Equipment profile for Picobrew Zymatic

[Notting Hill]

Has anyone worked out the equipment profile for a Picobrew? Especially which mash profile best matches how the Picobrew works.

TIA
Stefan

[brewfun]

The PicoBrew system is self contained and doesn't really need much of an equipment profile.

I would suggest reaching out to Annie Johnson. She's an award winning homebrewer (AHA Homebrewer of the Year 2013). She slammed the hell out of the PicoBrew system a couple of years ago, so they hired her to make it better.

You can find her on Twitter [at] Buffalowing.

I'll ask her if she can chime in here, as well.

[PKennedy]

Nobody seems to have created one of these profiles so I took the liberty of doing so.  Annie uses a different program and doesn't have a Beersmith profile.  Personally, I like the PicoBrew (I also like my Blichmann 10 Gallon RIMS setup, but the Pico is easier and I have 3 kids so if I'm going to brew often...) but their SW needs a LOT of work (efficiency setting, mash profile creation, etc).  I've brewed three batches using this profile and updated/corrected it each time.  Feel free to use/hack/update as you'd like.  I set the brewhouse eff. at 65% based off of using the supplied profile.  The eff% will probably change quite a bit as I modify the profile.

Shared these publicly on Google Drive.

Here is my mash profile: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8T7xNpZsQxDUE5ZOGY1c0JXY1E&authuser=0
Here is my equipment profile: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8T7xNpZsQxDWUEtdHUwNlY1TkU&authuser=0

Should be able to just download and import. Let me know how these work for everyone and I'll try to keep them updated to reflect group findings/measurements.

[Notting Hill]

I downloaded your files, but cannot seem to get them loaded into BS. Any suggestions how. Ideally BS should add the Picobrew into their add-on list

[Toddegg]

Thanks!

[SpittinRivers]

Thanks for that profile!  I just got a PicoBrew and I agree that the software needs some work.  Have you made any other updates to it since posting?

[Notting Hill]

Did you ever update your profiles? If so, can you share the latest versions?
TIA
Stefan

Nobody seems to have created one of these profiles so I took the liberty of doing so.  Annie uses a different program and doesn't have a Beersmith profile.  Personally, I like the PicoBrew (I also like my Blichmann 10 Gallon RIMS setup, but the Pico is easier and I have 3 kids so if I'm going to brew often...) but their SW needs a LOT of work (efficiency setting, mash profile creation, etc).  I've brewed three batches using this profile and updated/corrected it each time.  Feel free to use/hack/update as you'd like.  I set the brewhouse eff. at 65% based off of using the supplied profile.  The eff% will probably change quite a bit as I modify the profile.

Shared these publicly on Google Drive.

Here is my mash profile: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8T7xNpZsQxDUE5ZOGY1c0JXY1E&authuser=0
Here is my equipment profile: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8T7xNpZsQxDWUEtdHUwNlY1TkU&authuser=0

Should be able to just download and import. Let me know how these work for everyone and I'll try to keep them updated to reflect group findings/measurements.

[Monsieur Crafty]

Hi everyone,

Hope you can help with my issue with Beersmith. I spend hours and hours trying to find a solution but cannot figure it out. I can get the grain bill / OG to match between BM and the recipe editor on the Picobrew website, but there is one parameter I cannot get to match: the water volume. In the test recipe, I have 3.94 kgs of grain with an OG of 1.065 in both systems. But the Picobrew editor indicates 16.09 L of water, while BM indicates 16.56 L. I know that PB is correct, but I cannot find the way to adjust this parameter on BM. Any idea ?

[Oginme]

you will need to open up the mash profile you are using and edit the 'mash in' step.  You can then set the water volume to your desired amount or set the water to grain ratio and BeerSmith will set teh water volume based upon the amount of grain in the recipe.

[Monsieur Crafty]

Thanks for your response.
I tried this but I cannot save any change I make (water or water / grain).

I think this is linked to have the box "BIAB mash with full boil"  ticked.
Since there is no sparge with the Zymatic, I chose BIAB.

[Oginme]

You are correct that you cannot change it due to having the BIAB with full boil checked.  The next areas to look at is your equipment profile for losses to trub and chiller, mash tun losses, and boil off rate.  You will also want to measure and record your water absorption from grain, as this will impact how much water initially gets fed into the unit. 

You commented that you know the PicoBrew calculator is correct, is this from previous brews using your Picobrew?  If so, then you should follow that guidance and measure your volumes throughout the process (water in, wort collected (preboil volume), post boil volume and volume to fermenter).  From these numbers you can calculate the actual losses and apply them to your equipment profile.

[Monsieur Crafty]

Thanks. I played around with new parameters (boil off rate, shrinkage) and got to a value close enough to what I need.
I will check with a few recipes to see if it still holds.

Yes, the recipe editors from Picobrew is accurate (in most cases) for OG prediction. In term of volumes, there isn't much data available, so we cannot compare to Beersmith.