Automated brewing machines Pico vs others?

[denny]

That's what I said until I tried one. Don't judge until you try it.

[hd4mark]

The guy that showed us a cooler and SS toilet supply braided line mash tun likes the automated machines. How can you argue that?

[brew_cat]

Go figure. My first tun was a cooler in which I fly sparged no braid. Put the braid in to batch sparge ala Denny Con. I BIAB exclusively now

[loopie_beer]

Go figure. My first tun was a cooler in which I fly sparged no braid. Put the braid in to batch sparge ala Denny Con. I BIAB exclusively now

Maybe one of these systems is in your future... 🧞‍♂️

[brew_cat]

Probably not. I don't even use a coffee pot I. Grind my beans an do a pour over every morning.

[radagast]

Personally, I love everything about brewday, but I could DEFINITELY see using one of these type systems for recipe development and tweaking. If only I had the spare cash atm. I'd be curious if @loopie_beer would ever consider something like that Pico Z for small scale test batches or not? Having never worked in a brewery, I'm not sure what size test batches you run before pushing to full production.

Rad

[loopie_beer]

I agree. I love brewday and sadly even the technology we use at the brewery takes a little away from the hands on approach of homebrewing.
With that said I would certainly consider a pico. Not for test batches but to see what different ingredients bring to the game.

Oddly enough, I still homebrewing our test batches. 10.5gal test batches that we scale to 10bbl. Once you learn your system, efficiency, hop utilization, etc it really is fairly linear. Not exact but damn near. Even then if something calls for 46lbs you can get away with using a full sack.

One thing I love to see and tell people... our RIS uses 12lbs if roasted barley. That would last us home brewers 12 years! Or my DIPA uses 8 and a half pounds of Magnum bittering hops... think how long it would take to get through that much!

[brew_cat]

All my brews are test batches.