Zymatic

February 13, 2018

PicoBrew Unveils Its ‘Beer Publishing System’ For Aspiring Beer Entrepreneurs

When Bill Mitchell spoke at last year’s Smart Kitchen Summit, he discussed his company’s vision of creating a publishing system for beer makers to allow them to monetize their creations through what he called an “app store for beer”. Today PicoBrew unveiled the platform for making this happen: the PicoBrew Network. The announcement was made in conjunction with the launch of the new PicoBrew Z modular beer brewing system I wrote about last week.

So how does PicoBrew’s new beer publishing system work?

Aspiring publishers will use the PicoBrew Z or the PicoBrew Zymatic (the first generation appliance from PicoBrew) to create beer recipes using loose grains and hops. Unlike traditional home beer brewing gear, the PicoBrew gear allows beer brewers to craft recipes using software that connects directly to the brewing appliance and allows for precise recipe tweaks.

Once a brewer fine-tunes a recipe they want to submit, they can upload it to the PicoBrew Network (PBN) portal. PicoBrew will review the recipe and if things looks good, will create a test PicoPak (the “brewing pods” used by the PicoBrew Pico, the lower-cost, more automated brewing appliances for home users) to send to the recipe creator to verify whether the PicoPak-brewed-beer tastes like they intended.

Once the brewer and PicoBrew find the right mix of grains and hops to replicate the brewer’s recipe, PicoBrew will manufacture PicoPaks with this recipe and make them available to other PicoBrew appliance owners via the company’s BrewMarketplace. For each PicoPak sold, the crafter of the recipe of gets a royalty payment.

What’s interesting about PicoBrew’s new beer publishing system is it essentially offers a new way to monetize beer brewing that separates itself from the actual physical production of beer in the long run, making them not unlike a book author publishing their creation through a publishing house or on the Kindle bookstore.

While I think it’s an interesting new way for small beer makers to make money from their creations, some brewing traditionalists may not feel this way. Over on Reddit, one commenter wrote, “Selling recipes? For real? That goes against the very spirit of our hobby but I guess making an appliance for people who can’t brew is how you capture people that are willing to pay for app storeified brewing.”

My guess is that while some old-schoolers who paid the price and learned how to brew in their garage and embrace the DIY culture of traditional homebrewing may eschew digital approaches, others may see a new pathway to monetizing their love of beer-making. According to PicoBrew, they already have 800 home beer brewers who have applied to be a part of the PBN.

Mitchell believes the strong early interest in their beer publishing platform is partly because it allows the aspiring beer entrepreneur to sidestep the traditional costs of starting a craft beer brewery. “While we have all probably dreamed of quitting our day jobs and opening a brewery, startup costs and a competitive landscape make this option unworkable for most homebrewers,” Mitchell said in the announcement. “The PicoBrew Network (PBN) gives homebrewers the opportunity to distribute the beers they create and earn royalties, while PicoBrew does all the work of marketing, manufacturing and fulfilling the Paks.”

Part of the reason PicoBrew is launching the PBN now is they finally have the hardware for aspiring recipe creators to do both recipe crafting and PicoPak testing within one appliance. The original Zymatic allowed brewers to craft recipes, but because the appliance predates the creation of the Pico and its PicoPak brewing pods, a Zymatic owner needed to buy a separate Pico to try their creations out. The PicoBrew Z can brew beer from both PicoPaks as well as from loose grains and hops.

February 5, 2018

PicoBrew Aims To Fill Gap Between Home & Pro Market With PicoBrew Z

Today PicoBrew teased the release of a new beer brewing appliance called the PicoBrew Z.

Unlike the Seattle startup’s last two crowdfunding campaigns which offered up new appliances for home beer brewing, the PicoBrew Z looks to be designed for the pro market. While the company is keeping most of the details of the new appliance under wraps until next week, the teaser site indicates that the new device will brew up to 10 gallons and is targeted at brewpubs, restaurateurs and home brewers looking to take their hobby to the next level.

Here’s how PicoBrew CEO Bill Mitchell described the PicoBrew Z in an email to potential backers:

Today is an exciting day for us: We’re introducing the PicoBrew Z Series, our first professional-grade, all-grain brewing appliance line. While we have been very successful with 2 generations of consumer Pico machines, we have not yet addressed the needs of the prosumer and professional audience since the launch of our original Zymatic…until now! Reap the benefits of larger batch sizes from 1 to 10 gallons, rugged, maintainable, industrial grade components designed for professional use and more with the new PicoBrew Z Series.

In some ways, the Z appears to be an evolutionary step forward from PicoBrew’s first device, the Zymatic. While the Zymatic was never pitched as professional grade equipment, about half of the roughly three thousand Zymatics ended up in craft or mass market breweries.

The reason brewmasters liked the Zymatic is it gave them a way to prototype new beers without spending thousands of dollars experimenting on big batches. However, some craft brewers wanted to go beyond prototyping and use the Zymatic to create small experimental batches to serve their customers. The problem with that idea is the Zymatic only brews 2.5 gallon batches, about half the size of a soda keg (a cornelius keg) and just a fraction of the standard beer keg (15 gallons or half a barrel). The Z fills the gap between the Zymatic and smaller pro grade brewing equipment (which often start at half a barrel to a barrel of brew capacity) by brewing up to 10 gallon batches.

While PicoBrew has yet to release pricing on the Z, my guess is it will come in below $10 thousand. With the cost of entry for traditional microbrewery equipment often reaching $100 thousand or more, the PicoBrew Z could tap into an unmet demand by filling a substantial void between consumer and pro markets. The Z also looks like it will have some headroom to grow, as Mitchell describes the new line as a “series”, which sounds to me like it will have different SKUs with potentially different capacities.

In another departure from past product introductions, it looks like this time around PicoBrew isn’t headed to Kickstarter. In one way, they look to be taking a cue from Glowforge, a company which shattered all hardware crowdfunding campaigns in 2015 with its 3D printer.

Early indications are this was a good idea. In an emailed response to my inquiry about the PicoBrew Z, an exec said the PicoBrew Z is on a ‘GlowForge-like trajectory’ since unveiling this morning with “thousands of signups” in the first hour.

You can hear about PicoBrew Z in our daily spoon podcast. You can also subscribe in Apple podcasts or through our Amazon Alexa skill.

November 26, 2016

The Complete Pico Home Beer Brew Appliance Review

If you’re like me, the idea of making beer has always been an intriguing one, but for various reasons – the mess, no time to learn, possible marital discord – you’ve never tried it.

That’s why when I saw the Kickstarter campaign for the Pico, an appliance that uses technology to simplify the process of home beer brewing, I backed it immediately.

The Pico is made by a company called PicoBrew, a startup founded by a couple of Microsoft expats. I’d known of PicoBrew because they had made a home brewing device a few years before the Pico called the PicoBrew Zymatic, a product which I had written about for Forbes. The Zymatic, which I called “a beer brewing kitchen appliance” in my Forbes piece, did automate many of the steps of home beer brewing, but in retrospect is still more targeted at professionals, both in price ($2500 vs. $799 for the Pico) and in complexity compared to the company’s second generation brewing appliance.

The main reason the Pico is less complex than the Zymatic is it utilizes a “pod” system for its grains and hops called PicoPaks. PicoPaks, which run for about $20 and are available through the PicoBrew website, allow you to pick a brew using a recipe from well-known craft brewers such as Rogue (Dead Guy’s Ale) or Populux (Cinderblock) and make it at home. All the necessary grains and hops are included and premixed in the PicoPaks, ready to pop into your Pico for brewing.

That was the promise at least, and I was willing to gamble a little money to see if I could finally realize my dream of home brewing.

The Unpacking

The Pico Box

I received an email notification in August that my Pico was ready, just under a year after I had backed the Pico on Kickstarter. I live in the Seattle area, the same city as PicoBrew, so I drove to the company’s headquarters by the University of Washington and picked up my Pico. A couple hours later, I was home and ready to unbox my Pico.

The standard Picobrew Pico unit comes with the following:

Pico brewing unit
Accessory box – the small accessories needed for brewing with the Pico
PicoPak box – the brew “pods” that include a grain and hops pak as well as some yeast and sugar for post-brew.
Brew keg – the keg you use for brewing and fermenting the beer
Serving keg – the keg where you put the fermented beer, carbonate it and serve it

The accessory box included the small accessories used during the brewing process. Here is what the accessories looked like out of the box.

Pico Brewing Accessories

The Set Up

Before you make beer, you need to do a couple of things. First, you need to find a place to brew. The Pico’s size footprint is similar to that of an espresso machine, so it fits easily on a kitchen counter top. You also need room for the brew keg as that’s where the wort – the brewed concoction before it ferments and has carbonation – will go.

I decided to brew my first beer in an area adjacent to the kitchen on top of a small stand-alone liquor cabinet. You can see the set up below:

Read to brew: the Pico and the brew keg

Once I had the Pico and brew keg set up, I turned on the Pico and connected to my Wi-Fi network. This took all of three minutes.

I then performed the first rinse, the process where you run tap water through the Pico to make sure everything is clean for an initial brew. This process, like the post-brew rinse, is a menu option. Below is a video of my Pico running the initial rinse cycle (this will also give you an idea of the noise level of the Pico):

The Pico Initial Rinse

Watch this video on YouTube

Let’s Brew!

Once you’ve set up your Pico, rinsed it, you’re ready to brew some beer. One thing you will need for your brew is distilled water. I found that the 2.5-gallon containers (the kind with the small little pour taps) are a perfect size, as you need about 2 gallons of distilled water for a full brew.

Next, you’ll want to unbox your PicoPak. The PicoPak comes with the grains, hops, a package of yeast, a packet of sugar (if you want to carbonate naturally), and a CO2 cartridge if you want to force carbonate (which is what I did, which I will explain later).

Below is a picture of my B-52 Blonde Pico GrainPak, HopPak, yeast and sugar packages.

The components of the PicoPak

Once you have the GrainPak and Hops Pak out of the box, you place them into the step filter, the large see-through filter that slides into the Pico. Then you fill the brew keg with distilled water, connect the brew keg to the Pico’s connectors, slide the keg cozy on the brew keg (essentially a keg “sweater” to keep the wort warm during brewing), and seal the top of the keg with the plastic seal.

The Pico set up and ready to brew

Once you are set up, you can also choose the ABV (alcohol by volume) and bitterness of your brew. Once you do that, you are ready to hit brew on the Pico menu.

You can watch the brew progress on PicoBrew.com

You can watch the progress of your brew on PicoBrew.com

This is where the Pico takes over. For the next two hour and a half hours, the Pico takes the brew through all the stages: heating, doughing in, mashing, and boiling. If you’re like me, you’ll monitor the various brew stages on the LED screen, as well as periodically check the progress of the brew on the Picobrew website. There you can find a chart that maps out the progress by time on the x-axis and temperate on the y-axis.

One additional note about the brewing process: Even though the Pico is more automated than traditional homebrewing, you still get much of the sensory experience of homebrewing in the form of smell during the two and half hour brew cycle. A half-hour into my brew, the entire first floor of my house smelled like a small brewery. For me, this is a beautiful smell. For my wife, not so much. So, depending on whether you live someone who likes the smell of beer brewing, you may choose to do your brew when they are not home or move your Pico into the garage.

Cooling and Fermentation

Once the Pico finishes the brewing process, you then disconnect the brew keg from the Pico and put a small red plug into the plastic keg stopper on the top of the keg. You remove the keg cozy/sweater and then set aside the keg for 24 hours to let the wort cool. You’ll then want to run the Pico through the post-brew rinse process, which can be done with tap water and takes about 10 minutes.

Twenty-four hours later you are ready to start fermentation, that process which turns that liquid in the brew keg into tasty alcohol.

You can choose between regular fermentation – which takes about ten days – or fast fermentation, which takes between 3-5 days depending on the beer.

After the wort cools, you pour in the yeast packet and then let the beer ferment for 3-5 days.

I chose fast-fermentation, which meant simply putting in the small red fast-fermentation adapter in the metal lid which goes on the brew keg. I poured the contents of the yeast packet into the brew keg, stirred the contents, and then locked the metal keg lid onto the brew keg. I shook the brew keg to mix up the wort and the yeast and then set aside the keg in my garage for the next four days.

Rack and Carbonation

Depending on the beer and temperature in your home, you will be ready to carbonate after about 4-6 days. The Half-Squeezed IPA I brewed fast-fermented in 4 days, so after waiting four long sleeps I was ready to force-carbonate my beer.

Just as with fermentation, Pico gives you a fast or slow track towards a tasty glass of suds and being anxious to get to my first pint, I chose force carbonation. This means instead of waiting a full ten days for natural carbonation, I chose to use the included CO2 cartridge (one comes with each PicoPak).

Before I could carbonate, I had to rack the beer, which means transferring it from the brew keg to the serving keg. This is done using the Pico appliance and takes about 10 minutes. Before the transfer process, you will transfer some of the initial wort to a waste container, as this allows you get rid of the sediment-heavy beer at the bottom of the brewkeg. Being the curious guy I am, I tried out some of the excess wort and thought it tasted pretty good (if a bit flat – this was before carbonation).

The CO2 Regulator “force-carbonating” the beer

After the wort/pre-carbonated beer is transferred to the serving keg, now you will add the CO2 cartridge to the top using the CO2 regulator which came in the accessories box. This is pretty straightforward and takes just a couple minutes. Then you will put the serving keg into your fridge for 36 hours to carbonate.

And remember to be patient here and let it carbonate for the full 36 hours. I could hardly wait to taste my beer and, after 24 hours, pulled the CO2 and served up a glass. It tasted good, but it was – surprise surprise – a bit flat.

Enjoy Your Homemade Beer

After you patiently wait for 36 hours for your beer to carbonate, you are ready to enjoy an cold glass of homemade, fresh beer.

All you need to do from here is simply take the CO2 adapter off, insert the unfortunately named ‘dispensing bung plug’ into the top of your serving keg and pour yourself a cold one (or two).

Here is what the first pour of my second (more carbonated) brew – the Half Squeezed IPA – looked like.

Look at that beautiful head!

It was delicious!

Final Thoughts

Overall, I really enjoyed the process of brewing beer with the Pico. Using the beer brewing appliance from PicoBrew was easy and yet left enough of the process to make me feel like I was really making beer. I know that there will be beer-brewing enthusiasts who might laugh at that last statement, which is fine. I get it. You’ve put in the hard work and know that doing it the more manual way takes a lot more time and work.

But here’s the thing: I – and lots of people like me – don’t have the time or want to put in the work needed to brew beer at home the old fashioned way. The reality is we would never brew beer at home without something like the Pico and, like it or not, we are making real beer with the Pico, just in a way that takes a lot less work than the traditional method.

I do want to point out that brewing with the Pico had a few hiccups. On my third brew, the Pico failed to heat up properly and so I had to abandon the brew of my Buffalo Sweat oatmeal stout. I contacted the PicoBrew support who responded quickly and, despite not being able to figure out why my first attempt at brewing Buffalo Sweat, they sent out a new PicoPak which I was able to brew a few days later.

I also felt while the brewing guide sent out to Kickstarter backers had great instructions for brewing, it was pretty light on how to clean up properly. I never properly rinsed the racking tube after one of the brews and as a result noticed a slight amount of mold growing in it a week later. Once again, support was very helpful here and showed me how to rinse it and sent out a new racking tube.

Lastly, I want to say that even though I – and many others – have written that PicoBrew and other attempts at automated brewing are, in a sense, the “Keurig-ization” of the craft, I am now of the mind this term is inadequate when it comes to beer brewing automation. The reality is brewing beer takes time, and while the Pico does speed things up significantly, you still have to wait for nature to takes its course with the process of fermentation, carbonation, etc. In short, the term Keurig-ization implies speed and instant gratification, and that’s really impossible when you are creating a fermented beverage of any sort.

Bottom line: If you have $800 to spare and have always wanted to make beer at home, but never had the time or willingness to put up with the mess, I can highly recommend the Pico. It’s not quite the Keurig for beer – for all the reasons I just explained – but that’s a good thing.

You can buy a Picobrew Pico on Amazon or the PicoBrew website.

If you enjoyed this review, sign up for our newsletter to keep up on all the news and reviews from The Spoon, the only site focused exclusively on the future of cooking, food, the kitchen, and beer!

November 8, 2016

Dispatches From The Smart Kitchen: Brewing Beer With the Pico

This series explores how new technology is used in real-life people’s home kitchens. It’s one thing to watch a demo on a company website or at the store, but it’s quite another to use them in your own house. These are stories of people who use technology to make delicious food (or beer) for themselves, their families, and their friends.

Name: Luke Murphy

Preferred Technology: Pico and Zymatic from PicoBrew

Other Kitchen Technology: None!

What It Is: The Zymatic is the first fully automatic all-grain beer brewing appliance. You can make your own recipe or brew one from the library. The just-released Pico (from the same company) is the Keurig of home brewing systems: It uses ready-to-brew PicoPak ingredient kits, and it can brew five liters of craft beer in about two hours.

Why: Luke started home-brewing about six years ago, but when his roommate moved out and his girlfriend (now wife) moved in, he stopped his beer-making ways. Needless to say, he missed the process. He bought the Zymatic and got brewin’, and when the Pico came up on Kickstarter, he helped fund it immediately. “I’m an engineer by trade, focused on process and design, so I really appreciated the blend of creativity, science, and process control,” he said. “Not only could I control my process consistently when honing in a recipe but it gave me the time to brew where I wouldn’t otherwise have it.” Beyond that, he liked the idea that the device “allows a smaller brewery an opportunity to broaden their distribution network and get exposure to where they wouldn’t otherwise be able to” (aka your kitchen counter).

How He Discovered It: He met Pico co-founder Avi Geiger through a mutual friend while hanging out at a store dedicated to craft brewing. When he heard what Avi was up to with both devices, he was immediately interested. “The science of understanding contributing variations in the process of brewing and trying to minimize them for consistency is awesome,” he explained. He even convinced his neighbor (who was not a home brewer) to buy a Pico and says it’s fun to watch someone become interested in the science behind beer.

“Not only could I control my process consistently when honing in a recipe but it gave me the time to brew where I wouldn’t otherwise have it.”

Which Is Better: “I liken them to a PC vs. an iPad,” he said. “I can tweak and customize a lot more on a PC/Zymatic, but the iPad/Pico are just simple and easy. Not to mention the Pico shortened the brewing process in half, which is nice.

“Something that was always tricky for me with a traditional homebrew was fermentation. PicoBrew simplifies this greatly by a really clever modification that allows you to ferment under pressure, like a lot of professional brewers. This helps take temperature variation out of the equation when fermenting, making the beer a lot more consistent.” In other words, he can now brew PicoBrew’s adaptation of Deschutes’ Fresh Squeezed IPA and Great Divide’s Yeti Stout with the push of a button. He says he would buy both devices again “without a doubt.”

Favorite Beer to Make: A session IPA that he says he can drink all day while playing cornhole. He’s made it around five times using the Zymatic, all while hanging out in his garage bar, which he’s named the Buffalo in honor of the video of “Guy on a Buffalo” (see above for actual photo and below for infinite amusement, preferably while drinking a beer brewed with the Pico).

Guy On A Buffalo - Episode 1 (Bears, Indians & Such)