PicoBrew Pico users

[bobbob911]

I suspect you are right just because it's really only 2 days between racking and first pour - seems like not nearly enough time for oxidization to be significant.

I'm thinking more about the dry hop step - opening that lid exposes the beer to oxygen that is trapped in the keg for 5+ days. Maybe a good idea to repurge the keg with some CO2 after adding the hops?

 

[crane]

I suspect you are right just because it's really only 2 days between racking and first pour - seems like not nearly enough time for oxidization to be significant.

I'm thinking more about the dry hop step - opening that lid exposes the beer to oxygen that is trapped in the keg for 5+ days. Maybe a good idea to repurge the keg with some CO2 after adding the hops?

There are countless threads on here about dry hop flavors and aromas dying off after a week or 2. These are due to oxygen. Some guys are going to crazy extremes to minimize any oxygen pickup along the way. Things like purging kegs before racking, and closed system counter pressure transfers are some of the techniques used to minimize oxygen pickup. My method for dry hopping is to put the hops into an empty keg, purge and seal it with CO2, then counter pressure transfer. If I'm only doing a single dry hop addition I'll serve from the same keg.

Considering the small batch size of the pico you can probably be ignorant of these things if you drink the whole batch quickly.

 

[jrb03]

You can leave in the fermenter too long, I have gone up to a month with large batches no problem, I think that's about the limit you would want to go before moving to a secondary fermentation or carbing. I think 10-14 days is the sweet spot, I haven't seen much difference after that. I don't brew really big beers, anything with high abv you probably want to leave a little longer.

 

[bobbob911]

My method for dry hopping is to put the hops into an empty keg, purge and seal it with CO2, then counter pressure transfer. If I'm only doing a single dry hop addition I'll serve from the same keg.

Thats a great idea too. How do you achieve the counter pressure? I'm thinking of two ways with the included Pico equipment:

1)use the included racking tube attached to the IN of the serving keg (liquid pushed into the OUT). The length of the tube should create a bit of back pressure, maybe coiled a bit too.

2)Use the fast fermentation valve and nothing connected to the IN - this might be too much back pressure though?

 

[VagueSkunk]

I made a jumper line using 2 beer disconnects and about 2 feet of beer line. Attach co2 to the keg with wort in it, then I attach the jumper from out to out on the 2nd keg. Turn on the gas and beer flows keg to keg with next to no oxygen touching it

 

[crane]

I made a jumper line using 2 beer disconnects and about 2 feet of beer line. Attach co2 to the keg with wort in it, then I attach the jumper from out to out on the 2nd keg. Turn on the gas and beer flows keg to keg with next to no oxygen touching it

Yeah I do it like this. I have a spunding valve so I set the pressure on that to 5 psi below the pressure my CO2 tank is set to.

Without a spunding valve you can pull the relief valve on the receiving keg to bleed off pressure to keep the flow going.

If the flow is too fast from too large of a pressure difference then it will foam up a bunch in the receiving keg, which can be a problem with a spunding valve.

 

[bobbob911]

Thanks. The Pico spunding valve is a completely manual spring type, not adjustable or controllable, but I believe it is around 5 PSI max. I really only want to rack with around 1-2 PSI, so I'll probably have to keep pulling it manually to release pressure. But I thought connecting a loose hose to the unused ball lock on the receiving keg might work well too.

 

[nonac75]

Reading the other comments about pitching half of the yeast, what are your thoughts on the sugar if we choose to do natural carbonation? The whole packet or a smaller amount?

Also do we have to do natural carbonation at room/fermentation temperature or can it be done in the refrigerator?

Thanks for the advice

 

[jrb03]

Reading the other comments about pitching half of the yeast, what are your thoughts on the sugar if we choose to do natural carbonation? The whole packet or a smaller amount?

Also do we have to do natural carbonation at room/fermentation temperature or can it be done in the refrigerator?

Thanks for the advice

Pitching half a pack of yeast does not affect natural carbonation at all. If they call for a pack of sugar, you still use a pack of sugar. Natural carbonation has to be done at room/fermentation temperature. Yeast go to sleep in the fridge.

 

[bobbob911]

Looks like they are coming along with the Freestyle software:

https://www.cnet.com/products/picobrew-freestyle/preview/

 

[VagueSkunk]

It's about time.

 

[jrb03]

Beta is live in the marketplace.

 

[VagueSkunk]

Awww hell yeah!
Grrrr, no flaked oats

 

[Lbarouf]

Beta is live in the marketplace.

what's the URL? I don't see it...maybe I'm blind.

 

[jrb03]

Awww hell yeah!
Grrrr, no flaked oats

Blue Moon clone? 😀

what's the URL? I don't see it...maybe I'm blind.

It is one of the ads in the scrolling banner at top of marketplace page for me.

 

[VagueSkunk]

Blue Moon clone? 😀

I was going to try and do a NEIPA. Even though I live in a city of almost 4 million people, beers of this style are next to impossible to get unless you're willing to wait in line for hours on a weekday. I work for a living so that's a bit tough to do

 

[jrb03]

I was going to try and do a NEIPA. Even though I live in a city of almost 4 million people, beers of this style are next to impossible to get unless you're willing to wait in line for hours on a weekday. I work for a living so that's a bit tough to do

I see. My first was going to be a blue moon clone lol. Wife loves it and I've come pretty close on my big system. Haven't looked closely through the pack builder yet, I work for a living too 😎

 

[VagueSkunk]

Grain and hop selections are very limited right now. Hopefully that changes. Once they expand that, it should be a pretty cool option.

 

[ooom416354]

This is awesome! Anyone have some good recipes that we can share to make the custom pico's?

 

[Anyhowe]

This is awesome! Anyone have some good recipes that we can share to make the custom pico's?

If that is the case why not just use some of the massive amount of recipes that currently exist.

 

[Lbarouf]

Blue Moon clone? 😀



It is one of the ads in the scrolling banner at top of marketplace page for me.

Ah, see it now. Has anyone made one already?

 

[VagueSkunk]

Max out on 2row and citra hops. There ya go, a simple SMaSH recipe...

 

[Bwood1377]

I see how to add and remove grains from the freestyle pak but I cant seem to remove hops. Am I missing something?

 

[jrb03]

I see how to add and remove grains from the freestyle pak but I cant seem to remove hops. Am I missing something?

Drag each hop leaf out of the box to remove. Drag in to add.

 

[VagueSkunk]

Finally got to try my 4th batch last night and the results were disappointing yet again.
I brewed the "Deaf Turtle" IPA and it has off-flavors that I cant even identify. It's not undrinkable, but it's pretty close and definitely not something I would serve to anybody.
It has zero hop aroma or flavor, despite being dry hopped and then transferred to the serving keg via a closed transfer using co2. In fact this beer fits no actual recognized style as far as I can tell. It doesnt smell or taste like an IPA, it just kinda tastes and smells like...'beer'.
My previous 3 batches were all pretty bad as well, but I kind of chalked that up to the wide temperature fluctuations in my old, poorly insulated house. So to rule that out, I bought a chest freezer and Inkbird temp controller. Wort temp was a steady 68*F during this entire fermentation. The silicone lid did get sucked into the keg while cooling so I suppose that may have introduced something foreign into the wort. But that still doesnt explain the previous 3 bad batches.
Now that I think about it, with the exception of my very 1st batch (Buffalo Sweat stout), the next 3 (all IPAs) have had that same lack of IPA taste and smell.
So, I'm at a loss at this point as to what to try next. I've doubled down on my cleaning/sanitizing. Kegs were fully disassembled, cleaned, sanitized and stored sealed with some starsan in them. I did 2 deep clean cycles on the Pico before brewing this last batch. I've spent money for temperature control.
I've got 4 unused pico paks sitting here and vouchers for 2 of the freestyle packs, so I'm gonna stick it out for at least that long, but after that, I'm not so sure.

 

[bobbob911]

That is disappointing to hear.

Is there *anyone* on this thread that has had great (or even good) results with any of the IPA recipes? It seems like it should be the easiest thing in the world to have a strong hop nose from a dry hopped beer that is only literally days old!

 

[jrb03]

IPA isn't my thing so I haven't done one yet. All 6 of my brews have been good to excellent. Browsing through reviews on the brew marketplace there are plenty of good and great reviews for the IPA kits. The bad reviews I've seen tend to be about off flavors that I think are attributable to pitching whole yeast packets and not cold crashing long enough or at all.

How long did you ferment for, and dry hop for. There has been discussion that the Pico instructions for dry hopping are very bad and should be done a different way, don't know if you have seen that.

 

[bobbob911]

There has been discussion that the Pico instructions for dry hopping are very bad and should be done a different way, don't know if you have seen that.

I have not seen that - can you elaborate? This last batch I actually purged the keg with a bit of CO2 after opening to pitch the hops, just to minimize chances of oxidation.

Based on feedback here my current batch I allowed to ferment for 6 days, and am now dry hopping for 5 days. It will be ready this weekend.

 

[jrb03]

I think the discussion has been on the picobrewers Facebook group. I think the pico instructions say to dry hop after 3 days of fermentation correct? The consensus is this is too soon. The Pico system and instructions are designed around fast turnaround, and assuming fermentation is done in those 3 days. Even with FF 3-5 days is too soon to rack. Give all brews at least 7 days of fermentation if using FF, 10-14 days of standard. And remember it's not just the adapter/airlock that defines your times, but the temp too. I've been doing 10 days with the FF adapter at ~73' with better results. Dry hopping should start after these fermentation times are complete. Sounds like your on the right track, assuming your 6 days of fermentation was at FF temps. You don't want to dry hop while fermentation is still active, even at a slow pace, the hop aroma is blown out with the co2. Dry hopping is mostly aroma.

 

[bobbob911]

Thanks. The contrary opinion is that its best to add dry hops when a little bit of fermentation is still going on, so that a little CO2 will be produced to prevent the beer from oxidizing during dry hopping phase.

For my next batch, I'm going to ferment for 7 days, and then rack to another empty corny keg (using CO2) that the dry hop bags are already in. This will avoid the whole oxidation issue completely, and will let me dry hop and serve out of the same keg - if I can't get hoppiness from that then there's no hope

And next time I will reduce the amount of yeast pitched too.

 

[jrb03]

Your really scared of oxidation lol. I think your nuts but if it makes you feel better �� Remember everything in life doesn't scale 1:1. What works on a 5 gallon batch may not be the same on a 1 gallon with a tiny hop pouch. There is quite the discussion around this dry hopping on the other groups. And definitely cut the yeast to at least half. That is a no brainer must.

 

[bobbob911]

I am scared of oxidation only because A) My three batches up to now have all exhibited off flavors associated with oxidation (sweetness, lack of hop character), and B) From what I can tell hop-forward IPAs are particularly sensitive to oxidation.

Since these were my primary motivation to getting the Pico, yes I'm concerned about it. If I was brewing old ales I might not care as much

 

[jrb03]

Gotcha. Sweetness is being reported a lot, especially in the big beers like Plinius. That is incomplete fermentation. It's becoming apparent their timelines are a little optimistic, especially on big beers which most IPAs are. What was your temp for 6 days of fermentation.

 

[VagueSkunk]

According to my notes I pitched yeast on 12/19, added the dry hop charge on 12/30 and then started carbonating on 1/2.
In checking my notes, I see that I tasted a small sample (approx 4oz) of the slurry from the bottom of the fermentation keg and noted that it did have some hop aroma at that time. My notes also indicate no noticeable off-flavors though it was obviously yeasty as ****.
Since I'm pretty much out of ideas, I'm going to try the half a yeast packet trick next time.
I almost wish there was a way to have someone knowledgeable taste this stuff and help me diagnose exactly what is going wrong.

 

[bobbob911]

Was that using the FF valve or standard ferment? Either way, 11 days @ 68F seems like more than enough time to have a good fermentation no?

The upside is that if either of us does figure it out we should be able to deduce what made the difference!

 

[bobbob911]

Sweetness can also be from oxidation, and I'm not really sure which one its from. My ambient temp is around 71-72F, no clue what the wort temp actually is though. Not being able to ferment at room temperature would be a huge negative for me.

 

[jrb03]

Gotta say it again guys. Why are you pitching the whole pack! Pitch half. Pitch half. And pitch half (or a little less). When there is too much yeast they get lazy and don't complete the conditioning phase. Start there please.

Where in that process did you rack and cold crash? That's a pretty quick time between dry hopping and carbonation.

 

[bobbob911]

To be fair, I think you mentioned the half pack thing after he and I had already pitched Next batch I will definitely try it!

 

[jrb03]

Sweetness can also be from oxidation, and I'm not really sure which one its from. My ambient temp is around 71-72F, no clue what the wort temp actually is though. Not being able to ferment at room temperature would be a huge negative for me.

Oxidation is going to taste like wet cardboard. Musty. I've had it in my bottling days. It takes a long time to develop, your not going to oxidize beer in these timelines we are discussing.

You can definitely ferment at room temperature, I'm at ~73 or 75. You must use the FF adapter though. The big BUT, don't use the timelines in the manual. At 71' your at the very low end of FF, I would consider it standard. Give your beers 10-14 days. Half a pack of yeast. Dry hop after fermentation, 5 to 7 days is what I've seen recommended. Cold crash 2 days. I slow force carb for a week but I think their quick carb method seems to be working for people.

It's not the quick turnaround promised by Pico, sorry. You can produce drinkable beer quickly, but the extra time helps, and for your big IPAs I think you will be happy.

 

[jrb03]

To be fair, I think you mentioned the half pack thing after he and I had already pitched Next batch I will definitely try it!

Sorry, you are probably right. I post in a couple different groups and get confused. I'm trying to make sure the good info from the Facebook group is shared here as well. I have been preaching the half pack for a while but my bad for bringing it late here.