supplement products). You mention 3ml, implying liquid form. The only brew-centric product in the states I can find is Cellar Science Glucabuster which is dry.
 
I am 4 brews in using my Robobrew and keep getting what looks like a lot of floaties(grain) into my boil. I tried using the fine screen last brew hoping it would help but still looked like lots made it through. Could stirring to hard while mashing in be my problem?
 
MedHat Turk said:
I am 4 brews in using my Robobrew and keep getting what looks like a lot of floaties(grain) into my boil. I tried using the fine screen last brew hoping it would help but still looked like lots made it through. Could stirring to hard while mashing in be my problem?
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I use the fine screen and have made adjustments to my process to avoid any overflow during mash. Initially I put a silicone tube extension on my center tube then eliminated it when I realized it was never used. I control recirculation flow and cycle the pump on and off to avoid overflow. That said, when grain does get into the boil, I skim it off with an IKEA hand strainer. And I do stir the mash at 15 min intervals, can’t be too vigorous unless you’re causing an overflow.

Not everyone on this thread takes the same approach and don’t worry too much about the overflow grain....
 

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