Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Just picked up a RoboBrew today and wondering if anyone has used one and has any tips :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Is that like a grainfather?

Its similar, no built in pump, less than 1/2 the price.

How much grain you reakon you could mash?

bluc wrote:How much grain you reakon you could mash?

Ill let you know tomorrow, Im thinking about 6kg :think: Back to back mashes to give me around 45L.

Sorry for being a noob so 12kg total in a day? So its an25/30l urn style setup with a temp pid/sparge arm? Byo pump.

bluc wrote:Sorry for being a noob so 12kg total in a day? So its an25/30l urn style setup with a temp pid/sparge arm? Byo pump.

No sparge arm, just aboiler with a few more functions and a malt pipe with a wort chiller thrown in.

:handgestures-thumbupleft: Interested to see how you go thinking of converting my t500 boiler once i get my bigger boiler.

TasSpirits wrote:Just picked up a RoboBrew today and wondering if anyone has used one and has any tips :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Be very interested to see how you go. First heard of Braumeister, then Grandfather and now RoboBrew... Love the idea, but am not ready for doing or should I say investing in one of these units as yet!



Love to see you do a couple of trial runs (pics or vids) to give us a feel for it, if you are up for it ...

If I can find enough days in the hour then I will for sure :teasing-tease:

bluc wrote::handgestures-thumbupleft: Interested to see how you go thinking of converting my t500 boiler once i get my bigger boiler.

If you do go ahead with this Bluc, I had the same idea and have a false bottom sitting here that should fit the T500 boiler.

Yeah ....... buy one, the new Robobrew MK3 is a vast improvement on the earlier models & are now manufactured for Keg Land, not Keg King.. At less than 1/2 the price of a Grainfather & way cheaper than Braumiesters you can't go wrong...... For info on using the Robobrew search out YouTube or check the Robobrew Forum

Robo brew is a very cheap buy considering what you get youtube is a good way to get information a youtube downloader is good to store on usb and look at without having to use Internet each time you want to replay..

I bought a second hand grainfather here on the forum. Works a treat but the time required to run it irks me. Where I can mix up a couple of cans in 1 or 2 fermenters in an hour this takes me all day to brew a couple of batches. Time poor people like me should spend all day distilling and not trying to make all grain beer which is great filler on those nights spirits just aren't your thing.

A tip I can give ya is to plan to do more than one batch on a brew day. The cleanup time when you've finished is significant but if you're going straight onto another batch you don't need to scrub the unit out.

warramungas wrote:Time poor people like me should spend all day distilling and not trying to make all grain beer which is great filler on those nights spirits just aren't your thing.

I run my Braumeister at the same time as my still, cos with brewing and stilling there's a lot of time doing nothing I find they work hand in hand together.

I have used my Gen 2 for a while now. I run it at the same time as the still so multitask (sort of).

I love its ability to get to and hold at different temperatures plus the pump to keep the liquid circulating through the grains
I have had good success with unmalted barley and hi temp enzymes for a whisky type thing.
I also have done the same thing with maize and barley for bourbon style.

I get really good starch conversion and have found it a little tricky with the two grains combined (due to the temps difference at which the enzymes work on the grains, so have settled on doing 4 runs over 2 days.

The first 3 are maize at the higher temps with enzymes and the resultant "beer" is stored. The 4th is the barley with a small amount of rye - run at a lower temp but still with great conversion.

The 4 outputs are then combined for the ferment - giving me a 75/20/5 mash bill.

One thing I did find is to not have the maize ground too fine as it will cake up and block the malt pipe screen.

I have now also started playing with all-grain beers with the huge learning curve of the different malts and hops etc.

The RoboBrew if you look at some of the youtube videos programing needs a bit of learning to get right.

tipsy wrote:

warramungas wrote:Time poor people like me should spend all day distilling and not trying to make all grain beer which is great filler on those nights spirits just aren't your thing.

I run my Braumeister at the same time as my still, cos with brewing and stilling there's a lot of time doing nothing I find they work hand in hand together.

Not a bad idea. I'll give it a try at the end of semester but I'm not sure I've got the power or space to do both in the laundry.

warramungas wrote:
Not a bad idea. I'll give it a try at the end of semester but I'm not sure I've got the power or space to do both in the laundry.

It's not a laundry mate, it's a brew room. Doesn't matter if there is a washing machine in there :teasing-tease:

Having had more time to play I have found the following is a method which works for me.

When doing maize/corn, the overflow tube in the centre of the malt pipe prevented a decent stir with the drill / mortar mixer so I did not install it.

This left a problem of a hole in the centre of the perforated bottom plate for the malt pipe and allowed grains to fall through , cake the bottom of the boiler and play havoc with the temperature sensors.

The solution - a large tie top straining bag used for beer BIAB processes.
This sits nicely inside the malt pipe, the top folded down the outside and tied . allows liquid to flow through and keeps the fine grains inside. Agitation via paddle or mixer is no problem.

Now maize and the Hi Temp enzymes are a doddle.
The Robobrew will hold the temp at 88 to 90 for the 90 minutes then the supplied water coil allows it to be dropped in temp for the GL enzyme.