PicoBrew Pico users

[jrb03]

I received a Fresh Squeezed Pico pack today I purchased on Amazon. Received it next day, gotta love prime! The brew by date was late June, so far each pack I have received was in march. The new pack had new shipping packaging, much improved. The dry hop packet is definitely the new and improved filter pape, it seems much thinner and has perforations, I can see how this should work better. Hopefully I can brew this weekend.

 

[VagueSkunk]

I received a Fresh Squeezed Pico pack today I purchased on Amazon. Received it next day, gotta love prime! The brew by date was late June, so far each pack I have received was in march. The new pack had new shipping packaging, much improved. The dry hop packet is definitely the new and improved filter pape, it seems much thinner and has perforations, I can see how this should work better. Hopefully I can brew this weekend.

They have a brew by date? News to me!

 

[Mannhec]

I had some time today. I have a Buffalo lager in the fridge aging, a couple/few more weeks I think. But, I got a Half Squeezed in the secondary, Stingray IPA in Primary and a Strawberry white wine in Primary.

 

[jrb03]

Looks cool! What temp are you fermenting at? I noticed the window fan lol.

 

[Mannhec]

72f, the fan is for the summer months. this is on the back porch. The fan blows from inside the house to out here when needed.

 

[jrb03]

Well the results are in, hop bomb, amazing! To recap the process:

Pitched 1 tsp of included US-05
Fermented 14 days with fast fermentation adapter at 74', tilt showed it took 10.5 days for gravity to stop dropping, finished at 1.013
Cold crashed 3 days
Racked and dry hopped in serving keg, removed hops from included packets and used my own traditional hop sack
Carbed in kegerator at serving pressure 12 psi about 5 days so far
Dry hops will stay in serving keg until keg kicks.

I have to admit in not much of an IPA guy, but I know a good IPA, and this is a damn good IPA. Could smell the hop aroma poring this first pint. No hint of sweetness I have read about with this pack. Not one hint of the fruity tartness I have had using the dry yeast in the past. Before I switched to liquid yeast I was eyeballing half a pack. One tsp worked great in this batch, and I will give it another shot in the future based on these results. Great brew. Cheers!

Edit: sorry I have no idea why my pics post side ways sometimes!

 

[jrb03]

72f, the fan is for the summer months. this is on the back porch. The fan blows from inside the house to out here when needed.

Your on the high side for standard fermentation, I would seriously consider using the fast fermentation adapter at those temps. (Or warm fermentation adapter as I call it as it is not much faster)

 

[Mannhec]

I am not fast /warm fermenting. I prefer the standard way. The Half-Squeezed was in Primary for 14 days, has been in secondary for 2 days now and is still showing activity. looks pretty though. Although I have been force carbing the beers on these two I think I am going to naturally ferment. when force carbing I am not sure how to remove the CO2 adapter and add the bung for storage and aging the beer until I am ready to serve without opening the keg and replacing, adding O2 and possibly bugs to it. Natural will allow me to keep it sealed the entire time.

 

[Lbarouf]

Which pack was this again?

Well the results are in, hop bomb, amazing! To recap the process:

Pitched 1 tsp of included US-05
Fermented 14 days with fast fermentation adapter at 74', tilt showed it took 10.5 days for gravity to stop dropping, finished at 1.013
Cold crashed 3 days
Racked and dry hopped in serving keg, removed hops from included packets and used my own traditional hop sack
Carbed in kegerator at serving pressure 12 psi about 5 days so far
Dry hops will stay in serving keg until keg kicks.

I have to admit in not much of an IPA guy, but I know a good IPA, and this is a damn good IPA. Could smell the hop aroma poring this first pint. No hint of sweetness I have read about with this pack. Not one hint of the fruity tartness I have had using the dry yeast in the past. Before I switched to liquid yeast I was eyeballing half a pack. One tsp worked great in this batch, and I will give it another shot in the future based on these results. Great brew. Cheers!

Edit: sorry I have no idea why my pics post side ways sometimes!

 

[jrb03]

Which pack was this again?

Plinius

 

[jrb03]

I am not fast /warm fermenting. I prefer the standard way. The Half-Squeezed was in Primary for 14 days, has been in secondary for 2 days now and is still showing activity. looks pretty though. Although I have been force carbing the beers on these two I think I am going to naturally ferment. when force carbing I am not sure how to remove the CO2 adapter and add the bung for storage and aging the beer until I am ready to serve without opening the keg and replacing, adding O2 and possibly bugs to it. Natural will allow me to keep it sealed the entire time.

I can see you are standard fermenting. My point is 72' is a little too warm for that in my experience. If you like the results go for it.

 

[Mannhec]

It seems to work for me, it is probably a a bit cooler than 72. I have a Half-Squeezed that I put in secondary on the 17th and I thought it was almost done then after close to 16 days in primary, but was still showing decent activity in secondary until this morning. The Stingray I put in Primary on the same day (17) is still very active with good bubbles every 15 secs or so or less. The wine on the other hand, gobbled up the yeast and I assume the sugar (not taken a reading yet) in like 3 days and has almost gone still. Going to secondary with that this weekend unless I see more activity.

 

[jrb03]

Ya I guess it also depends on the yeast you use. The liquid yeasts I like to use produce some off flavors in the 70s, the fast fermentation adapter cleans that up well though.

 

[Lbarouf]

What temperature do you cold crash your kegs, if I may ask?

 

[jrb03]

In a fridge or kegerator. Under 40.

 

[Lbarouf]

Did the Plinius get you good sized cake at the bottom?

 

[bobbob911]

Jrb, what are your thoughts on dry hopping in the serving keg at fridge temp (i.e. After cold crash)? I wasn't sure if I should rack at room temp and dry hop for a couple of days before refrigerating.

 

[jrb03]

Yes the Plinius had a big cake. I cold crash good so it didn't clog on me or suck up too much on transfer. Even before the Pico I have always dry hopped in the serving keg during carbonating. When brewing large batches I would remove the hop sack after a couple weeks, as IPA batches tend to last much longer than others around here. In the pico sized batch I have no plans to remove the hop sack, you don't want to dry hop too long, but several weeks is no problem and it won't last that long. That's just the way I have always done it, and with the reports of low hop aroma and flavor I think you should give it a try.

 

[bobbob911]

Thanks. I'll cold crash, rack, then carb and dry hop (using the included packets) these next two batches.

 

[jrb03]

I just brewed fresh squeezed this weekend and it has the new hop packets. You can see a visible difference in the material, has little perforations. I will give this new material a chance in this batch. The old paper wasn't worth a darn for dry hopping.

 

[jrb03]

And to add, i am using a "brewing keg" to serve so it is easy to dry hop. If your using a Pico "serving keg" to serve from I don't know if you could easily dry hop in there with the small opening.

 

[nonac75]

Did you Star San your hop bag?

 

[jrb03]

Did you Star San your hop bag?

No, I boiled it for a few minutes before tossing the hops in.

 

[Ewelady]

dang, had another bad day of brewing... took over an hour before the Pico finally kicked in and heated the water. It was only after I sent an email that it started. It was pumping, this time it was actually registering on the Pico website but it wasn't heating, stuck on 71. I even shut the thing off (did not unplug) and it still didn't start. Eventually, after an hour it started, in the mean time it was pumping water from the keg through the stepfilter. So looked okay, but when I went to clean it out the box had started to fall apart and some of the grains had leaked out and I could see some husk in the little filter/drain of the stepfilter. Got that cleaned up and emailed Pico again to ask what else I should do and they told me I need to take apart the ball lock connectors and the keg posts and clean them.

It kept repriming the pump, but it never reported an error!

But the good news! The tilt is in the keg.

 

[VagueSkunk]

Transferred two batches of non-pico brewed beer from fermenter to keg last night. Got huge amounts of hop aroma from both batches, something I've never had with a pico brewed batch. Fingers crossed!

 

[Ewelady]

Transferred two batches of non-pico brewed beer from fermenter to keg last night. Got huge amounts of hop aroma from both batches, something I've never had with a pico brewed batch. Fingers crossed!

how did you brew them?

 

[VagueSkunk]

how did you brew them?

They were both extract batches brewed on my stovetop. One was a kit, the other was a NEIPA recipe that I made up.

 

[Mannhec]

Just brewed my first FreeStyle. Fermenting nicely, just put in Primary yesterday.
Mannhec's FebruaryThing
Flavors of citrus, floral and spice highlight this big-alcohol deep amber ale that is normal-bodied and hoppy.
ABV%
6.2
DEFAULT: 4.5 - 6.2
IBU
30
DEFAULT: 25 - 40
OG
1.057
DEFAULT: 1.045 - 1.060
FG
1.010
DEFAULT: 1.010 - 1.015
SRM
11
DEFAULT: 10 - 17

 

[jrb03]

Transferred two batches of non-pico brewed beer from fermenter to keg last night. Got huge amounts of hop aroma from both batches, something I've never had with a pico brewed batch. Fingers crossed!

What yeast and how much. How long of fermentation. How did you dry hop.

 

[Mannhec]

Oh, and I built and ordered this FreeStyle, waiting on it to arrive.
Mannhec's Mighty Stout
A bitter, deep black stout. It is very full-bodied and robust with citrus, floral and tropical fruit notes.
ABV%
8.0
DEFAULT: 8.0 - 12.0
IBU
50
DEFAULT: 50 - 90
OG
1.078
DEFAULT: 1.075 - 1.115
FG
1.017
DEFAULT: 1.018 - 1.030
SRM
83

 

[jrb03]

Those look good. I have a couple more kickstarter packs to get through then I will build a couple freestyles. I have a few ideas I'm looking forward to.

 

[VagueSkunk]

What yeast and how much. How long of fermentation. How did you dry hop.

Did roughly 1/3 pack of US05 in one batch and roughly 1/2 pack of liquid WY1318 in the other.
Dry hopped the NEIPA on day five with about 1/2 oz of citra/simcoe. Tons of hop sludge in the fermenter and tons in the keg. So much that it clogged the dip tube :\

 

[jrb03]

Did roughly 1/3 pack of US05 in one batch and roughly 1/2 pack of liquid WY1318 in the other.
Dry hopped the NEIPA on day five with about 1/2 oz of citra/simcoe. Tons of hop sludge in the fermenter and tons in the keg. So much that it clogged the dip tube :\

Nice. That should be good. One of the keys to a Pico batch is to remove the dry hops from their filter paper and use a traditional hop sack or toss them in the keg. They recently changed their hop paper, the jury is still out on that. I have a fresh squeezed batch fermenting, it had the new hop paper, I will give it a try and report back.

 

[VagueSkunk]

Tried a sample of the US05 batch and even flat it's still way better than anything I've had produced by the Pico. Absolutely none of the sour/cidery aroma and flavor that I've come to expect. Don't know why all my Pico batches are so terrible

 

[jrb03]

How much yeast did you pitch in the Pico batches? That's the reason. 1 tsp and proper fermentation time.

 

[VagueSkunk]

My first three batches I followed the included instructions and pitched the whole packet of yeast. Batch number four I pitched half a packet. Batch five was a measured teaspoon, and turned out undrinkable.

 

[jrb03]

Hmm undrinkable? Something is going on. Fermentation time? I'm using a tilt to verify fermentation is complete, using the fast fermentation adapter at 74'. The quickest batch to complete was party porter, the smallest ABV of the 5 batches I've used tilt, took 7 days. The longest was Plinius at 11 days. The others were around 8-9 days. I always give them another day or two after fermentation is complete to start a 2-3 day cold crash. If your fermenting standard at cooler temps I can see that taking a couple more days than my warmer fermentation. Other than that I can only think of infection, which is pretty rare, or you just really don't like the fruity esters US-05 produces.

Good luck I hope you can figure it out, I know you can. On the Facebook group it's pretty much all happy now with the modified procedures.

 

[DrGMG]

Sadly, we will need liquid yeast.

 

[Anyhowe]

This machine is dirt simple. Any bad beer is operetor error.

 

[Denny]

This machine is dirt simple. Any bad beer is operetor error.

The machine does a great job of producing wort, but there are still plenty of ways to screw things up.