Ex Microsoft Employees Start PicoBrew Zymatic – Worlds First Automatic All-Grain Brewing Appliance
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MyBeer Buzz
Two former Microsoft employees have started a Kickstarter campaign to launch the PicoBrew Zymatic aka the Worlds First Automatic All-Grain Brewing Appliance!
From PicoBrew:
Why can’t we brew beer at home as easily as we can make a loaf of bread with a bread-maker, or a shot of espresso with an automatic espresso machine? Making quality beer this easily: that was the dream 3 years ago, and we’re proud to announce that after thousands of man hours of R&D, we’ve made that dream a reality in the form of the PicoBrew Zymatic(tm).
I’m Bill Mitchell, CEO and Co-Founder of PicoBrew LLC. My brother Jim and I are avid home-brewers. We started PicoBrew LLC in early 2010 out of frustration with the state of the art: home beer brewing takes entirely too much time, is too imprecise, and frankly, when you account for all of the clean-up, is not all that fun. We wanted to make the creation of high-quality beer brewing simple, amp up the art, and tone down the tedium.
After 18+ years as an executive at Microsoft leading pioneering efforts in PDAs, smartphones, automotive and wearable computing I know a thing or two about creating computing appliances. Jim has spent much of the last two decades building innovative food processing plants in CA, following in the footsteps of our grandfather, Dr. William Mitchell, inventor of Pop Rocks, Tang and other fun foods.
We got to work quickly in early 2010 and began building a succession of Proof of Concept (POC) systems based on an off-the-shelf Arduino-based controller, off-the-shelf pumps, relays, valves and a custom heating loop.
Here’s the official press release:
Oct. 9, 2013 – SEATTLE — After over 3 years in development, PicoBrew LLC has officially unveiled the first automatic all-grain beer brewing appliance, the ZymaticTM. The PicoBrew ZymaticTM brews high-quality craft beer at the touch of a button: simply load water, grain and hops, select a recipe, and brew. This new microwave-oven-sized home internet appliance also connects to the web to load and share recipes and allow remote monitoring and logging of brewing sessions.
The company’s founders – brothers Dr. Bill Mitchell and Jim Mitchell are avid home-brewers with backgrounds in computer science and physics+chemistry respectively. Bill spent the past 18 years as an executive at Microsoft pioneering internet appliances and wearable computing while Jim spent over a decade designing food processing plants and equipment in California. They teamed up with co-founder and ex-Microsoft hardware architect Avi Geiger to invent a process and build an appliance that would simplify and automate all-grain home brewing. Their vision was to make home-brewing as simple and easy as using an espresso maker or bread maker while at the same time preserving the fine art and craft of high-quality home beer creation.
The PicoBrew ZymaticTM brews all-grain beer from 3 basic ingredients: cracked grain (typically barley), hops and water. Set up time to brew a batch of beer averages 15 minutes and involves filling a keg with water, filling a "step filter" drawer with grain and hops, and selecting a recipe which guides the machine’s brewing process. After setup the automated PicoBrewing process proceeds unattended for 3.5 hours (typical), then completes by depositing finished beer wort (unfermented beer) into a keg. At this point the wort may be fermented by adding yeast, securing an airlock, and placing the keg in a cool environment for 1-2 weeks (typical).
The PicoBrew ZymaticTM is capable of brewing 2.5 gallons of high quality finished beer across the range of BJCP styles from light lagers through IPAs, stouts and smoked ales. Hundreds of test batches brewed during the product development process on prototype machines has enabled PicoBrew’s recipe creation software to accurately predict brewing outcomes based on recipe ingredients and process steps (e.g. mash time/temp) allowing precise, repeatable outcomes. Cleanup as well is greatly simplified: empty the step filter contents into a yard waste or trash receptacle, run a water rinse cycle on the ZymaticTM, and place the step filter in the dishwasher.
PicoBrew LLC has successfully turned to the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to finance final production steps for the product. As the ZymaticTM creates an entirely new market for home brewing appliances, releasing the product to early adopters on Kickstarter at introductory prices as low as $1299 has been key to the successful launch of this product. Since Sept 30 PicoBrew has raised over $340,000 (> 225% of goal) with 20 days remaining in their campaign.
See www.picobrew.com for more information. Send inquiries to [email protected].
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