I've got my first 1 and a half (half, because a leak in the back of the unit dripped much of Plinius on the countertop) fermenting with the FF adapter for the last ten days now. Half-squeezed was dry hopped today, and looked very much like a beer with perhaps a slightly "cider"-ish smell out of the CO2 plug. I plan to dry hop Plinius on day 14. Being in Japan I've used a "kotatsu" to keep temperatures at about 24C for the first week, but thinking I could better the efficiency I bought an aquarium heater for $10 and plopped them in a picnic cooler of warm water.
There are a number problems with brewing here: the S&H is almost the price of the pak, RO/distilled water is $1 a liter, and domestically available CO2 cartridges in 16g size are only meant for bike tire inflation (the package I got says "not for food use" though not in the "beware, this is poison!" sense). Hopefully they will work, I only got five cartridges from Pico. I managed to get star san from the sole Japanese supplier at $90 for the 32oz size (with the hope it is enough to last a lifetime). Japan is an exceedingly humid country at any latitude, and dealing with mold means Star San should be multi-purpose. I have a number of used Asahi Stout bottles here, so I think for any less-hop dependent brews I will just go that route. I thought of racking from the primary to the bottles for secondary, in which case could I dump the package of priming sugar into the primary before pumping them out? Someday I might get a keg system working out (everything would have to be sourced from overseas) because one of the mom&pop shops here has CO2 rentals for retail keg use. The pico is a catch 22 - those of us most in need of the device for non-adjunct-lager beer live in countries without a home-brewing culture, and thus have the hardest time managing the aspects of the supply chain!
