PicoBrew Zymatic

I sometimes see a bit of airspace under the false bottom due to slower drainage through wet grains. Picobrew says that is OK. If the grain is compacting as severely as you describe, that doesn't seem OK. The crush is probably too fine. I open my mill up to .045 for Z brews.

The errors you report mean that the heating loop temperature is too far away from the wort temperature (heat exchanger isn't being effective). This usually indicates poor water inflow. That is usually caused by air leaks or clogged poppets on the input side.

OH - and as far as I know, the shockwatch is always activated on these things. I know that it was on mine. No apparent ill effect.

Error #1 usually relates to restricted circulation, like if you didn't have a QD seated properly or had a clogged poppet. #3 I'm not sure about. Have you called them?

stonebrewer said:

Thanks for the replies! So my brew night went horribly wrong. I did a three step mash (or attempted to). When I doughed in the machine worked as I expected. When I drained, the step filter did not completely drain leaving about half the space under the grain with wort still in it.

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Normal, ignore it. Use a level to make sure your picobrew's sitting level - it'll slowly drain a bit more over time but don't expect 100%.

stonebrewer said:

When it started recirculating, the mash was too thick for liquid to penetrate (the mash was almost all pale malt) and the dead space under the mash never filled completely with liquid until late in the beta rest.

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Not necessarily a problem. Check your crush size.

stonebrewer said:

About 40 minutes in, huge bubbles pushed up through the mash and formed channels for the liquid to fill the bottom.

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Again, normal/expected.

stonebrewer said:

At the end of the beta, the machine quit with an Error #1. I turned it off, went into the advanced editor, delete all the steps that had completed, and started the machine again.

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You can manually skip through steps in a recipe on the zymatic itself without altering your recipe on picobrew's website.

stonebrewer said:

It chugged away, did my alpha rest, did my mash out, did the boil with my two adjunct steps, and then died with an Error #3 before the pause I put in to setup for a whirlpool. I was so tired by this point I just said screw it, dropped hops into the keg (once it was under 185), buttoned it up and went to sleep. Not sure how this will turn out, but this was a less than expected first brew experience. It seemed to me that the machines pumps struggled due to excess air getting into the "lines", the mash stuck, the machine errored out over and over, etc.

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I've run into an ERROR1 before as well, and it was also after a PAUSE instruction. I think the zymatic throws a fit if you pause for too long and the temperatures change too much. Send a question into their forum - I've had really good results getting useful feedback there.

With regards to the air in the lines - the zymatic uses positive displacement pumps - they have suction - and does not use sealed liquid lines. This means air does, by design, get sucked in - this isn't a problem. However, if your keg posts are loose, that certainly WILL cause a problem, and you'll get a problem I had - with foam accumulating on the top of your step filter. It was terrible, my grains never got fully wet, I had no clue what was going on...and then I saw a thread in the PB owner FB group with similar details and the fix was a loose keg post.

The advanced editor definitely seems to be a learning experience. I'm working on figuring out how to get it to circulate while I cool and then hold at 150 for a whirlpool.

Some replies:

Shockwatch was NOT red on my box. All parts were well packaged, in great shape, boxes had no dents or obvious damage. Was impressed!

My Zymatic is perfectly level. I have it on a stainless steel adjustable table which I leveled. The Z sat quite level so no need to adjust.

I did not adjust crush so it is on the same default gap I have used for many years. I will research this more though as some people say to make it BIAB flour like and others say not.

How do you skip? I did not see a menu option when I looked last night...

The Z switched from the last adjunct boil to the pause state while I was away. Good to know that this may have been a non-issue! I will keep an eye on that and make sure I monitor more closely.

I have not been on the forum yet...I am at work and don't have my password handy. Will do so tonight.

Keg posts and all other fittings were tight. I am pretty picky about those type things. I saw zero foam, which I was happy about!

If you figure out the whirlpool, please post a screen shot. Annie has a couple examples on the Pico forum and that is how I set mine up.

Thanks for all the replies and the reassurance on some of the things I need to RDWHAHB about! I appreciate it!

Random: everything in the dishwasher, top rack bottom rack? Does it matter?

stonebrewer said:

So first brew with my new Zymatic and seeing things I have questions about. I did a three step mash, doughing in at 132, then raised it to 146 for beta rest. When I doughed in, the step filter was full of wort, top to bottom.
After draining and refilling, the mash seemed to stick or slow down the wort going through the grain. There was about 1/2 inch gap of air between the bottom filter and the bottom of the step filter. Is this abnormal?

I also noticed air being pulled in at times around the syringe port. Anyone else see this or should I contact Pico? Thanks for any advice/answers!

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How long was there the air gap for? This is normal when just soaking the mash or when draining. Eventually it should get to a point where the water is soaking through the mash, and excess water is overflowing through the pass through area. One think to check is if your inline filter is gummed up. I had that happen once to me and it decreased the flow significantly to where I saw the same conditions. But this was my fault I added adjunct candi sugar too fast and it got in there.

chris0879 said:

Random: everything in the dishwasher, top rack bottom rack? Does it matter?

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Bottom rack is OK but make sure that it is not on sanitize wash (really hot heated wash). This will cause cracking or melting of the step filter in the bottom rack. I now don't wash my filter in the dishwasher at all just as a precaution. A simple rinse down and wipe works to clean it. It does not have to be 100% sanitized it will have boiling wort going through it at some point.

stonebrewer said:

Some replies:
How do you skip? I did not see a menu option when I looked last night...

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When it starts a step of your brew, push the knob. It will give you 3 options: Skip, Drain, exit brew. Do skip. Wait until it starts the next step... Repeat. When it finally reaches the step you want let it go. Don't pay too much mind to air, the gap etc. If you hit your gravity it worked . But since you got an Error 1 as well I am thinking you had a clogged inline filter. It is on the black out kegpost line towards the machine. Also make sure that your lines are tight on the machine and have the washers. If air is getting sucked in there it will also lower the flow.

cheesemonster said:

Bottom rack is OK but make sure that it is not on sanitize wash (really hot heated wash). This will cause cracking or melting of the step filter in the bottom rack. I now don't wash my filter in the dishwasher at all just as a precaution. A simple rinse down and wipe works to clean it. It does not have to be 100% sanitized it will have boiling wort going through it at some point.

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Thanks! Do you wash the other components in the DW still? Just curious, a big draw to this was the dishwasher safeness of everything but it's a pain to fit in there.

Thanks everyone, this thread has made my first brew successful. Longer than hoped but now I know what to expect. Definitely beats lugging a ton of coolers and pots outside! Cheers

chris0879 said:

Thanks! Do you wash the other components in the DW still? Just curious, a big draw to this was the dishwasher safeness of everything but it's a pain to fit in there.

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I put everything in the dishwasher. No problems so far.

chris0879 said:

Thanks! Do you wash the other components in the DW still? Just curious, a big draw to this was the dishwasher safeness of everything but it's a pain to fit in there.

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Supposedly when they improved the step filter (put the drain plugs in) it fixed the cracking issue that some including me had in the dishwasher. Apparently water was pooling in the area between the adjunct and grain compartments causing uneven heating and cracking. The plug holes drain this area.

It is fine to put in the dishwasher, and if anything happens PicoBrew will help you. Just do not put the heated dry on, and do not put it on "sanitize". I just choose to wash mine by hand but it is much easier in the dishwasher.

chris0879 said:

Thanks everyone, this thread has made my first brew successful. Longer than hoped but now I know what to expect. Definitely beats lugging a ton of coolers and pots outside! Cheers

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It does take a long time, especially with the high efficiency mash (Dough in and mash out). Every step requires a drain and heat up/cool down. One thing you have to learn is to just leave it I sat at home watching it and waiting at first, but the best thing to do is go out and do some chores and shopping while it is going. You can monitor it live via the webpage!

The only process that takes kinda a while and your attention is needed is the cool down and clean-up. Make sure you run a rinse after each brew and do the clean process every 4 brews or so. On the PicoBrew forums they have a thread on how to modify a coil chiller so you can easily put it inline and have the wort flow on the inside of the coil. This drastically lowers cooling time. I do that plus I have the keg sitting in the same tub of water cooling as well.

I use one of these for chilling. With my water it takes maybe 3-5 min.

http://jadedbrewing.com/collections/frontpage/products/the-cornypillar

Denny said:

I use one of these for chilling. With my water it takes maybe 3-5 min.

http://jadedbrewing.com/collections/frontpage/products/the-cornypillar

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+1 on this. My biggest gripe is that i keep over chilling my beer.

Dupe

My second brew day is going; doing the Airwaves IPL from Flying Dog and Charlie, given out at HBC in Baltimore. Brewed this on my big rig and it went way too fast! Looks like this version will be light on ABV as the SG was low. Might add a little sugar to up it, might not. I'll try this again in a couple of months and dial it in better.

Brewing my second batch (a mild ale) and noticed when the boil started, wort started backing up into the grain bed for a few inches before stabilizing and eventually draining back down after 10 minutes or so. I'm guessing some debris must have caught in the drain and cleared itself, but curious if this is a fairly common occurrence.

Finished up a really easy and problem free brew day with the Z! Airways IPL (lite!) is in the keg and in a nice cool spot to ferment at lager temps.

Inspired by the talk above about chillers, I pulled out my original chiller from about 10 years ago that I made from copper tubing. Since the Z was doing all the work, I had time to figure out how to attach mine to the Z. I used half inch silicon tubing and clamped a beverage out QD to one end, the other to the coil. Then I clamped another length of silicon tubing to the other end of the coil, and I shoved one of the cleaning tubes into the other end of that tube so I could simply attach it to the black QD coming from the Z. Easy as pie. Chilled from 207 to 68 in about 20 minutes.

I have three beers fermenting at the same time for the first time in many years. Think I am going to like this machine! Cheers!

stpauliboy said:

Anybody using one of these Arborfab screens with their Z?
http://arborfab.com/PicoBrew-Zymatic-Replacement-Box-Filter_p_96.html

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Welp. I just ended up buying one of these after thinking about how it would help speed up cleaning. Fingers crossed that it works as well as I hope it will!

Thorrak said:

Welp. I just ended up buying one of these after thinking about how it would help speed up cleaning. Fingers crossed that it works as well as I hope it will!

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I'd be interested in what you think about it when you get it. It does seem like pulling this out and dumping it at the end of brew would be easier than dumping the whole step filter and the wort still in the bottom.

Thorrak said:

Welp. I just ended up buying one of these after thinking about how it would help speed up cleaning. Fingers crossed that it works as well as I hope it will!

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I think it might make for more cleaning. I have a lot of gear from Arborfab...they do great work and I am a proponent of their products. My experience with the stainless mesh is that it takes a bit of spraying to get all the bits of grain out, especially around the seams. Let us know what you think once you get it! I use their keg tubes for whirlpooling and dry hopping. Also have a couple of their boil kettle screens which I place all my hops in on my gas system. They work great!

The Initial Rinse section of the Zymatic manual states:



Connecting your keg to the Zymatic: Connect the black ball lock to the keg post labeled OUT, and the gray ball lock to the keg post labeled IN. Lift the outer ring of the ball lock, place it on the appropriate keg post, let go of the outer ring and press down firmly. The ball lock will click when it fits into place.



In the same manner, attach a cleaning wand to the GRAY ball lock. Allow the gray hose to sit in an empty bucket.



It's unclear to me if I'm supposed to connect the gray quick disconnect to the keg post or to a cleaning wand and put it in an empty bucket. Thoughts?

DoubleEh said:

The Initial Rinse section of the Zymatic manual states:



Connecting your keg to the Zymatic: Connect the black ball lock to the keg post labeled OUT, and the gray ball lock to the keg post labeled IN. Lift the outer ring of the ball lock, place it on the appropriate keg post, let go of the outer ring and press down firmly. The ball lock will click when it fits into place.



In the same manner, attach a cleaning wand to the GRAY ball lock. Allow the gray hose to sit in an empty bucket.



It's unclear to me if I'm supposed to connect the gray quick disconnect to the keg post or to a cleaning wand and put it in an empty bucket. Thoughts?

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Just went through this exact thing. I think they are trying to convey two thoughts, the first being how to connect the keg in general and second how you use that general concept to connect the cleaning wand.

Thinking about what is going on, led me to conclude, correctly, that you connect the black (beverage) connector to the keg out and the gray (gas) connector to either of the tubes and place it in an empty bucket. The hot rinse water is drawn out of the keg, through the system and exits via the gray connector/cleaning wand into the empty bucket.

First brew tomorrow.

stpauliboy said:

I'd be interested in what you think about it when you get it. It does seem like pulling this out and dumping it at the end of brew would be easier than dumping the whole step filter and the wort still in the bottom.

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That's what I'm hoping. I figure that the thing that seems to be blocking my cleanup process is how quickly I can rinse out the step filter to start the rinse cycle on the Zymatic. If I can pull the grain out in one go & have the step filter immediately ready to rinse, that would save a good 15 mins in cleanup.

Given that with the Zymatic cleanup is now the majority of my time spent on brew day, 15 minutes less is quite a bit!

mjc999 said:

Just went through this exact thing. I think they are trying to convey two thoughts, the first being how to connect the keg in general and second how you use that general concept to connect the cleaning wand.

Thinking about what is going on, led me to conclude, correctly, that you connect the black (beverage) connector to the keg out and the gray (gas) connector to either of the tubes and place it in an empty bucket. The hot rinse water is drawn out of the keg, through the system and exits via the gray connector/cleaning wand into the empty bucket.

First brew tomorrow.

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Thanks. I agree that it seems like they put in the generic instructions for connecting the hoses to a keg even though the gray doesn't connect in the rinse scenario.

Thorrak said:

That's what I'm hoping. I figure that the thing that seems to be blocking my cleanup process is how quickly I can rinse out the step filter to start the rinse cycle on the Zymatic. If I can pull the grain out in one go & have the step filter immediately ready to rinse, that would save a good 15 mins in cleanup.

Given that with the Zymatic cleanup is now the majority of my time spent on brew day, 15 minutes less is quite a bit!

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I'm wondering how feasible it would be to put a nylon paint strainer bag / "brew in a bag" bag into the step filter. Cheaper than stainless and I bet it'd work as a quick way to remove the grains at the end of brew day.

aangel said:

I'm wondering how feasible it would be to put a nylon paint strainer bag / "brew in a bag" bag into the step filter. Cheaper than stainless and I bet it'd work as a quick way to remove the grains at the end of brew day.

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Isn't dumping them out quick enough?

Double post.

Denny said:

Isn't dumping them out quick enough?

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My thoughts as well. Before I rinse the machine I always remove the hops, dump the grains and rinse the step filter anyway. Aside from hoping to avoid stuck mashes (since the wort will have additional paths of least resistance on the sides) I'm not sire what's being gained.

Edit: I do hate the screen falling in the trash as I dump the grains, and the width of the step filter is awkward, but to me, none of these add up to annoyances worth buying the basket.

Baja_Brewer said:

My thoughts as well. Before I rinse the machine I always remove the hops, dump the grains and rinse the step filter anyway. Aside from hoping to avoid stuck mashes (since the wort will have additional paths of least resistance on the sides) I'm not sire what's being gained.

Edit: I do hate the screen falling in the trash as I dump the grains, and the width of the step filter is awkward, but to me, none of these add up to annoyances worth buying the basket.

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I bought a (white) bus boy bin at a restaurant supply store. It is wider than the step filter so easy to dump the grains. No worry about the screen, I just lift it out. I take out 6-9 cups before dumping the rest in our composter, the worms love the warm grain. The 6-9 cups are frozen in 3 cup portions, to use for spend grain bread, the BEST!

Stefan

Denny said:

Isn't dumping them out quick enough?

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I don't have a bin of appropriate size to dump into, so I end up using a scoop and doing it real slowly. I think that restaurant bus-boy bin idea has some merit for dumping the grains more quickly. Would be handy to have as a brew-day tray and starsan sanitation area too.

Quick question to zymatic owners: is it a good idea to pull your stepfilter out during the mash to give it a little stir? Today's batch had a dry-ish spot dead center in the step filter where it seems the liquid didn't really get to all that well. Plus there was about a third of an inch air gap in the bottom of the step filter and the gravity came in 3 points low.

aangel said:

I don't have a bin of appropriate size to dump into, so I end up using a scoop and doing it real slowly. I think that restaurant bus-boy bin idea has some merit for dumping the grains more quickly. Would be handy to have as a brew-day tray and starsan sanitation area too.

Quick question to zymatic owners: is it a good idea to pull your stepfilter out during the mash to give it a little stir? Today's batch had a dry-ish spot dead center in the step filter where it seems the liquid didn't really get to all that well. Plus there was about a third of an inch air gap in the bottom of the step filter and the gravity came in 3 points low.

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No can do. It's heavy and not recommended by a PICO as it may damage the drain fitting in the unit. Just add a handful of corn hulls if you are worried with 9 lb grain bills.

To avoid the awkward dump in the garbage, I just bring the whole step filter outside and dump it in a compost pile. Much easier. The bottom screen has a soft landing on a pile of spent grain I just pick it up. Also if you are dumping in the garbage the grain takes forever to cool down, and it ends up melting your garbage bag. If you dump it outside and just give it a quick spray rinse in the sink, you can be rinsing the zymatic and done in 10 minutes. Also it gives you free soil and cuts down on landfill.

mjc999 said:

Just went through this exact thing. I think they are trying to convey two thoughts, the first being how to connect the keg in general and second how you use that general concept to connect the cleaning wand.

Thinking about what is going on, led me to conclude, correctly, that you connect the black (beverage) connector to the keg out and the gray (gas) connector to either of the tubes and place it in an empty bucket. The hot rinse water is drawn out of the keg, through the system and exits via the gray connector/cleaning wand into the empty bucket.

First brew tomorrow.

Click to expand...

No if you watch the cleaning video on: https://picobrew.com/About/brewingvideos.cshtml You will see that you should use both wands for rinsing. You put the black connector on a wand and insert it into a bucket with 2.5 gals or water. Then you put the wand on the gray connector and put it in an empty bucket. The keg will have your chilled pitched wort in it at this point if you don't have another keg and are not transferring to a fermentor. If you have another keg it is OK to use it as the liquid "bucket" as you are saying.

You use the keg for cleaning though and it heats and recirculates the water. The water does not have to be hot for the rinse it is just rinsing out the left over wort after the drain. The clean process heats up water and does a more thorough cleaning.

DoubleEh said:

The Initial Rinse section of the Zymatic manual states:



Connecting your keg to the Zymatic: Connect the black ball lock to the keg post labeled OUT, and the gray ball lock to the keg post labeled IN. Lift the outer ring of the ball lock, place it on the appropriate keg post, let go of the outer ring and press down firmly. The ball lock will click when it fits into place.



In the same manner, attach a cleaning wand to the GRAY ball lock. Allow the gray hose to sit in an empty bucket.



It's unclear to me if I'm supposed to connect the gray quick disconnect to the keg post or to a cleaning wand and put it in an empty bucket. Thoughts?

Click to expand...

The manual is not very good, it is better to check out the videos: https://picobrew.com/About/brewingvideos.cshtml. The answer is you use both wands and 2 buckets, no keg. If you had a spare keg around you could use it to hold some clean water for the black connector but it is not needed. Black connector and wand in bucket of water, gray connector and wand in empty bucket.

cheesemonster said:

To avoid the awkward dump in the garbage, I just bring the whole step filter outside and dump it in a compost pile. Much easier. The bottom screen has a soft landing on a pile of spent grain I just pick it up. Also if you are dumping in the garbage the grain takes forever to cool down, and it ends up melting your garbage bag. If you dump it outside and just give it a quick spray rinse in the sink, you can be rinsing the zymatic and done in 10 minutes. Also it gives you free soil and cuts down on landfill.

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Would if I could. We don't even have a community compost around here. I have dumped it in the brambles between yards before, but that can really add up.

aangel said:

I don't have a bin of appropriate size to dump into, so I end up using a scoop and doing it real slowly. I think that restaurant bus-boy bin idea has some merit for dumping the grains more quickly. Would be handy to have as a brew-day tray and starsan sanitation area too.

Quick question to zymatic owners: is it a good idea to pull your stepfilter out during the mash to give it a little stir? Today's batch had a dry-ish spot dead center in the step filter where it seems the liquid didn't really get to all that well. Plus there was about a third of an inch air gap in the bottom of the step filter and the gravity came in 3 points low.

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Not only is it nearly impossible, it's also pointless.

Anyhowe said:

No can do. It's heavy and not recommended by a PICO as it may damage the drain fitting in the unit. Just add a handful of corn hulls if you are worried with 9 lb grain bills.

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Don't you mean rice or barley hulls? I don't think corn has a hull.