PicoBrew Zymatic
- Thread starter anthropod
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
cheesemonster
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2016
- Messages
- 60
- Reaction score
- 35
I used a tube cutter to make a second fermentation keg. Dremel will work too but it will not be as nice of a taper. The key with the tube cutter is to very gradually tighten it. Take more turns around it. It is not like cutting 3/4 copper pipe. I cut 1/2 inch off too.
An inch will do it. I used a tubing cutter on mine.
I bought a refurb Z in the last campaign. No regrets at all!
dbarbagelata
Member
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2014
- Messages
- 16
- Reaction score
- 1
I order a Z from Amazon about 10 days ago. The next day I saw the kickstarter and cancelled my Amazon order and went with the refurb. Then yesterday, I found one on Craigslist that had never been used (still with film on it and plug on rotating arm) for $1000, and got a 2.5 gallon keg thrown in for good measure! Pretty happy!
I bought a refurb Z in the last campaign. No regrets at all!
A carbon tube C-11 in you profile?
That was a C-14.
Used to do a lot of astrophotography. You can see some of it on astrobin.com by searching "jrcrilly".
Congrats!!
It rained all day today, I brewed two batches while chasing the grand kids around the house. A few more Zymatic and Pico brewers and HBT will have a start a sub forum. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but it's nice to come home from work, start a batch and do what ever around the house, and have a good batch of wort and everything cleaned up with minimum effort. "I brew to drink beer, not drink beer to brew".
I can understand this. The fun part to me is creating/designing recipes and seeing how they turn out.. then of course, drinking the results.
I'm getting a Pico C.. though what I could really use is a Zymatic. I wish I had the money to pick up one of the refurbished ones they offered...as brewing my own recipes is what I really enjoy doing.
How much was the refurbished one.
$1299 + $80 shiping...
Good Afternoon,
So is it reasonable to expect I can brew a beer with the Zymatic. Place the 5g keg in my temp controller fermentator (chest freezer with temp control), complete fermentation, cold crash the beer, and serve from the same keg?
For those that might have done this:
1) Were the first few pints cloudy from picking up the yeast/trub on the bottom of the keg?
2) Any off flavors from leaving the beer on the yeast/trub?
3) Any other negatives to doing this?
Sure would be nice to avoid racking and such...
So is it reasonable to expect I can brew a beer with the Zymatic. Place the 5g keg in my temp controller fermentator (chest freezer with temp control), complete fermentation, cold crash the beer, and serve from the same keg?
For those that might have done this:
1) Were the first few pints cloudy from picking up the yeast/trub on the bottom of the keg?
2) Any off flavors from leaving the beer on the yeast/trub?
3) Any other negatives to doing this?
Sure would be nice to avoid racking and such...
@brew-in: I think not, but others may have tried this and succeeded. What I do is the same process as above, however after fermentation is complete I purge a serving keg of O2 and then push the beer out of the fermenter keg into the serving keg. I use dip tube screens to do this as I free float hops in the fermenter keg (and have done so with the serving keg as well, but that eliminates the ability to do a water/CO2 purge of the serving keg...). I am assuming that you would have too much yeast and hop matter (assuming you hop during fermentation) in the fermenter keg and this would a) result in a lot of cloudy beers and b) likely clog dip tubes and other small parts in your beer delivery system. I could be wrong, but I think you would be better served using a second vessel for serving...<shrug>
1 - as long as you cold crash for long enough, you won't have trub. The dip tube on the fermentation keg is cut so you lose an inch or two from the bottom of the keg.
2 - I can't imagine a situation in which 2.5 gallons of beer lasts long enough on tap for you to start getting yeast autolysis flavors. Some people do their aging in primary for multiple months without issue.
3 - There's one potential negative to this. If you're unlucky and some yeast chunks or foam, what have you get stuck in your dip tube, you might get foamy beer.
One other big maybe: My kegs don't sit 100% flat/level in my kegerator, so when I'm adding/removing kegs or evening opening the lid, there's a bit of vibration/movement that goes through my serving kegs. I don't serve from primary generally so it's not a problem...but I've noticed that on occasion even my serving kegs (secondary/transferred from primary) will have a cloudy-ish pour after jostling. Jostling your keg has much worse cloudy beer consequences if you're serving from primary.
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2016
- Messages
- 551
- Reaction score
- 60
Get a cornical from blichmann.
Yes, you can certainly do that.
1) yes
2) no
3) the keg will be harder to clean since it will be longer from when you brewed. Can't really think of anything else.
I believe the cost of those Picopacks...like 25 a piece for such a small batch would end up costing more in the end than just buying the Zymatic and brewing your own beer.
The Pico C revenue strategy reminds me of how video game consoles are sold. Sell the hardware for cheaper and then make the money off the software sales.
Agree on the pricing strategy for the pico brew. However, with the Unlimited Brew option for $500 a year the cost per gallon comes down a good bit. Given how the brew unlimited works, I suspect one could reasonable plan to brew 4 batches a month with extra kegs (some calim more but I want to be conservative). That works out to 48 batches for $500. Not a steal but not unresonable price either.
alestateyall
Well-Known Member
Does the basic recipe crafter still wipe out settings in the advanced recipe editor? I saw there have been multiple firmware updates recently.
Yes, still wipes it out. And there is still no whirlpool hopping built in the crafter.
It is starting to get a bit annoying seeing all these Kickstarter stretch goals showing new products (now they're giving away some new fermentation monitor!) when they can't be bothered to expend any effort on the original machine.
How do you know that's true? Just becasue you don't see what's happening doesn't mean that nothing is.
Okay, so maybe that came across a bit strong, but it's been a long time since we've seen any real attention to the Z... at the same time they tease us with "something for everyone" with their kickstarter which wasn't close to true. You see things like the distillery attachment and wonder about the energy and resources being expended on such a niche product (not to mention one that will likely be mostly used for illegal purposes) when promised features for the Z go unfulfilled. It's quite easy to get disillusioned.
Now I think the Z is an awesome product and I use it at least twice a month as a test bed. The support is also top notch, but at some point one has to wonder if and when the Z will get some of the "love"
BurntOrngeLonghorn84
Well-Known Member
The Delayed Start was a nice addition, and I appreciated the fix to the water amendment section of the recipe crafter.
True, but I am a firm believer in the squeaky wheel getting the oil paradigm. We asked for the delayed start, it was probably pretty simple to code, so they tossed that in to a recent update and I have already worked that in to a brew day once and plan to use the heck out of it! It's really nice to kick off the brew day while I am at work, come home just in time to chill and pitch!! Can't tell you how many more brew days I will get in because of that, and since I shelled out a lot of hard earned cash for this machine so I could brew more often, I REALLY appreciate them oiling that wheel! I think folks should continue to ask for more, because it is simple to understand that creating and supporting new products is a LOT of work, which likely means less work on the Z as it is not the priority of this company at the present time. I get that, understand it, and think we should continue to apply pressure and ask for improvements as this machine is not perfect. Hell, it is the homebrewer way! I don't think I have brewed more than two times in a row on my homemade rig EVER w/o making some change to it! I tweak my 3 kettle rig every chance I get and sometimes I have 3-4 mods in between brews. I brewed on it SUN and made 2 mods to my boil kettle and reworked my water lines to and from my plate chiller so I could run the waste water into my compost pile while it was hot and then move it to garden/trees/yard when it cooled sufficiently.
So I would like them to upgrade the recipe creator, fix the bug in the advanced editor, and why not find a way to open source this project so that a lot of talented brewers/software engineers can contribute and make this thing a lot more feature rich? A brewer can dream, can't they?
BTW, I am not trying to start or continue an argument in any way, just stating my opinion.
Baja_Brewer
Well-Known Member
Denny, you said this last time thus was brought up as well. I pushed and pushed (or squeaked and squeaked) in a multipage discussion here and in a thread on the PB forum that made it fairly clear that exactly you claim clearly wasn't/isn't happening, and others chimed in with frustrations. Then a few updates rolled out real quick and with a bit of noise around them to squelch the dissent, and since then? Bupkiss.
I'd say the proof is in the pudding. With the amount of attention that has been drawn to some of the common complaints, I think they would state that they were actively working to resolve issues.
The fundamentals of the situation have not changed: unless its costing them Zymatic sales, there is no monetary incentive to upgrade a system where they will not make money every time someone uses it.
This is not intended to start our iterative argument over. Yes, it brews beer. I'm just saying that using that line in their defense is getting fairly weak.
Baja_Brewer
Well-Known Member
Double post
Anyone ever brew two batches and then combine them? I was thinking of brewing an ale and larger using the same base ingredients and then combing them into a single 5-gallon keg...that way I can get the esters of the ale and the smoothness of the lager.
You can certainly do that, but there are easier ways to accomplish the same thing.
baja the only way I see them focusing on the zymatic and fixing the software issue is if they make brewhouse packs that fit the xymatic and it becomes successful. My bet is they do and soon. It just fits their business model which has changed to selling the coffee not the machine.
I'm not as pessimistic about the Zymatic getting improvements as some nor am I as optimistic as others. I do think they are going to make updates and fixes, though perhaps not close to the rate we would all like. They are still spending money to advertise and sell these devices and are well aware that brewers actually do read reviews and sites like this to see what others are saying before buying, so I think as good businessmen they know that they have to feed us fixes or we would possibly drive off potential sales with negative comments. I saw the Zymatic folks at HBC in Baltimore and they are advertising in Zymergy, so I gotta believe that they continue to work on the device. Recent firmware updates support this argument as well. Will an updated editor come this year? I don't know...I would just be happy with a fix to the one bug that we all know about as the editor is superfluous in my use case; I craft recipes in Beersmith and don't actually fill out the entire recipe in the editor as it is not needed to make the Z make wort. However, the advanced editor is crucial to the way I brew because it really is what controls the device if you don't use the defaults.
How much foam are you guys typically seeing. This is what I get consistently. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1494016769.380777.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1494016781.770300.jpg
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1494018640.669274.jpg enough to come up the holes too I know I don't have any issues with air in lines or anything. Just curious. Thanks
That isn't much. What I get varies on the brew, but I have gotten a lot more than that on several beers. That looks fantastic!
Similar threads
- Locked
Latest posts
-
-
Wanted Wanted to buy - Used cask (pin)- Latest: Gadjobrinus
-
-
-
-
-
