PicoPaks - REUSABLE?

[macgyuver]

Utah Diesel makes a grain cage for the Zy, but not for the pico Pro/S/C. I am sure they will make whatever you want them to for a price..

 

[deckerchevy]

Would they be interested in making one for the C? I’m sure they would have a lot of interest now that they have released the Unpak’d version. On another note I’m working currently on a beer smith equipment profile for the Pico C.

 

[chiefwigms]

That would be awesome thank you for helping out. I am struggling to find a sous vide container that I could drill some holes in that would work better. The size inside the step filter is just too small for a normal sous vide container.

Posted this on Facebook - cost me $125 and is unused (there are a few small gaps on the lid, and it isn't press fit). While it was being built, I got a decent deal on a zymatic, so I no longer need it.

Utahbiodiesel said to go to arborfab, and after several emails with Chad, he said he wasn't interested in taking on the project

 

[deckerchevy]

That is pretty awesome....how much grain does it hold?

 

[chiefwigms]

Haven't tried anything with it.. from my volume calculations, it's slightly larger than the actual Pico grain box - I was trying to have the majority of the step filter covered, but the labor for complex polygons made it so no one would look at it

 

[JM-brew]

So I finally got around to doing a manual brew. I got the stainless grate at big lots, it's made for grilling but perfect size for the Pico. Very basic light lager, 2-row, 6-row, flaked rice. I did a 2 step mash and actually got pretty good efficiency. I was expecting around 70% and got around 80%, but I also mill my grain pretty fine. All and all it went pretty good. One thing that I didn't like was the "hop bag" setup. Looking at the recipe creator on the website versus beersmith, I noticed the calculated IBU's were significantly different, much lower on the Pico recipe creator for the same amount of hops. I haven't contacted them about it, but my initial thought is that it's to compensate for poor utilization. The hop bag got saturated and then just kind of floated around on top of the wort. I'm think I'm going to try to rig together something like a hop spider for the next brew. Overall, though I'm pretty happy with how it went. We'll see how the beer turns out.

 

[macgyuver]

I had been using a stainless steel mesh in the bottom of my Pro/S for some time now. I started using the filter when paks started tearing open to keep the grain contained. It worked really well. I had thought about modifying it to resemble the Z2 screens and make it fit snuggly in the step filter but you still have to use a mesh bag for the grains so I tossed that idea out. Have not done an UnPak'd brew yet to try the screen though.

 

[FatNerdBrewing]

I brewed my first batch on my brand new Pico C last night via "manual brew". Brewed biermuncher's centennial blonde recipe. Went smoothly. Followed the pico guide and am letting it sit and will pitch tonight. Debating whether to give their serving vessel a shot once or just rack it to a proper serving keg. Excited at the prospect of doing more small batches.

 

[macgyuver]

I brewed my first batch on my brand new Pico C last night via "manual brew". Brewed biermuncher's centennial blonde recipe. Went smoothly. Followed the pico guide and am letting it sit and will pitch tonight. Debating whether to give their serving vessel a shot once or just rack it to a proper serving keg. Excited at the prospect of doing more small batches.

If you have the option for another type of serving vessel leave their serving keg alone. I found it was a waste of time. I tried them a couple times and had trouble with keeping pressure and foaming. Moved to ball lock kegs and have not looked back.

 

[FatNerdBrewing]

If you have the option for another type of serving vessel leave their serving keg alone. I found it was a waste of time. I tried them a couple times and had trouble with keeping pressure and foaming. Moved to ball lock kegs and have not looked back.

Yeah I can rack it to a 1.75G ball lock keg and serve from the keezer. Maybe I'll just ignore their serving keg then.

 

[Buck*49]

hey lads i bought a pico pro of ebay brand new got evrything i needed with i powerd it got to through internet conection all was great untill i started to update it was saying update failed i tryd and tryd in the end i got on to pico told them the problem they said it was a fraude system i said what you mean they then ignored me from that they to this i got no explanation and it was of some plocker called joshua at pico

Just posted on PicoBrew forum:
Reassigning used equipment to new owner
Kevin - 3 hours ago
Adding to this: If you are looking at purchasing a used PicoBrew product, or a 'like new' one from anyone who is not PicoBrew or an official retailer, contact the seller for the serial number or UID. Reach out to us with this before purchase so that we can verify that it is a machine that PicoBrew will support.

It hasn't been as much of an issue lately, but there are machines out there that were purchased with stolen credit cards or were sold as scrap by freight companies only to resurface after someone had purchased it at auction and sold it as 'like new' on eBay or by a sketchy third party seller on Amazon.

While PicoBrew will provide technical support for used machines in almost all cases, warranties are not transferable, and are not included with products that were not purchased directly from PicoBrew or an official retail partner.

(Kevin is a PicoBrew employee)

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[Buck*49]

Others and myself have used a few different types of containers for reusable containers. The issue is not getting a container to work but to figure out how to bypass the RFID tags. There are some ways that have been tried and are being used to work around the tags, but nothing has completely bypassed it. The only hope that I know of is to high jack the data stream and record it. That will only work for the type/style of brew that you recorded. Until they open the BYO options there is not much we can do really.

With the release of Manual Brew update, should make all of this a moot issue.
Manual brew allows you to brew using your own ingredients by putting ingredients and hops in bags, creating your own brew cycle using the recipe crafter.
Eliminates need for RFID tag.