Ok good idea on the brush. I currently use a sponge but sticking my arm way in a 5 gallon keg doesn't sound fun. I assume you wash it outside, maybe with waterhose?
PicoBrew Zymatic
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Ok good idea on the brush. I currently use a sponge but sticking my arm way in a 5 gallon keg doesn't sound fun. I assume you wash it outside, maybe with waterhose?
I bought one of those electric brushes "as seen on TV", even easier to get the inside of the keg really clean
I clean it in a sink in my brewhouse (aka basement man cave). I installed one of those big square "mud sinks" with a spray arm. I bought a special purpose brush, but I am going to buy a toilet brush, LABEL IT!, and use it in the future as I think it will work a little better than my L shaped brush I use now. I also use a sponge to get under the top lid area after hitting it with the brush. Sometime stuff gets stuck up there, but not often. In full disclosure, I also built a keg cleaner, which I use from time to time as well. It is basically a harbor freight submersible pump with some plumbing that sits in a 5 gallon homer bucket and recirculates through the dip tubes and the center of the keg. It works great for when I need to do several kegs in a short period...but most of the time it is rinse, brush, rinse, sanitize, and go. Best of luck!
Great info, thanks! When you brush do you use a cleaner like pbw?
Sometimes...depends on how long I wait after emptying the keg. If I am lazy and let it sit, things dry up and crust up. If I do it immediately, water usually does the trick.
same here - the advantages of the reduced chance of infection by fermenting in the boiling vessel are too attractive for me...
I always let PBW sit overnight and then rinse with water. Occasionally if I need it faster I use a scrub sponge and a shorter soak. No sanitization needed - but be sure to get it clean
Anyone know if the refurb zymatic units are still available? I see them on the old Kickstarter page, but they don't appear clickable to me? New to KS, does that mean the campaign is over?
Any other place to get the zymatic refurbs?
Any other place to get the zymatic refurbs?
Yeah, email them. I got a refurb after buying a unit used and having UPS destroy it and refusing to pay more than a token amount. I got great support from the seller who made things right and Kevin at Picobrew helping limit the financial damage.
I sent them an email. I'll post their response once I receive.
Still no reply from zymatic. Anybody know a better email other than [email protected] ?
Try [email protected]. I've always gotten pretty prompt replies to questions.
It's [email protected]
bsaeaglepaul
New Member
So the Zymatic has been around for a few years now. Has anyone here managed to kill one yet? I'm thinking about picking one up but trying to get a feel for the average lifespan of the system. Cheers!
I'm in the process of building an additional set of beer in/out lines for my Zymatic and have run into an issue --
Does anyone know what the name of this thing is? It's luer lock on one side with a needle-less port, but I haven't found any "tee"s on the internet that look similar.
Does anyone know what the name of this thing is? It's luer lock on one side with a needle-less port, but I haven't found any "tee"s on the internet that look similar.
Search medical sites for needless injection site. Found some possible solutions doing that. Let us know if you find something. Great idea... also did you ask picobrew?
I... did not ask picobrew until earlier this evening, as it turns out. That would have been a good idea.
Interestingly enough, what it appears they did was take some kind of small 1/4" polycarbonate "T" and just attach a needleless injection site to the middle leg of the "T". Now I just need to find a source for the needleless injection site & the polycarbonate "T". Project for tomorrow!
In the mean time, I've ordered one of these which I plan to add to the "beer out" tube. I've been having issues lately with my "beer out" quick disconnect getting jammed with tiny pieces of grain and I'm hoping this will help with that.
I'm pretty sure this is the same inline filter that they use on the "beer in" line to the Zymatic - just with a clear nylon bowl rather than black glass filled polypropylene.
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http://www.qosina.com/needle-injection-sites
Didn't bother to register but this place looks promising.
Didn't bother to register but this place looks promising.
I took my Zymatic on its maiden voyage on Monday, brewing the Pico Pale Ale kit that came with the unit. I have a couple of observations and questions about my experience.
My one big mistake was accidentally loading and inserting the adjunct compartment into the step filter backwards, so when my water was heating to mash temp it was also flowing through the 4th hop cage which contained the 5 minute addition of ~1 oz. Cascade and some irish moss. After noticing the unexpected aroma of hops, I figured out my error reasonably quickly. At this point it had been around 14 minutes and the water had reached ~115F. I paused the brew, reversed the order of the hop cages, flipped the adjunct compartment around and resumed the brew. Hopefully not too much bitterness was extracted or flavor/aroma lost.
After that miscue, the rest of the brew was pretty uneventful (which makes sense as it's completely automated). For chilling, I used a Jaded CornyPillar. I inserted it in the keg with a few minutes left in the boil in order to sanitize it and covered the keg opening with a piece of sanitized aluminum foil. I started the chilling water flowing from my kitchen sink at the end of the boil as the draining step began. What process are other CornyPillar users following?
I wasn't totally clear on how to use the sampling port. Can you just unscrew it while the wort is circulating through and screw in the syringe? Do you need to pause the brew or anything like that?
When it came time for cleanup, I discovered that bits of the irish moss were wedged between the plastic and screen of the hop cage, making it tough to clean. In the future, I'll skip the irish moss and either use whirlfloc or skip finings altogether. What are others doing in this regard?
Thanks!
My one big mistake was accidentally loading and inserting the adjunct compartment into the step filter backwards, so when my water was heating to mash temp it was also flowing through the 4th hop cage which contained the 5 minute addition of ~1 oz. Cascade and some irish moss. After noticing the unexpected aroma of hops, I figured out my error reasonably quickly. At this point it had been around 14 minutes and the water had reached ~115F. I paused the brew, reversed the order of the hop cages, flipped the adjunct compartment around and resumed the brew. Hopefully not too much bitterness was extracted or flavor/aroma lost.
After that miscue, the rest of the brew was pretty uneventful (which makes sense as it's completely automated). For chilling, I used a Jaded CornyPillar. I inserted it in the keg with a few minutes left in the boil in order to sanitize it and covered the keg opening with a piece of sanitized aluminum foil. I started the chilling water flowing from my kitchen sink at the end of the boil as the draining step began. What process are other CornyPillar users following?
I wasn't totally clear on how to use the sampling port. Can you just unscrew it while the wort is circulating through and screw in the syringe? Do you need to pause the brew or anything like that?
When it came time for cleanup, I discovered that bits of the irish moss were wedged between the plastic and screen of the hop cage, making it tough to clean. In the future, I'll skip the irish moss and either use whirlfloc or skip finings altogether. What are others doing in this regard?
Thanks!
When I'm using my cornypillar I generally try to "wiggle" it around to stir the wort until the water coming out of the pillar remains cold -- normally 2-3 minutes.
The sampling port is a needleless luer lock port which means you can screw the syringe directly into the port. The blue plastic in the middle will be pushed inwards as the syringe is attached allowing wort to flow into the syringe without risking a leak. You will need the pump on the Zymatic running to have wort flowing through the "tee" the sample port is attached to in order to use it.
One word of caution -- When you screw in the syringe it shouldn't naturally be filled/have the plunger pushed out. If any grain gets into the "out" hose, it can cause the hose to pressurize which will lead to the syringe filling itself - potentially rapidly. Once it is full you'll be cleaning wort off your wall. Be careful when screwing it in, and be ready to quickly unscrew it.
Careful, don't unscrew the part that is sticking off of the sample port on the tube going to the keg. The part with the blue plastic in it is a check valve. If you take that off, it will squirt hot wort your way. Just take your sample syringe and screw it onto the check valve and slowly pull to take a sample. You don't need much if you are using a refractometer.
Thorrak is dead on here! I actually now use this fact to check that I am indeed not getting an out clog periodically during the brew process because it can cause problems down the road. First time this happened to me I was totally not expecting this to happen as I had use the sampling port many times before without this happening. It shot the syringe part across my brewery and it made a real mess before I could gather my wits and unscrew it. Definitely be aware this can happen and thanks again to Thorrak for identifying why it does on this forum!! Cheers!!
This may have been discussed before so I apologize. How is every measuring pre and post boil wort volume for efficiency? I just got the Z and would really like to dial it in.
I've complained a few times on here about how my Zymatic wasn't properly draining the step filter and was pressurizing the "liquid out" line after the quick disconnect got clogged with grain that snuck around the mesh filters, and decided a few weeks ago to try every solution I could think of.
First, I ended up attempting to build an alternate "liquid out" line for my Zymatic which included an inline strainer attached to some 3/8" ID thick wall silicone tubing. This looked promising - but midway through my mash I found wort running around the side of my step filter and onto my kitchen floor. Related? Possibly not as I thought the design of the step filter would prevent this, but after draining the step filter and restarting from the offending mash step it happened a second time which was enough for me to write this solution off.
My second solution was to just cut the inline strainer off and point a naked length of silicone tubing into the keg. This worked great! It also was scary as hell during the boil when my girlfriend didn't realize nothing was attaching the line to the keg and almost tried to move it. 207 degree wort isn't anything to mess with.
Once this batch was finally done, I probably had less than 1.75 gal of wort left in the keg - but it was somehow at an OG of 1.093 instead of the 1.078 I was expecting. While I somehow don't trust that measurement, that still implies a massively more efficient mash than I intended/expected.
For my latest batch, I decided to switch back to the original liquid out line and change the crush and widen my rollers to 0.045". The milled grain was visibly more coarse than in the previous batch - but my efficiency didn't take as much of a hit as I was expecting. I got 1.069 when PicoBrew's calculator was estimating 1.051. More importantly though - no sticking! Everything was much more smooth with the coarser crush.
First, I ended up attempting to build an alternate "liquid out" line for my Zymatic which included an inline strainer attached to some 3/8" ID thick wall silicone tubing. This looked promising - but midway through my mash I found wort running around the side of my step filter and onto my kitchen floor. Related? Possibly not as I thought the design of the step filter would prevent this, but after draining the step filter and restarting from the offending mash step it happened a second time which was enough for me to write this solution off.
My second solution was to just cut the inline strainer off and point a naked length of silicone tubing into the keg. This worked great! It also was scary as hell during the boil when my girlfriend didn't realize nothing was attaching the line to the keg and almost tried to move it. 207 degree wort isn't anything to mess with.
Once this batch was finally done, I probably had less than 1.75 gal of wort left in the keg - but it was somehow at an OG of 1.093 instead of the 1.078 I was expecting. While I somehow don't trust that measurement, that still implies a massively more efficient mash than I intended/expected.
For my latest batch, I decided to switch back to the original liquid out line and change the crush and widen my rollers to 0.045". The milled grain was visibly more coarse than in the previous batch - but my efficiency didn't take as much of a hit as I was expecting. I got 1.069 when PicoBrew's calculator was estimating 1.051. More importantly though - no sticking! Everything was much more smooth with the coarser crush.
Has anyone had any luck, or even tried to use a 3 gallon keg for 2.5 gallon batches with the Z? I want to ferment and serve out of 2.5g kegs, I simply don't want a 5g keg around that I won't be using (nor do I want to mess with transferring out of the 5g to the 2.5g after the brew). Plenty of Foam control would be needed I imagine.
Thanks for your input.
Thanks for your input.
Always take the ball lock disconnects apart and clean out those bits after every brew and check before brewing.
I bought the Arbor Fabricating step filter cage insert, detailed in this Pico thread: https://picobrew.com/Forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=2515. I think this helps keep the grain in a bit.
This is the big one though... I put a spoon on the top left and right side of the top grain filter screen. Then once the step filter is inserted, I put a little piece of cardboard on the left and right of the step filter and the Zymatic unit itself so the plastic step filter lid doesn't float up or bend. Before doing this, I noticed that the top grain filter would sometimes float up due to trapped air, letting some grains spill over into the drain part.
Good luck
I primarily use 2.5g kegs I got from AIH for serving Zymatic batches. I do not ferment in them though. I either use the 5gal brewing keg or the 3.5gal SSBrewtech Brewbucket mini for fermenting. I prefer using the brewbuckets as trub and hops always seem to clog up the out tube on the fermenting keg. Much easier to fit the 2.5gal kegs in the bottom of the beer fridge too.
Interesting -- I bought one of these as well, but ended up not using it after a few brews as I found it actually created more problems than it solved. The first time I tried using it was without the bottom step filter - grain ended up floating over the wall of the cage insert and clogged the disconnect. The second time, I had grains float out as well - but they got trapped by the lower filter which saved my beer. Problem is, this meant cleanup was still a mess - which was why I bought the arbor fab filter to begin with.
I kind of wonder what my mash efficiency would be if I got some kind of fitted lid for the cage insert which would forceably trap the grains in the cage and prevent them from floating out... Hmm.
EDIT - So apparently they've started to sell lids! Now to see if I can get one after the fact!
Now that's an interesting thought! My original step filter was the "unholy" (har har) one that came with Kickstarter Zymatics. It was replaced once, and so now I have the "holy" kind. I have noticed that the top mesh filter rests on the silicone hole-fillers rather than flush against the top of the mash compartment -- I wonder if that is contributing to the issue you describe. I'll have to try your spoon trick!
Has anyone received their refurbished zymatic from the latest kickstarter? They were supposed to ship last month, but still no machine. I contacted them on July 5th and they indicated that the machines were ready to ship within the week. Just curious.
I'm still waiting too. Some people have received them, no idea how many have gone out.
QoB
Well-Known Member
They're going out in batches. Each one is getting thoroughly tested and there were a lot. They go out in the order received. If you write to us [email protected] they will give you a more specific date range. I'll ask at work today and post what I've been told.
Cheers
Cheers
MaCheFai
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I noticed this guy uses two "O" rings between his filter and his lid. I might try this next.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XecvLVWD90[/ame]
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XecvLVWD90[/ame]
I received mine last night. Already managed to get the drip tray wedged at a 45 degree angle. And I know this question has been asked before, but other than the above wort chiller, is there any reasonable modifications (no replacing the grain bin with that 120 USD one....I already spent too much) I can make to make the product even better...
MaCheFai
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Nah, the hardware is pretty much good to go as is. Only mod's I've made is related to fermenting and serving in/out of kegs. So my custom mod's included things like a hommade immersion chiller, a custom bubbler post attachment, dry hop cage/clips and strings to the down post, a carb stone, but all else was pretty much the same as with a carboy.
Do you just use one red silicone band per hop cage? I saw picobrew use two, but I can't seem to find a place to buy extra
alaric10000
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I haven't banded my hop cages ever as the lids are a really tight fit and I've never maxed out hop capacity, but they'd be called silicone cooking bands or something like that on Amazon or another site. Like pblocked said, the machine does what it's supposed to right out of the box. Aside from a wort chiller, the only thing I'd recommend is to either use the network cable to plug the Z into your router/modem, or if you really have to use wifi, have the router or a repeater in the same room as the Z. The combination of the metal box and being tech from a few years ago means the signal isn't great and you do need it to stay connected all the way through the brew.
I'm 3 batches in with my zymatic, so far mostly so good. My last batch I did an adjunct addition, which was spices at the 5 minute mark left in boil. I only had two hop additions before this, so I assumed I put these adjuncts in the 3rd box, well when I was cleaning up it looks like the machine never sent the wort through the 3rd box. Did I miss something?
Also, I had quite a bit of overflow on this last batch. It looks like wort was coming up through the top of the plastic lid, eventually collecting in the drip tray thing, then eventually dripping out of that. It wasn't a ton of wort, but made more cleanup.
Also, I had quite a bit of overflow on this last batch. It looks like wort was coming up through the top of the plastic lid, eventually collecting in the drip tray thing, then eventually dripping out of that. It wasn't a ton of wort, but made more cleanup.
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