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Strictly speaking, caramelizing DME vs wet wort is...well, exactly the same. You won't get much caramelization reactions until the water is almost entirely gone from the wort, since that happens in the 300 degree range. So we're really comparing the "wet" caramel process vs the "dry" process -...

I got complacent and didn't time it precisely, but: I just took the pot out, and lo and behold I have liquid, dark brown caramel with no scorching on the pot. I tried pouring some into a glass of water and confirmed it's hard crack and browned enough to be considered caramel. Dark amber color...

Once you figure it out - it'll do *EVERYTHING* for you. Calculate the water salts you need to add, recipe creation and modification, hop calculations, *everything*. You can track your inventory, track recipe versions and tasting notes...it's basically a whole-brewery management system in one...

I'll be making a scotch ale in a few days. Part of the process involves taking some of the sweet wort and boiling it down until it's almost dry and turns to malt caramel, then returning that to the batch. ...I would really prefer not to do that. Caramelizing sugars is a pain in the ass, and...

Just realized that my zymatic makes things easy enough that I ought to start using grain for yeast starters and stop buying expensive malt extract.

Brewing this tomorrow on my zymatic. Adjusting the ratio to 50% pale malt, 35% wheat malt, 15% honey, and brewing to a pH of 5.4 and roughly the bru'n water yellow malty profile. 2.75gal batch, about 1 million cells/ml of S-05 using a stir starter.

Thanks for the advice!

First picobrew day DONE! It's an interesting machine. I quite like it. There's a glitch with my wifi - I have to reset the router before I turn it on each time. Otherwise, the zymatic is the answer to a maiden's prayer. Santa was particularly good to me this year - a refractometer, pH...

Ahh, that's unfortunate but not surprising. I can hardly wait to get goin on this thing. I've got a long list of A-B test experiments to try :D

That's likely what I'll be doing...unless picobrew's got water chemistry calculations baked into their software. 6 days to go until I get my hands on that Picobrew!!!

Does this mean as long as I do any further edits in the advanced tool, I'll be fine?

The corny pillar looks good but I think I may end up going with a CFC for the chilling, which will make cleaning a bit easier, as I'll just hook up the CFC to the zymatic during its clean cycle. I've also had difficulty with copper chillers in the past picking up verdigris, so I'm thinking...

Just pulled the trigger on a Zymatic! Between the Zymatic and a mark's carboy/keg washer, I think my general brew labor's going to get cut by about 90%.

Poopies. Oh well, hope there's some deal that comes between now & the holidays. Just finished selling off 90% of my homebrew gear, everything but my kegerator, to raise the cash to buy a Zymatic. Can't freaking wait! On the plus side, my last batch turned out to be a really on-point...

I'm wondering right now if I should pull the lever today on the Picobrew since Adventures in Homebrewing has that site-wide 14% off going, or I should wait until Black Friday. Thoughts?

Brewie's also got automatic water inlets - pressure sensors in the tanks measure the amount of water present so from what I understand, if you hook it to a water pipe, it'll do that part for you, too.

Most of us got them off ebay from China and they were like $25 and came with bare wires, no DC power supply.

The fact that the zymatic is web dependent is the one thing that actually worries me - I've been stung by free to play game servers disappearing before. I've also owned fitness trackers and home automation gear that had support suddenly discontinued. That said, I'm in line to buy one. Gotta...

All I did was twist the wires together with the power supply leads. Just find any old DC12V or DC24V (most old electronics power adapters provide this), strip the wires, and touch them. DC24V is harmless to touch directly. If you have it wired right, the pump will spin up and move water...

It's not in production yet. Their test type model is just beginning testing, and Brewie's (optimistic) time line says 3 months before shipments begin, best case scenario. It does look super nice and the feature set is impressive. That said - they're well over a year behind schedule. Don't...