[Thomas Musante]

So I am considering the 35L for apartment brewing... Currently using a Pico C to do manual brews but I want to brew larger batches.  One item that someone was telling me is that I might have issues brewing higher ABV beers like Imperial Stouts.  Is this something any of you guys have experienced?

[BrewBama]

If you can’t fit all the grain in the mash you could add some DME in the boil to reach your higher OG. Unless you are constantly making XXX beers I wouldn’t let the occasional brew stop me from a 90% solution. YMMV.



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[majorvices]

If you can’t fit all the grain in the mash you could add some DME in the boil to reach your higher OG. Unless you are constantly making XXX beers I wouldn’t let the occasional brew stop me from a 90% solution. YMMV.



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Yep, i used to do that all the time and had great results. you can also just make a smaller batch (3-4 gallons). i believe you could safely brew up to 1.100 on my system at 4-5 gallons (according to "Can I Mash It) - https://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

[BrewBama]

Good calculator. I read a lot of Ken Schwartz when first staring out. His calculations helped me better understand the batch sparge process.


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[denny]

Good calculator. I read a lot of Ken Schwartz when first staring out. His calculations helped me better understand the batch sparge process.


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I fed Ken my data to help him develop those. 

[BrewBama]

Good calculator. I read a lot of Ken Schwartz when first staring out. His calculations helped me better understand the batch sparge process.


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I fed Ken my data to help him develop those.

I recall you saying that yrs ago. I sure appreciate it!  My brewing, underneath it all, is still based on those calculations.


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[denny]

Good calculator. I read a lot of Ken Schwartz when first staring out. His calculations helped me better understand the batch sparge process.


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I fed Ken my data to help him develop those.

I recall you saying that yrs ago. I sure appreciate it!  My brewing, underneath it all, is still based on those calculations.


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And I found that a lot of them just didn't apply to me for whatever reason. I developed my own numbers and methods, but based on Ken's methods.

[ynotbrusum]

FWIW, I know of several homebrewers that max out their system on certain 5 gallon recipes, so they sub in DME to get the style and flavor that they want...and at least one of them is highly regarded as an NHC medalist.  You can make it work in several different ways.

Cheers!

[majorvices]

Someone asked for a better guideline to how long the brew ay takes. Only my third time using it today and I did not have my strike water preheated (which would have saved 1 hr 15 min to get from 50-170 degrees. I doughed in at 9:30 and was knocking out at 2:30 so not bad. I also managed to rack three beers and clean 2 cornies and 2 fermentors (one batch got racked into a clean fermentor ontop of last seasons muscadines that I had frozen).

I wasn't in a hurry and this is for the 110V system.

I mashed for 90 minutes because of some kickups I had brewing, just minor user error stuff.

[majorvices]

Brewed a dunkelweizen on the BrewZilla today. 50% dark wheat no lautering issues got 80 efficiency. Didn't use rice hulls. Put my water in the unit at 6:45am and was running off to the fermentor at noon.

I did have a weird issue with the pump getting clogged which scared me for a second. I had to blow into the line coming off the pump to clear it, which was a little scary since there was 5.5 gallons of boiling wort I was blowing into. But once cleared it worked fine and I managed not to burn myself!

Anyway, still loving brewing on this and has made brewdays a lot faster and easier.

[Thirsty_Monk]

80% efficiency is a pretty good. Glad you have fun brewing again.


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[PORTERHAUS]

I have had my Robobrew 3 since last June and have brewed 7 batches on it and I am very pleased with the system. In 10 yrs of brewing I have done it all from extracts to steeping grains, to BIAB, traditional all grain, to using a simple HERMS...I really just wanted to simplify my process and this has it all in one package. I brew slightly smaller batches and I brew full volume mash, no sparge which saves me time and a step there. I love being able to set up the delayed start and have the strike water ready for me when I get up in the morning, pour some coffee and dough in. Efficiency with the no sparge is 70%, time and effort needed is really reduced from my past methods and the beers speak for themselves.