31–40 of 90 posts
Regardless, I just can't see this "catching on" to any degree with that price. Do they have plans to scale or something?
Hmmm, $1800? I know not of all the apparatuses needed for homebrewing. I'm guessing it's substantially less than this? One would obviously be paying for the convenience of this machine and its ability to brew extremely small batches. Regardless, I just can't see this "catching on" to any degree with that price. Do they have plans to scale or something?
Full grain brewing is significantly more expensive (unless you do the "Brew in a Bag" style) simple setups easily put you into the $400+ range. Purpose-built full grain brewing systems setup with pumps, three burners and kettles will set you back $2500-5000 depending upon how nice of a setup you get and the volume (15 gallons to 40 gallons), and that doesn't even include the fermentation equipment which for heated and cooled conicals can be $2000+.
Homebrewing has a very active higher end market which is only getting more active as it becomes easier for individuals to move from hobbyist to professional pico/nano/micro-brewer.
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As someone who used to homebrew but had to quit when I had kids (due to time) this looks like something I could totally get into. I would miss the process, but the idea of getting a good beer without the time sink is very intriguing!
Cider instead? WRT leftovers kids like apple juice and slices. Note that residential juicers are often not thermally sized for hour long juice runs so be careful and work in batches. You can make this painful by growing your yeast from dry culture for days blah blah or just buy one of those smack bags where you break the inner container and let it boot up. Once you're done, making applejack is just as illegal as oper…
If time ever became a big constraint for me, I imagine I would just cut my brewing down to a few big beers a year (high gravity or other styles that call for long fermentation) which would keep the carboys full, but would also stretch out the time between brews. And then I would try and mix in some meads or all extract brews.
Hmmm, $1800? I know not of all the apparatuses needed for homebrewing. I'm guessing it's substantially less than this? One would obviously be paying for the convenience of this machine and its ability to brew extremely small batches. Regardless, I just can't see this "catching on" to any degree with that price. Do they have plans to scale or something?
Hmmm, $1800? I know not of all the apparatuses needed for homebrewing. I'm guessing it's substantially less than this? One would obviously be paying for the convenience of this machine and its ability to brew extremely small batches. Regardless, I just can't see this "catching on" to any degree with that price. Do they have plans to scale or something?
It looks to me that the picobrew is for those who don't want to do the 'heavy lifting' of homebrewing and want to say that they homebrew. The automatic bread machine of this generation?
For that price tag you aren't going to get people who want to test out homebrewing. My first homebrew setup was ~$150. This included two buckets (fermentor and bottling), kettle for boiling the wort and hops, bottles, basic bottling accessories, and my first extract kit (fat tire clone).
On the other side they claim this is a professional tool. However, I would highly doubt any real brewery would use this. They have their own pilot systems where they typically make 20-50 gallon test batches. The output of 2.5 gallons is no where near ideal for a test batch. A gallon of beer gets you roughly 10 (12 oz) bottles.
I'm not quite sure who their market actually is. Maybe it's rich people who want to make their own beer? Seems like a small market.
Their machine (from what I gather in the video) comprises the following features: Brewpi ~$60 (http://www.brewpi.com) 5 Gallon Keg $60 used $110 new (http://www.homebrewing.org/5-Gallon-Cornelius-Keg-Ball-Lock-...) PicoBrew has a small mash tun (~3 gallon?) 10 gallon mash tun - http://www.homebrewing.org/10-Gallon-Converted-Igloo-Cooler-...
I don't understand where it boils the wort and how it actually mixes these ingredients.
Realistically, anyone who is serious about homebrewing most likely won't be using this. You can get the same amount of control that they advertise with fermentation chambers, your own brewpi, and with detailed logging. Also part of the fun is the actual brew process of boiling the wort and throwing in hops with friends and never having to drink the same beer again.
It'll be interesting to see how this thing actually does.
Just my $0.02
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Ive been home brewing for about 8 years now and have wanted this thing for a while. No big mess, no overboiling, clean-up is easy, kegging immediately. Awesome I didn't get into homebrewing so I could spend all my time cleaning, and this would cut down on that significantly.
Are you doing full grain or malt extract? I bet this thing requires cleaning on the order of brewing from extract. Also if you're doing full grain and want to reduce headache and clean up and equipment costs, check out brew in a bag. (Not the cheesy thing they sell at Wal-Mart around Christmas.) I haven't done it yet but from the reviews I've read and videos I've watched it seems like a greatly simplified method.
I might buy one just for fun if it costs less than 500 bucks...
Hmmm, $1800? I know not of all the apparatuses needed for homebrewing. I'm guessing it's substantially less than this? One would obviously be paying for the convenience of this machine and its ability to brew extremely small batches. Regardless, I just can't see this "catching on" to any degree with that price. Do they have plans to scale or something?
Depends. For extract brewing you can easily do it for $100-150 if you bottle the beer(with your biggest expense being a large 5+ gallon kettle), adding another $100-150 if you keg. Full grain brewing is significantly more expensive (unless you do the "Brew in a Bag" style) simple setups easily put you into the $400+ range. Purpose-built full grain brewing systems setup with pumps, three burners and kettles will set y…
If you're batch sparging you can use your boil kettle to heat strike, then sparge water. You just need an extra vessel for the first runnings.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who used to homebrew but had to quit when I had kids (due to time) this looks like something I could totally get into. I would miss the process, but the idea of getting a good beer without the time sink is very intriguing!
I was in the same boat and a friend recommended that I scale down the operation to a single gallon at a time. The equipment is a little less unwieldy, so sanitizing time is reduced. The water gets to the right temperature much faster. Less grain == less sparging time. The boil volume is a bit over a gallon, which is easily contained in a modest sized pot, so boil-overs are almost a non-concern. I let the grains steep…
- Equipment mostly fits in my dishwasher
- Moving/pouring 1 gallon of liquid is faster, easier, and results in less spillage than 5 gallons
- No need for a wort chiller, since an ice bath is more than effective enough for a 1-gallon batch
- Fermentation control will be a lot cheaper, since a small dorm fridge will fit the fermenter
- As you pointed out: more experimentation because the cost of failure is much lower