I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with this. It is not without its drawback but it can do some very complex step mashes. If you are scared of HSA this is not the system for you although I have been looking at some mods to cut down on the splashing.
Broken link.
A length of silicone tubing on the gas tube should work. Or just use a second beer tube.
You mean when the wort returns to the keg? If you want to do any serious mods, talk to Annie or Jim at Picobrew first. There are a lot of things that kinda “balance” each other. For instance, extending the “in” tube to reduce splashing MIGHT impact the pumping. Don’t know for sure, which is why I say run it by them.
Or it might screw up the whole system I dunno…
If anything I would think the extra pull from the syphon would be beneficial on the hardware. It could maybe cause a stuck mash if it pulled too hard.
Ya know, it seems logical, but there is SO much going on in that thing…
Funny you mention this. What’s her name was talking about how much faster her beers were staling when using the pico.
Updated now with picture!
Not sure who “what’s her name” is but for my application this won’t be a problem. It gives me opportunities to do lots of testing without having to dedicate entire days to small batch brewing. Plus, we have a fun tasters club that meets once a month so this will be very beneficial.
I have been doing pilsner malt experiments over the last week so it will be fun to taste all these pilsner malts side by side.
That sounds fun. Same basic hop additions?
My bad. It took a bit of searching but I found it.
You can do any hops additions you want. You design step mashes and hop additions to your wildest imagination. Then you can repeat it nearly exactly. Makes for great repeatable results. The experiments have been a lot of fun because I am able to dedicate time and methods I simply haven’t had the time to do since I went commercial. Plus having everything right there with minimal set up makes it super convenient. It’s not without its drawbacks but the pros are very much outweighing the cons.
Yeah I have been kicking the idea of a second dip tube around, but like Denny said the thing is designed to splash. I have a few other ideas of things I may try but right now I’m not monkeying with anything much. I did take out the poppets because I couldn’t see why I would want that restriction and clogging.
Thanks for finding the link. I will be at the luxury of not having these around longer than a few weeks…
You have a much newer machine. They’ve made some design revisions since then. And I think it’s also fair to point out that Amanda’s situation is the first one I’ve heard of. Nearly every report of beer made in the Z is that it turns out great. I know mine does. A beer made on the Z took home NHC gold with a score of 45.
So, are the oxidation concerns with Zymatic put to rest? Sounds like that NHC gold is a good answer to my question.
Keith, how have the beers been?
I have been wanting a Zymatic and I am about to get a year older…
If it didn’t make great beer, I wouldn’t be using it. The only reason to worry about oxidation concerns with it is if you don’t have anything else to worry about!
HA!.. yea… ok. :o
Bitte hör auf!
I made some awesome pilsners for this past YHB flight club. I’m not going to tell you I think it is worth the price because it is crazy expensive for 2.5 gallons of beer but you can do some really interesting things with it. For instance, you can design just about any step mash you want. And you can design some insane hop stands. You could do a 12 hour hops stand at 175 degrees if you wanted (or longer). I did one beer that I started at 185 hop stand for one hour, then 175 for one hour then 165 for one hour. It’s pretty insane.
Some of the drawback: I really don’t like the amount of HSA, though I have to admit that I had no problems with off flavors in the beers. You could also put a dip tube on the “IN” post to negate the splashing, though it isn’t really recommended (though some people are apparently doing it).
Supposedly they only want you using 1 oz of hops per hop/adjunct container (there are 4 hop/adjucnt containers, though you can “pause” the program, remove used hops and add more ad infinitum.
I really like it and it makes brewing side batches and comparing malts and one off eperiments very easy but for $2,000 you could really design one hell of an automated brewhouse. OTOH you could easily have something like this installed in your kitchen and basically run a brew overnight.