I don’t think it’s out of line for the intended market.
Denny,
Any idea how they are handling the increase from 120v to 240v if you add on a unit later to go from 2.5g (Z1) ro 5g (Z2)? Can you even add units/modules later? I don’t think either are addressed.
I just upgraded my zymatic to the new z I expect delivery in the summer. The company has done well by me with the original zymatic. If anyone is interested this is a $50 coupon code valid through mid March.
KZ5NK
Well, now that I can finally see what it looks like… this is groan-worthy. Data centers scale horizontally because that’s how software works, but why in the world would you want 4 separate mashes? I know they likely did this for the buzzwords to get funding, but it’s not even literally horizontal. Horizontal vertical scalability!
Nope, no idea. You could email support@picobrew.com for an answer.
Maybe you don’t, but a lot of the customers this is aimed at do.
I don’t get the way they scaled it either. The only advantage i see is using less bins if the mash isn’t too large.
Keep in mind that a lot of the focus of this product is restaurants and other commercial operations like that.
Geez for all that money, you could pay me to come brew for you, and HSA the F out of it.
I actually wondered if you could seal one of these up in a CO2 purged keezer before running it.
Chest freezer seal oxygen ingress study?
You keep saying that, but your not explaining the logic. What makes this design better for restaurants than another design? What are it’s primary benefits?
I think the idea is, the Z is fully automated. Other brew systems can scale easily with bigger pots, but, those aren’t fully automated. Those other systems still need someone to mash, sparge, start the boil, add hops, etc. The Picobrew Z cuts a lot of that out. Crush grain, load the Z with ingredients, press a button and come back in 4 hours to cool, pitch yeast, and ferment. A few more buttons to cleanup. Presumably this is easier for a restaurant that wants craft beer without having to develop recipes and find a brewer. They can buy PicoPaks and assuming they manage the fermentation and kegging process correctly (which is not that hard) they get craft beer made on premises.
The stack ability keeps the cost down. Picobrew mass produces the same 2.5G unit and sells it in 4 batch size increments. It looks awkward to use because we all have one mash, but, it should work.
I think the main annoyance for a 10G brewer would be dividing all the ingredients in 4 parts.
I’m not debating the desire for set it and forget it. I just don’t get the “parallel” brewing. Cheaper development costs could be it. The FAQ on the site is a little lacking.
That’s crazy to have to ill all those grain and hop bins. I was hoping they were going to come up with something completely different. I like my little Zymatic it’s not hard to do a back to back batch to get a 5 gallon batch of beer. And you can do some neat things with it. Heck for lab work it is great at holding steady temps for stuff like forced diacetyl tests or sous vide!
But having to individually fill and clean each grain and hop bin would drive me crazy. The worst part of the Zymatic is the cleaning part. I’d hate to have to do multiple bins.
Right there, unless it has the ability to run multiple (different) recipes at the same time, that would be a nice feature.
It can do multiple recipes at once.
I didn’t see that in the marketing material. Honestly there shouldn’t be a reason it couldn’t considering it is just a bunch of units stacked.
This post (post #34 in the thread) on HBT has an email from PicoBrew support. The email says that each module can run different brew.
That’s kinda neat but I still don’t get why they didn’t just make a larger unit with one grain bin, figure out a way to add the hops to the actual wort rather that recircing them in a loop and add chilling compacity. 5 gallon automated batches would have been great.