PicoPaks - REUSABLE?

[tateconcepts]

Is the tag system for the pack also relevant for the discontinued s model?

Absolutely, it will exist in every model they sell but the Zymatic. The purpose of the Pico is not to brew your own but those of Microbreweries who participate in their delivery model. Get a business going and you can test yours on the Pico, otherwise you'll always have a tag that is only good for one to a few uses depending on how busy their servers are.

 

[Lbarouf]

Ok tonight I tried something new. This will lead into my next idea for playing with the setup. I normally run double brews when I brew a pak and at the end will run a side brew with a BIAB setup to try and tweak things to use my own supplies. I am working on a stainless pak replacement in my spare time at work. Will post pics once it is done. Anyway last night after my first pak brewed it hit me. Reuse the same ID tag for the second pak. This way I can save the tag from the second pak to use later. I have used several tags a few times but they are only good for a few days to a week before they are kicked out the database on the mother ship. While I was pulling the tag off the first pak the top pulled up as it usually does and the next idea hit me. The pak is not ruptured it is just wet. So I carefully cleaned it out and washed it out in the sink. Once done I threw it in my oven at 150 until it was dry. So I have two paks now that have been cleaned and dry. Hopefully in the next week I can setup a recipe using the timing of the paks I brewed last night. I have been working on tweaking that now. Once done I will load my grain and hops in the paks and brew like normal. Hopefully it works, I will let everyone know what the outcome is. And keep an eye out for the stainless pak, hopefully done in the next few weeks.

How did this come along? I love reverse engineering.

 

[macgyuver]

I got caught up with work and had to put the pak replacement on hold. Then they announced the Z and well I picked up a Z2. So not really a need to build the stainless pak now. Actually have someone interested in purchasing my S but they will have to wait till I get the Z2. I have had success with saving the paks, drying them out and packing with my own ingredients.

 

[chris knight]

#PicoPak users: has anyone every tried reusing them? I just brewed my first PicoPak (in a #PicoC), cleaned it and it is in nice shape. I'm considering putting mash in a BIAB, and hop pellets in a sachet in the hoppack. I'm also wondering if this machine would work if we could make a container with the same vent holes and filters?

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

 

[Lbarouf]

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

Can't you use it without updating it?
I have no clue what he's referring to. Why posting in this thread? Related to reusing paks? Are you sure the unit is brand new?

 

[Mark Einstein]

Any updates on this because i am not to thrilled about the one time use I would be willing to buy a modded RF reader for it and i was actually thinking of also creating my own reusable insert as why brew it when i can go to story and buy for 4 dollars less

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

I agree it is a bit expensive, I'm thankful for their sales and free shipping on two. The last one I did I opened the the grain pack in an effort to save it and found a corner that didn't even get wet, so I got out my kettle and bag and mashed them. Made a second batch with different hops and yeast. The difference in Gravity was one point less.

 

[Mark Einstein]

yes i think they should also add spouts at all corners on these too to prevent this

 

[chiefwigms]

@macgyuver (i know you're gettin the z2) or anyone else who is mechanically inclined - if someone can make help me make a reusable pack, I'm pretty sure we can get this going

 

[macgyuver]

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.

 

[chiefwigms]

So nobody can vacuum form the containers ?!

 

[macgyuver]

So nobody can vacuum form the containers ?!

As it stands right now doesn't matter if you make a container or not, you still have to get by the RFID tags. That makes it very limited to what you can do with any container. I have several that I have made out of re-purposed materials and have one about half way made of stainless. This doesn't help if you don't have the controls to tell the machine what to do with your shiny container. There are a few tricks that people are using out there and I have made some batches work but it is still limited.

 

[urj2020]

#PicoPak users: has anyone every tried reusing them? I just brewed my first PicoPak (in a #PicoC), cleaned it and it is in nice shape. I'm considering putting mash in a BIAB, and hop pellets in a sachet in the hoppack. I'm also wondering if this machine would work if we could make a container with the same vent holes and filters?

I just bought a pico s from sams club, they had them on clearance for 150 dollars, I dont think there good to reuse the pico pak, maybe you use a different food grade container with holes in it. my pico pak code sticker was good for 3 days then it got kicked off the pico and said its not in data base

 

[microbusbrewery]

Woot has the model C system for $189.99 today. I've never used the Pico, so I have zero experience. It almost seems like the solution could be to hijack whatever does the verification part and point it to your own database where you could add your own recipes and such. That said, it probably violates digital copyrights, EULA, and so on. Sucks though, it'd be nice to be able to do your own mini pilot batches.

 

[tmendick]

It's too bad the PicoU Kickstarter was cancelled. That had a BYOI (brew with your own ingredients) option in the rewards.

 

[Grayson]

I saw a comment that PicoBrew replied to on their own Twitter page about when the BYO ingredient pack would be available. They said they are in QC testing and plan on releasing soon. Hopefully, the sooner the better.

 

[Santo]

following this thread... got a pico pro and would like more flexibility.

 

[Brewfreedom]

following this thread... got a pico pro and would like more flexibility.

Picobrew doesn't have a very good reputation when it comes to listening to customer needs, especially when it comes to making things more flexible or living up to promises. They have inbev/zx-venture bucks to payback. Reusing picopacks doesn't help that. They will however take your money for a Z1 which will be available in July!

 

[Kychemnerd]

I just got a Pico C and have been playing around with it for the last few days. You can definitely reuse the pico paks a couple of times. I brewed a pak last night and reused it immediately. The RFID wouldn't register, so I went to my account and input the serial number and sure enough, I was able to brew one if my own batches with the same pak.
Today, I did the same and had the same problem. My husband played with the RFID placement and got the tag to register a second time without having to go to my account to register the RFID. I plan on brewing a 3rd batch from the same pak, fingers crossed that the system doesn't kick it out.
It's an interesting system and a good idea for inexperienced or lazy brewers (or brewers, like me, that find it hard to spend a whole day brewing because of the little ones), but definitely isn't ideal. There are a lot if design flaws and the fact that I have to buy a Picopak really ticks me off. I would pay good money to be able to brew my own small scale pilot batches with my own settings in a hands off system like this.

 

[alaric10000]

I mean, the exact same company makes systems that do that. They're just $2000 instead of $300 dollars.

 

[Mijk]

Hi!

Anyone heard anything about BYO-ingredients kit? Last update is 2018-08-21, as of above.
I would love to make my own beers in small batches.

 

[tateconcepts]

As it stands right now doesn't matter if you make a container or not, you still have to get by the RFID tags. That makes it very limited to what you can do with any container. I have several that I have made out of re-purposed materials and have one about half way made of stainless. This doesn't help if you don't have the controls to tell the machine what to do with your shiny container. There are a few tricks that people are using out there and I have made some batches work but it is still limited.

Not anymore...

 

[tateconcepts]

It's too bad the PicoU Kickstarter was cancelled. That had a BYOI (brew with your own ingredients) option in the rewards.

This may have been due to my own and other comments. I suggested they license access to use it. So, you for X amount of fiat currency in whatever geography, you get to brew X amount of your own recipes as many times as you wish - but only those. If you wish to change the brew, then you must remove one or pay additional to the annual fee.

In the mean

What a rip off! Someone must have hacked this by now.

They have. A single brew session is pretty easy to understand as is the economical

Dude keep me posted! How do you make HDPE version?

HPDE is a tough proposition with temps at 240F and above, for which you will encounter. The themoblock in the unit alone is at a temp well over this.

 

[tateconcepts]

How did this come along? I love reverse engineering.

So this whole thing from @macgyuver is in regards to a call that is made by the Arduino unit onboard through an HTTP call. It is a parameter known as SesId which allows one to resume a failed session. The actually occur, perhaps if one has a primer issue in the pump or something. As for timing on reuse, I'm not going into pirating their product and that of the breweries that put hard earned work into them.

 

[Brewfreedom]

So this whole thing from @macgyuver is in regards to a call that is made by the Arduino unit onboard through an HTTP call. It is a parameter known as SesId which allows one to resume a failed session. The actually occur, perhaps if one has a primer issue in the pump or something. As for timing on reuse, I'm not going into pirating their product and that of the breweries that put hard earned work into them.

Did they ever do SSL on the little picos? I know the zymatic was http only so api backend spoofing worked. I ran one for a while before selling mine. If it is just http then chance are its the same api as the zymatic which means its game on for anyone with 5 minutes to extend the handful of brewhouse apis on github.

 

[tateconcepts]

Did they ever do SSL on the little picos? I know the zymatic was http only so api backend spoofing worked. I ran one for a while before selling mine. If it is just http then chance are its the same api as the zymatic which means its game on for anyone with 5 minutes to extend the handful of brewhouse apis on github.

The API is the same for all the models. This whole reuse/rebrew matter is simply due to the session parameter being issued after one is requested when you start to brew. It's likely a bug if its permitting them after the session is complete as that's what the code=(integer) is at the end. As far as what I see from the unit, it's obvious how it works - because all these devices use radio, they are required to be registered with the FCC. It's clearly NFC but all that does is read your tag, check what receipe its for and brews it. It does not appear to have any data associated with authorization.

From what I see, one could essentially just run the responses with a Raspberry Pi running CherryPy with Ngnix or something. You would also of course need to have a decent network where you can run your own DNS internally to send pico brew.com to something like 192.168.0.0/24 or whatever your network range and or octet assigned to the host that will essentially respond with the same requests the PicoBrew is expecting to continue it's brew.

 

[Brewfreedom]

The API is the same for all the models. This whole reuse/rebrew matter is simply due to the session parameter being issued after one is requested when you start to brew. It's likely a bug if its permitting them after the session is complete as that's what the code=(integer) is at the end. As far as what I see from the unit, it's obvious how it works - because all these devices use radio, they are required to be registered with the FCC. It's clearly NFC but all that does is read your tag, check what receipe its for and brews it. It does not appear to have any data associated with authorization.

From what I see, one could essentially just run the responses with a Raspberry Pi running CherryPy with Ngnix or something. You would also of course need to have a decent network where you can run your own DNS internally to send pico brew.com to something like 192.168.0.0/24 or whatever your network range and or octet assigned to the host that will essentially respond with the same requests the PicoBrew is expecting to continue it's brew.

Only issue you will run into is if the web server (properly) rejects non ascii headers. The zymatic throws some extra crap over the wire in the request. IIS doesnt care but I had to fork Kestrel to work around it. Havent tried it with nginix.

 

[tateconcepts]

Would you share your fork of the project?

I'm thinking a firmware flash would permit a more permanent solution. At this point, it seems Pico users mainly pay them for access to their recipe database and the privilege of taking an NFC token for the unit to obtain a session ID to brew it with.

 

[Brewfreedom]

Would you share your fork of the project?

I'm thinking a firmware flash would permit a more permanent solution. At this point, it seems Pico users mainly pay them for access to their recipe database and the privilege of taking an NFC token for the unit to obtain a session ID to brew it with.

Have at it. I sold my Zymatic so I don't have anyway to test or continue work. Got the urge to go full retard and went 20 gallon e-herms. https://github.com/brewfreedom/ZymaticBridge/wiki/Picobrew-ZymaticBridge

 

[Moonkey]

View attachment 562800
I agree it is a bit expensive, I'm thankful for their sales and free shipping on two. The last one I did I opened the the grain pack in an effort to save it and found a corner that didn't even get wet, so I got out my kettle and bag and mashed them. Made a second batch with different hops and yeast. The difference in Gravity was one point less.

Do you mind sharing the ingredients you used on your second run? I have some Picopaks that expired and thought about reusing them with my own ingredients, just not sure where to start. Thanks.