Picobrew Z

[Lax coach]

I am so happy with my Brew Boss 20 gallon.....

And I with my 15 gallon.

 

[simchippy]

I'm scheduled for the week of 5/11 as well. Been so tempted to cancel and go with Brew Boss. I figure I waited this long I'll give it a couple more weeks.

 

[macgyuver]

My Z2 was delivered today, cant wait to get home and open the boxes...

 

[macgyuver]

My Z2 was delivered Friday. Here is the unpacking and assembly of the two units.
Unpacking :

Assembly :

 

[macgyuver]

Here is Wireless setup, Registry, and First Clean of the units.

Connect Wireless :

Registry :


First Clean :

 

[doublea]

Thanks for posting the unpacking. Would love to hear some feedback after brew session(s).

My Z2 is supposed to ship this week. It was supposed to ship 4/27 (after being 4/13, and before that 3/13 and before that 3/7) and I got this email:

Hello!

We did not ship all of the Zs we planned to ship this week due to a delay in receiving a shipment of step filter screens. While some of you received your Z shipment notice, others did not, and this update is for you.

The screens are scheduled to arrive at our production facility on Tuesday, so this shipment delay is minimal. Plus, as the screens are an accessory item in the step filter, the delay did not affect the primary work of assembling and testing your Z system.

Once the screens arrive and pass our acceptance QA test, we'll pack them with your Z and ship it to you. With the systems already built, tested and boxed, this step should not take long and we expect to ship units out by this Wednesday.

Thank you again for your support and patience! Cheers!
PicoBrew Team


BACKGROUND:
The Z has several screen elements (pictured above) that keep grain and hops from flowing into and clogging the pumps. It might surprise you, but the composition and design specification of the mesh used in these screens impacts a brew's final numbers—making these screens an important, and very custom, part of the Z system.

A shortage of the fine-gauge stainless steel wire used to make the mesh delayed screen production, which cascaded through the schedule and ultimately ended with the screens arriving shortly after we expected them for Z production.

Talking with our supply-chain team and learning about the intricate set of suppliers and vendors involved in producing the 200+ components we craft into a Z, each with their own set of dependencies and lead times, it is amazing at times that anything ever gets built!

In this case, the team worked with the mesh supplier to source material, coordinated hand-offs and assembly on the other side of the world (multiple time zones and languages away from Seattle), and expedited shipments to minimise the delay—but this is all in a day's work for the firefighting folks keeping our production facility well-fed!

 

[Thorrak]

I mean, I guess every delay has to be caused by something but the step filter screens are an interesting one. I'm not terribly surprised, however, as they feel like they're hand crafted, with the help of a mold of some kind.

 

[Thorrak]

I was fortunate enough last weekend to get a chance to brew again. I didn't end up tweaking my mill gap, unfortunately, but did hit the estimated gravity spot on again. The grain bill was the same as the first beer I ran through the Z, and the gravity was pretty much the same as well. (First run was 1.0578, second was 1.0584).

In addition to a complete revamp of the hop bill, the main change this time around is that I got to play with a new toy @Jaybird whipped up for me:



This is a custom Corny keg lid that has a built in flexible thermowell. Normally lid-mounted thermowells can only reach a few inches into the keg, but thanks to the flex, the lid supports a much longer thermowell - including one that is just long enough to be well immersed in a 2.5 gallon batch of beer. Combined with the PicoBrew fast ferment adapter, I'm hoping this lets me ferment with meaningful temperature control in the keg.

 

[jcaiola]

Thanks for the vids.

 

[Mike Howard]

So, if I have two Zymatics, stacked on top of each other, do I really have a Zymatic2?

 

[Goblism]

I have been very impressed with my z units. I have only ran 2 batches but still surprised how easy it has been. Like the feature of throwing things in the dishwasher for quick clean up as well. Now I need to craft a new lid for my brewjacket to ferment in the kegs, thank God for greenlee punches. (Sad thing is I bought my brewjacket pro years ago and never ran a batch through it)

Also saw on Facebook someone is trying to build a larger brew kettle for the z2 to have one shared tank for larger batches. Hopefully picobrew is watching closely as a single vessel option would be awesome
Honestly this setup they have is much preferred for me over one system. So much more flexible but they need to change the name to simple z instead of z1-z4.

 

[Anyhowe]

I have been very impressed with my z units. I have only ran 2 batches but still surprised how easy it has been. Like the feature of throwing things in the dishwasher for quick clean up as well. Now I need to craft a new lid for my brewjacket to ferment in the kegs, thank God for greenlee punches. (Sad thing is I bought my brewjacket pro years ago and never ran a batch through it)

Also saw on Facebook someone is trying to build a larger brew kettle for the z2 to have one shared tank for larger batches. Hopefully picobrew is watching closely as a single vessel option would be awesome
Honestly this setup they have is much preferred for me over one system. So much more flexible but they need to change the name to simple z instead of z1-z4.

The kettle is the easy part. You can brew in anything with the keg wands. The trick will be somebody doubling the step filter for 5 gallon batches.

 

[doublea]

Hmm, I'm not so sure a 5G step filter makes sense.

A 10G "brew kettle" with 2x set of keg input/output would in theory let you run 2 Z machine at once on the same batch. Wouldn't that be pretty easy in theory?

A larger step filter would still require a larger brew kettle and I suspect would create other issues in the machine (and be much harder / way more custom).

 

[swimIan]

This is what the person of picobrew Facebook group did this past weekend. They said it worked well.

 

[macgyuver]

If you use a single vessel you would need to make sure the brews are running at the same time, otherwise you will have Hops running outside of the time frame they should be in. The larger step filter is an idea but you will need to control the flow of the liquid better. I am sure the single outlet that the pico hardware has would push to much water at one time before it has time to filter through the grain bill. You would need to disperse the flow over the whole grain bed at several points I would think.

 

[Anyhowe]

Hmm, I'm not so sure a 5G step filter makes sense.

A 10G "brew kettle" with 2x set of keg input/output would in theory let you run 2 Z machine at once on the same batch. Wouldn't that be pretty easy in theory?

A larger step filter would still require a larger brew kettle and I suspect would create other issues in the machine (and be much harder / way more custom).

A larger vessel is a no brainer. Just run the keg wands into any size bucket you want. Nothing magical about the keg. Yes the larger grain side of the step filter (just make it taller, the unit just sits on it anyway) and a longer suction tube in the hop cage will stress the pumps etc but it will also make a 5 gallon unit out of a Z1 pretty easy.

Hmmm an old step filter, a descent saw and some crazy glue should do it...I hope kevin does not read this

 

[Mike Howard]

All of these conversations are exactly why I think PB decided to go the stacked individual unit approach... a lot more to the control software when you start syncing between units and managing steps...they don't have that kind of software expert on staff, as far as I can tell.

 

[Goblism]

Running batch #3 through the Z tonight. I still have only registered one of the 2 units. Had a recipe all built up but could only find 1 packet of lager yeast so I cut the batch back from 4.5 gallons (had planned to add water after the boil) to 3.25 gallons. When I created the new profile I wrote up a mash schedule, than switched to the high efficiency mash to view what that profile looks like. When I went to make a custom profile I made my mash temperature 154 degrees instead of 149! Might have a little more body than I planned on for an American lager! I did pause the mash cycle twice for ~10 minutes to try and cool the mash and get a little higher attenuation! Regardless I have cooling wort right now.

I must say I like being able to access the lines with a syringe for checking gravity, kind of like an IV into the beer! The advanced editor has been nearly spot on so far with efficiencies for me. First beer was high but later learned my refractometer was off by a couple of points (which the beer measured high that same amount)

 

[macgyuver]

Ran my first brew through the Z2 this weekend. Everything went smoothly and I had no issues. Numbers were close but not exact, I believe that is my fault since this is the first brew through the units. As I use it more I am sure I will get the numbers very close. Brew should have been 1.059, my measurement was 1.055. So not to bad for the first brew through the setup. Here are some pics and a video at mashout.

Dough In


Mash 1


Mash 2


Mash out

 

[ListerH]

Just popped into this forum as I am finally (I think) getting close to my Z1 ship date.... it has been some kind of wait.. and still not confident it wont slip again...
I did just have one question for users... as I plan my new setup.
How are people going about cooling wort after the boil?

My 2 options currently are a) to cool in the keg by buying a corny pillar https://jadedbrewing.com/products/the-cornypillar
or b) transfer out of the keg into my current cooling setup...

any recommendations?

 

[doublea]

Just popped into this forum as I am finally (I think) getting close to my Z1 ship date.... it has been some kind of wait.. and still not confident it wont slip again...
I did just have one question for users... as I plan my new setup.
How are people going about cooling wort after the boil?

My 2 options currently are a) to cool in the keg by buying a corny pillar https://jadedbrewing.com/products/the-cornypillar
or b) transfer out of the keg into my current cooling setup...

any recommendations?

I have a Jade corney pillar and it works quite well. I would recommend it.

Also, I just finally got my Z2.. just set it up and did a rinse. Looking forward to doing a first brew this weekend. Overall I'm actually pretty impressed. Sitting next to my zymatic it makes me realize that was a prototype and this is a professional, high quality device.

 

[Mutant]

Just popped into this forum as I am finally (I think) getting close to my Z1 ship date.... it has been some kind of wait.. and still not confident it wont slip again...
I did just have one question for users... as I plan my new setup.
How are people going about cooling wort after the boil?

My 2 options currently are a) to cool in the keg by buying a corny pillar https://jadedbrewing.com/products/the-cornypillar
or b) transfer out of the keg into my current cooling setup...

any recommendations?

I dedicate a kegerator that operates at 23F min. Inside I keep two square 5 gallon plastic buckets full of highly saturated salt water. The temp of the water has gotten down to 19F and not even close to freezing because of the salt solution. I then connect a large stainless steel wort chiller into the water and run the wort through it. I use a Ball_Lock_JumperPost from brewhardware.com to connect the output line of the Z to the wort chiller and the wort chilller back to the keg. I may not always get the wort down to 55F (I do lots of lagers), but it is just one kegerator out of many that I dedicate to keeping the salt water ready. I'm thinking of getting 2 or 3 more Kegerators this year and may dedicate one of those to hold two more 5 gallon buckets of salt water.

Make sure that you rinse your wort chiller, as salt will pit the cheap stainless steel that is used - no idea about copper.

 

[doublea]

No offense, but that seems really complicated. What is your reason for needing to cool so fast it so cold? A standard chiller cools to room temp in just a few minutes with tap water.

 

[Mutant]

No offense, but that seems really complicated. What is your reason for needing to cool so fast it so cold? A standard chiller cools to room temp in just a few minutes with tap water.

Minimize water usage. If you live in CACAfornia, you would discover that water costs rapidly rise above a minimal usage. Jerry Brown has imposed a maximum of 50 gallons a day that will take effect in the near future. Ever try to wash clothes, dishes, take a shower, minimally water the yard (1 acre), flush the toilet, make beer, make cider, clean kegs and equipment, ... - all on 50 gallons a day?

 

[doublea]

Minimize water usage. If you live in CACAfornia, you would discover that water costs rapidly rise above a minimal usage. Jerry Brown has imposed a maximum of 50 gallons a day that will take effect in the near future. Ever try to wash clothes, dishes, take a shower, minimally water the yard (1 acre), flush the toilet, make beer, make cider, clean kegs and equipment, ... - all on 50 gallons a day?

https://psmag.com/environment/californias-water-limit-does-not-exist

 

[Mutant]

https://psmag.com/environment/californias-water-limit-does-not-exist

And I guess you've never received water bills from $300 to $500. Limits do exist if you read my water bill, as when you go over the minimum the rate ramps up.

 

[NGD]

https://psmag.com/environment/californias-water-limit-does-not-exist

Have to agree with mutant. Its not uncommon for me to get a water bill >$200/mo during the summer trying to use minimal water for a family of 4 and brewing a beer a month. While the water cap may not exist, the price cap absolutely does.

 

[doublea]

My point is that brewing one beer a month isn't going to use much water compared to the cost and complexity of a entire kegerator for cooling salt water.

Anyways, we can try and get back on topic.

 

[ListerH]

I am actually also in California... and although I only make small batches and 50gl in a day would be a lot for me, I am conscious of water usage.

My plan was to have an iced water tank with my current immersion coil immersed in and get one of the corny pillars to immerse in the Z keg.
Then I can just use an in line pump to have a closed loop system, taking a circuit of water through the hot wort and into the ice water chamber. Kind of like a very simplistic heat exchanger. This way, I don't ever need to replace the water in the chamber, but just dump some ice into it beforehand.

I kinda like this idea too because the only "moving part" is the corny pillar.. much better than my current task of carrying my pot of boiling wort to the sink for cooling! I'd just have to drop in the pillar and turn on the pump.

I just wanted to know if the corny pillars were effective and it sounds like they are...

 

[CheekiTiki]

Anyone in Denver interested in a Z1 (half of my Z2)? New in the box. Thanks