I was lucky enough to get one of the first 5 preproduction units and I thought I would share my experience with the Picobrew so far.
First, let me preface that I have a 15 month old daughter so I haven’t had opportunity to brew in, more or less, 15 months. The whole concept of automating the brew process was enticing to me. It is a lot easier to justify 15-20 minutes of time vs 4 hours to the wife. I am also able to run a batch after work now with still being able to have dinner, spend time with the family, and put my daughter to bed.
I want to make great beer. I enjoy the brewing process, but there are still a lot of process variation inherent with an all grain cooler system. I think it’s funny that many of us strive to reduce this variation through DIY projects that can be quite expensive in and of themselves. With the Picobrew, I am able to hone in a desired recipe and know that any changes of flavor are due to the recipe itself and not because of process variation. Sure, I only get 2.5 gallons, but I think the volume is more than acceptable considering the time/effort/and ingredients needed. I can be more adventuresome with recipe crafting.
So far I have brewed 5 batches with the Picobrew. I can’t tell you how good it feels to have beer in my lines again after so long (in a sense of elation, not debilitating alcoholism…
. The tools that they have for crafting recipes are pretty cool too. You have full range to program your batches of beer in any manner you would like. It’s pretty powerful.
Also, fermenting in the Corney kegs has been amazingly convenient as well. Being able to push the beer from my fermentation vessel directly into my serving vessel is just a lot easier/quicker for me than dealing with carboy/siphon and keg.
I am extremely happy with my investment. It’s made it possible to make my own beer again.