Customer Ratings & Reviews

Have had the Pico C for about 3 weeks now after supporting the Kickstarter drive and am ready to add my two cents to the recent reviews here especially now that I've tapped my first keg of Helles lager by Lucky Envelope, a pack that came with the machine to get started. The first brew session went smoothly and the instructions supplied online, with a few videos, really helped walk me through the relatively straightforward steps. The machine itself has a clear display that also gives step-by-step instructions, but the downloadable pdf file goes into sufficient detail for a newbie to brewing like myself. The brewing session, as mentioned in other fine reviews, can be easily tracked online as it's happening at the 'BrewHouse'. Pico has already stated they've submitted an app to Apple so tracking sessions on your iPhone shouldn't be far off. Android certainly soon to follow. In addition, a PicoFerm gadget should ship this month to make understanding the fermentation stage a breeze. Using the provided temperature decal you stick on the brew keg is fine for the time being but looking forward to using the PicoFerm. The final result of the Helles was fine although lacked carbonation. Maybe I tapped it too early after racking and transferring it to the brew keg. My son, who actually brews professionally, said the flavor was spot on and I agreed. Have ordered a CO2 regulator and 5-pack cartridge for future brew sessions. All that said, problems arose during my second brew session. Got error messages telling me to stop the session, empty the wort, and contact help on the site. Sadly, the pack wasn't salvageable but customer service already has sent a new one. Customer service did give clear instructions to reset the shuttle pump. Tested it brewing a kombucha which came off without a hitch but the process for that and making beer is quite different. When trying a second brew session, I got a similar error message, had to toss the wort, but was able to reset the pump and finish the second batch, and Old English Ale, which is fermenting now. Finally, tried the sous vide function and got more error messages which prompted customer service to send me a replacement shuttle pump which I'll have to try to fix myself, seemingly easy enough per the instructions emailed ahead of time. The pump should be arriving Wednesday so hopefully, I'll get the machine up and running again. Apart from that, I have to agree with other recent reviews here that this is a great deal if you're only interested in small batch brewing from the over 100 choices online with options, as stated, to invent your own styles with freestyle packs. I'm already looking forward to giving a Dragonstooth Imperial Stout another try if the pump repair goes well. Had to deduct a star for that. Otherwise, this would easily be a 5-star review. Cheers!

As a homebrewer since 1993 I had been aware of PicoBrew for a while but never pulled the trigger. I finally got in on their latest Kickstarter for the PICO Model C and have been brewing with it. Traditional homebrewing is an all-day affair and with work and kids and all that I found that I rarely had time to brew anymore. The PICO Model C has fixed that. I can start a brew,go play with the kids and come back later for the next step. It lets me brew without consuming an entire Saturday. If you are a homebrewer you know that cleanup is the most annoying part. This thing cleans itself easily in just a few minutes. It's genuinely amazing! So many hours I spent scrubbing brew pots and carboys. Now I start a cleaning cycle, put the fermenting keg in the dishwasher and go watch TV. My least favorite part of brewing is done. They have over 100 beers to choose from or you can make your own recipe on their website and make just about anything you want to try. I made a pretty stellar Helles and tried making Kombucha for the first time. It's foolproof. Whether you've been brewing for 24 years or this is your first tentative step, you can do this. Now, rather than brewing once or twice a year when I can find time I always have a keg of homebrew ready to go.

My husband has been home brewing his own beer since were students at Auburn. Home-brewing beer was actually still illegal in Alabama and Mississippi. He has brewed beer for himself, our wedding and friends weddings ever sense. He has used many different equipment set-ups and brewed for competitions and loves the entire process. I noticed in the past year he had been brewing less and that he was trying to find ways to make his brewing process as easy as possible to fit into our busy life-style. When I saw the PICO C I ordered it immediately. WE LOVE IT. He has brewed Stouts, Porters, IPAs and even a free Kombucha pack that came with the machine. He loves how easy it is to use and how easy it is to clean everything! (The most important and worst part of any brew-day is cleaning.) The brewing process is bullet-proof because the system is fully automated. Insert your PICO pack in the machine and the PICO uses wi-fi and RFID tech to identify which pack you have inserted. Then It downloads the brewing steps using the wifi! All you have to do is make sure everything is clean, full of water and connected. Press start and go enjoy time with your family or watch tv! He has brewed 6 packs already and has greatly enjoyed being able to pick Packs from breweries he has never heard of or tried. We both have loved the ability to use the PICO C for sous vide cooking too (Best steaks and eggs Benedict ever!). He only has two complaints. First, yes, compared to normal home-brewing, beers brewed with the PICO are simply more expensive. However, he thinks that the convenience and accuracy of the machine helps make up for that. Homebrewing a batch of beer yourself is cheaper...unless you mess up and have to throw that batch down the drain. With the PICO, it doesn't look like that will ever be a problem. Second, he wants to have more options to create his own recipes. PICO does have a Pack builder called the "free-style" and it does let you choose all the ingredients that go into the pack, but the selection is very limited. Over-all we are extremely happy with the purchase and the beer it makes. He has especially liked the Max Nix Porter!

YUM! This has to be a game changer in the reach of home brewing. I have always toyed with home brewing but it generally takes more time than I have to give. With the Pico C Brewer I can start the brew process and walk away. The machine walks you through each step of the process like its your first time every time so If you forget something don't worry it has you covered. This has been compared to a Keurig for beer and while it does greatly simplify the process you won't be drinking a cold beer 45 seconds after you hit start so be realistic in your expectations. Just know the results will be delicious. Note: Wifi is required. The Pico C connects with Pico Brew to load the brewing specs for the specific picopak you are using. It also provides all of the analytics for the brew process that you can watch in almost real-time from your account on their website. My experience should be a good gauge of what to expect. Tip 1-If you don't have reverse osmosis water go buy 5-10 gallons of distilled water for rinsing and brewing before your brewer arrives. Unpacking: If you are like me when this arrives you are like a kid on Christmas morning ripping into the boxes to see what magical treasures await. Do your self a favor and take it slow and gentle. You will want to keep the box with the brewer in it. I'm told this box is required for warranty purposes. Plan to spend the next 30-45 minutes cleaning. Brewing: (after the initial cleaning mentioned above) Brewing is so simple. Turn on the Pico C, select brew and follow the instructions. When everything is set and the brew is set in motion the machine will make a lot of noises. Its pumping, pushing, and heating liquid to steam so don't do this if you just put the baby down for a nap. After 2-3 hours the beer is brewed but its time to let the science begin. After Brew Cleaning: At this point you have disconnected the brew keg so it can cool to room temperature. Its time to clean everything else. Rinse the system. As a guy who hates cleaning this really is a pretty simple process. The Pico C will walk you through most of it. The next day after the wort has cooled to room temp you add the yeast to the brew keg. This begins the fermentation process that will take a week or more depending on the beer and temperature. The manual gives you time frames based on temperature ranges. I've ordered a PicoFerm that will aide in this process. Once fermentation is complete you "Crash the Yeast" by cooling the brew keg in your refrigerator. This takes a day or so. Then depending on what type of beer you are brewing you may add dry hop packs that come with the picopak. Otherwise its time to move the beer from the brew keg to the serving keg or bottles if you are bottling. You hook the brew keg back up to the Pic C and "rack" the beer. From here you add sugar from the provided packet to carbonate the beer. Carbonation takes close to double the time it took to ferment the beer so don't get in a rush. After about 3 weeks you are ready to cool and then consumer a tasty beverage. I thought for sure when I opened up that first keg it would be bad because I had to have messed something up on my first try. Nope. Somehow this marvel of modern technology took my ineptitude out of the equation. It was delicious. So fresh. I really felt like I was drinking at the brewery. I will be ordering more brew kegs so I can have more beers going at the same time. Tip 2: This is a no brainer but if you are using the serving keg the beer is best when first opened. Unless you are force carbonating, it will degrade in quality fairly quickly as the days pass. If you are looking into a way to start homebrewing but don't have the time to really mess with the science/process this is the perfect option for you. I love it and will be an avid Pico C Brewer for the foreseeable future!

I purchased the PICO C as part of the Kickstarter campaign. This is my first foray into homebrewing, and it's been fun so far. The PICO C makes everything really easy. Basically just put it all together, add the PicoPak, add water, and hit a few buttons. 2 weeks later you've got beer to drink. It may not save you any money in the long run, but it's a fun toy for the kitchen and a good conversation starter with friends. It's an easy way to get into beer brewing, and although you're a bit limited by the PicoPaks, they're adding more beers all the time. I just had my first beer finish up last weekend and my friends all enjoyed the Helles Lager. I've got a Porter carbonating at the moment. I'm a member of their BrewUnlimited subscription service, so I can get new PicoPaks basically as quickly as I can make the ones I have. It's like having an endless supply of homemade beer! Pros: Easy entry into home brewing. Simple instructions and a kit that's designed to be foolproof. Good selection of beer with more being added all the time. Cons: With only 1 brew keg and 1 serving keg there is a lot of downtime between batches of beer. Definitely recommend ordering extras. I'm only on my second brew, but the plastic parts on the serving keg do not give me a lot of confidence that they're going to last very long.

I've had my Pico model C for a few weeks and just started my 3rd batch of beer. Overall it's exceeded my expectations. When my unit arrived the serving keg was dented, but Pico immediately sent a new one when I told them (and the old one's still usable, just a bit harder to clean). Setup and initial cleaning was easy. Pico's online documentation is good; they have some videos as well that were helpful but not 100% needed. It uses a LOT of distilled water. Each batch takes several jugs. The brewing process is automated for the most part; it was noisier than I expected, though. The first batch of beer I brewed was far better than I expected. When one of my friends started homebrewing I remember his first batch tasting like skunkwater. I brewed the Helles Lager that they included and I really enjoyed it. I've ordered the Rouge Dead Guy Ale PicoPack to be able to do a taste-off between a 6-pack and a PicoPack. After I finished the batch and went to clean the keg, though, came the one real annoyance...there's a small plug that you have to shake out of the keg after removing the dispensing bung. It took at least 10 minutes of frustrated shaking before I could get the darn thing out. I'm expecting that they'll keep refining the product but I'm still extremely satisfied with my Pico.

Full disclosure: PicoBrew solicited this review in exchange for a free PicoPak (explained in review). They requested I write an unbiased review. So here it is: I’ve been homebrewing for around 12 years and typically make 10-15 gallon batches using an all-grain manual setup. I purchased the PicoBrew C because of its automation and small batch capability. I hoped to use it for small-scale experimentation but mainly for quick, fresh batches of hoppy brews. If you’re interested in how this works, I suggest watching the instructional videos on the PicoBrew website. What’s shown there is exactly what you can expect from the brewing experience. PicoBrew C completely automates the mash and brewing processes and does a surprisingly good job at the cleaning parts too. Fermentation is pretty much up to you...which isn’t a problem at all since it’s highly dependent on your specific environment (e.g. temp, pressure, O2, etc). In short: PicoBrew C is a wort making machine. I’ve brewed two batches (one lager, one ale) and both have turned out well. In fact, they don’t have any of the common off-flavors or mistakes you’d associate with homebrews. In other words, the hardware and automation works well! However, it’s at the expense of any kind of meaningful flexibility. The only control you have over the brewing process is an abstract and, frankly, meaningless ability to choose the ABV and Bitterness levels. These levels aren’t actually ABV percentages or IBU settings, but instead seemingly arbitrary 1-to-5 measures. That’s it. Otherwise you’re at the mercy of the pre-programmed brewing instructions for that particular “PicoPak”. These are prepackaged containers of grain and hops with unique identifiers so the machine can ping the PicoBrew servers and retrieve instructions on the brew cycle and validate that it’s a valid PicoPak. In other words, you can’t brew your own beer. You can only brew PicoBrew’s beer. They offer a “freestyle” design app that allows customers to build a malt and hop pack, but the options are limited and again offer absolutely no input on the brewing cycle. Here’s the conundrum: the machine works really well and it’s capable of automating an entire brewing session; however, PicoBrew has chosen to lock users out of the ability to design their own beers. “Bitterness” and “ABV” levels aren’t satisfactory inputs. Nor are the options offered in the freestyle designer. The machine is clearly capable of doing everything brewers need: setting dough-in temps, mash temps, cycle times, etc, etc, etc. It can do all of these things, but users are locked out of that flexibility. To make matters worse, the PicoPaks are expensive, so you’re probably better off economically to just buy beer. Are you learning to brew? This isn’t the machine for you. Because the PicoBrew reduces the brewer’s inputs so much there’s no “learning” necessary to use it. If you want to learn how to brew, grab an inexpensive kit from your local shop and make a few batches of bad beer. You’ll learn more in a month doing that than a lifetime using a PicoBrew C. If PicoBrew opened up the software and allowed custom grain/hops, I’d probably buy extras of their proprietary components (e.g. brew kegs) just so I could use it more, but at the price point of the PicoPacks and especially the lack of any real design input, the machine that should be essential for any brewer is nerfed, rendering it a novelty. If opened up this would easily earn a 5* rating but until then 2*

I've been brewing beer for nearly 7 years. My experience includes extract and all-grain recipes from 1 to 5 gallon batches. My goal in purchasing the Pico C was to frequently brew a variety of beer in small batches with consistent results while reducing my equipment footprint. The Pico C exceeds that goal. Setup and registration was a breeze. Installing the gasket for the first rinse was a little challenging but made sense once it was installed right. The entire brewing process was simple. I read the manual to prepare then followed the on-screen instructions. Total time required before and after brew cycle was under 30 minutes. Fermentation was the most foreign part of the process since I'm used to an airlock to help monitor progress. Not having instructions for recommended temperature and duration for a lager was less than ideal. The only problem I've seen with the Pico C is the lack of documentation. There's plenty of room for improvement in the manual and videos. Fortunately PicoBrew has excellent customer service. Don't hesitate to contact them.

I am an avid traditional homebrewer and when I came across the Pico I was amazed at the pure, streamlined automation of this machine. I was an original early bird Kickstarter for the model C and have been blown away by its performance, ease of use as well as ease of cleanup. The brewing keg and step filter are completely dishwasher safe and that saves a ton of cleanup time. Also, I really enjoy the connections of the C. I do not have to mess around with ball locks and deal with the issues that come with them. I have brewed three packs so far since the unit arrived in October and the only slight negative for me is the batch size. I would like more beer haha! Anyhow, I am excited for the future of this product especially with the pending release of the PicoFirm fermentation computer. This unit will be able to streamline the fermentation process for our Pico. I am very excited to continue to use my Pico C and I am also looking forward to more experimenting with bottling and secondary fermentation techniques.

I have brewed beer in the past, but as any home brewer knows, it is a very laborious process that requires tons of equipment. I recently moved to Manhattan and had to "downsize" my brewing equipment because of my limited space. The Pico C intrigued me due to its compactness and ease of brewing, so a month ago, I purchased the Pico C. Since I received the Pico C, I have brewed the Helle’s Lager and the Elysian Dragon’s Tooth Stout. The brew time took approximately 2 hours and the Pico C was extremely easy to set-up, use, and clean. Both beers turned out awesome! I had a few friends stop by for a “taste-test” and they could not believe the taste and quality of the beers. I know PicoBrew spent a lot of time with the research and development of the Pico C, and it shows! The Pico C is truly the best brewing system for home brewers who don’t want to spent hours in the kitchen monitoring temperatures and adding ingredients.

I have tried a few other DIY home brewing kits and the Pico C is by far the easiest to use. All of the other kits I have tried require you to boil the mash kits and transfer into the fermenting keg which was just a cheap plastic container. The Pico C takes all of the guesswork out of the actual brew process and in about 2hrs you have wort already in the fermenting keg ready to be set aside for the fermenting process. The whole process takes a few weeks start to beer it's totally worth it, so far my favorite is the Saison. Love having fresh beer on hand anytime and I look forward to other beers in the marketplace.

I just finished my second brew on the Pico C, an imperial oatmeal stout, and could not be happier. This is a great way to make 1.25 gallons of quality craft beer at home. The Pico C uses "PicoPaks", which are pre-filled, compostable, containers of pre-milled grains that are specific to the beer being brewed. There is a separate pack of up to 4 different hops. These packs go into a plastic holder, which slides into the Pico C appliance. From there, you just turn on the Pico C and follow the instructions on the display (it knows which beer you are brewing from an NFC tag on the PicoPak). Using the brewing/fermenting keg, it warms the water (distilled is preferred) to the proper temperatures for mashing the grains, circulates the water through the PicoPak, adds hops at the appropriate times, boils the mixture (wort) and delivers the finished wort to the brewing/fermenting keg. After the wort cools to room temp, you open the lid, add the yeast packet, close the lid and wait 6-10 days for the magic to happen while the wort ferments into beer. At this point, you transfer (rack) the beer into a serving keg and carbonate by adding sugar and waiting another 7-10 days, or force carbonate using a CO2 cartridge and regulator (available separately from PicoBrew). PicoBrew offers over 100 different PicoPaks, many of which are designed by commercial craft breweries. I set up my Pico C in our guest bathroom so I would have easy access to a sink. The Pico C connects to the PicoBrew servers via Wifi to download updates and information it needs to brew the PicoPak. On the PicoBrew website, you can follow the progress of the brewing process. As a former homebrewer, I understand that the Pico C does not provide the flexibility to create whatever beer your heart desires, but with that flexibility comes complexity and a lot more equipment (and space). If you can be satisfied with the ever-expanding selection of PicoPaks that are available, you will be happy with the Pico C. PicoBrew has a new add-on, called PicoFerm, that attaches to the brewing/fermenting key to give you information about the fermentation progress. This should solve my one issue with the system, which is that it is difficult to determine when fermentation is complete. There is no bubbling air lock to give you visual feedback about fermentation. Rather, the brewing/fermentation keg has small pressure valves that maintain 5-7 pounds of pressure in the key for "fast fermentation".

Being a beer lover, I cannot recommend Pico enough for those of you who want to enhance your beer nerdery without all the complex tools that come with "old school" home brewing. I'm currently on my second batch of home brewing with the Pico C model. I was a kick starter backer and this product has so far lived up to all the hype and promises. Here has been my experience so far. My first beer was the Helles Lager. I very traditional lager, straight forward, crisp, clean and easy drinking. I felt a bit anxious about brewing my first batch but the team at Pico has made is super easy with an online PDF guide that you can download that walks you through it all, as well as some start up information in the box and video tutorials on line. I followed the process and simple as that, beer was being made. The beginning process takes about two and a half to three hours and you are not doing anything other then checking in every now and then. This is one of the best parts of this product! All the science is already done for you. Clean up is very easy once the brewing process is done, again step by step instructions are provided. Depending on the beer and temperature, fermentation times varies. The Pico Ferm is on its way which is another revolutionary device that is going to make knowing when to cold crash your beer even better. For this first batch, I used the outside thermometer provided to track the temperature. Transferring to the serving keg after the cold crash process and then serving and drinking have all been a breeze! My only complaint would be that I was not aware of how long it actually takes from start to finish to get your beer. Pico advertises "about two weeks" whihc is true if you are brewing beer around 5% ABV with no added hoping steps. The types of beer I enjoy are higher in ABV like Belgium style beers and DIPA's. These styles of beer take around 20-30 days from start to finish! This is a good amount of time to wait. To solve this problem, I'm going to get another brewing keg and serving keg from Pico so that I can be rotating my beers and always have something delicious on tap! If you want a simple and fun way to home brew, there are a lot of options on the market but I think Pico stands above the rest in terms of ease, choices in beer and consistency of quality beer each time. Currently working on a Marzen for Fall/Winter!

Was a gift and had to be ordered. Didn’t work out of the box and the return process between Bestbuy and manufacturer was not smooth.

When I first learned of the Pico Model C, i was intrigued. After researching it, I pulled the trigger and purchased the Model C. I did my first brew on 10/21. I did the Helles Lager. Directions were easy to follow, everything I needed to brew it came with it, (except for the distilled water). It was a snap to brew. Clean up was easy. Any questions I had were promptly responded to. I have also placed my first order for the pico packs. I look forward to brewing more beer in the future.

Hello, my name is Logan Pensinger. I have received my new Pico Brew system (PICO C). My father Keith and I opened the box and was impressed from the start. I order around 40 or 50 online items a year and the Pico Brew packaging was well above average compared to most items I order. The setup was designed for a novice brewer, which made getting started a breeze. The https://www.picobrew.com website and the internal system directions made it impossible to mess up. The quality of the system appears to be solid and over all look is very pleasing to look at. I was worried that the system would look gaudy and take up too much room, I was wrong. We have now followed the getting started directions and started our brewing experience with a Helles Lager, Lucky Envelope Brewing - Munich Helles BREWED ON 10/10/17. It is gone and was great. We have now completed Bolderiaan - Belgian Pale Ale 2 - Columbus Beer & Liquor BREWED ON 10/27/17. It is carbonating now and looks and smells great. Fire In The Hole- Irish Red Ale - Beer Army Foundation, brewing now. I have been impressed with the ease of use and support provided by Pico Brew. I want everyone to know if you like beer and enjoy getting the satisfaction of sipping down a cold brew that you can hold up and say I made this, then this is for you. We now have 5 or 6 brewing companies in our town and the first batch we brewed with our Pico Brew was as good or better than anything we have purchased from them. I recommend this system to EVERYONE. I will return to this review and update it as time passes to let people know how much enjoyment they are missing out on without a PICO BREW C system in their home.

I was an early backer of the PICO Model C on Kickstarter and I can definitely say the wait was worth it. So far I have brewed two batches of beer and am working on my third. While the instructions are straightforward, brewing for the first time can be a little overwhelming because you want to make sure you do everything properly considering the time that needs to be invested in waiting for the beer to ferment and carbonate. But if you follow the directions everything should work out great. I like that right before the brewing process you can make minor tweaks to the beer such as increasing or decreasing alcohol content and the ability to monitor the status via the web is a nice touch. The first batch I brewed was the Helles Lager that came with the kit and the beer tasted great. My only complaint is the serving keg lost its carbonation within two days of opening it even though I was sure I sealed everything properly. I decided to invest in a stainless steel keg with CO2 dispensing tap that can be sealed better which solved that problem. One of my favorite things about this system is the BrewMarketplace where you can customize your own beer. Buying something off the shelf is great, but being able to tailor a beer exactly the way you want is one of the purposes of brewing at home, in my opinion, and it's done very well. On a side note, make sure you have good ventilation during the brewing process of your house is going to smell like a brewery!

BY far the easiest brewing system I’ve ever used. It’s almost boring how easy it is. Load the water, grain and hop packs hit start and off it goes. My only recommendations are to A: sanitize the brew keg, my first beer tasted a tad sour so sanitize the dip tube lid and keg to be safe and B: invest in a 1.75 gal keg, other than that I couldn’t be happier. This machine is amazing

I recently purchased the Pico C on their Kickstarter campaign. I was offered an upgrade to the original S, but chose to wait. The upside to the new Pico C brewing keg is the simplicity of the connections and the lid closure. The brewing keg connectors are sized uniquely and are press-fit. The The brewing keg and the rest of the components used in brewing the beer are dishwasher safe. The serving keg is fine if you are going to drink the beer within a week of carbonating, but if you wish to either force carbonate or keep your beer fresher for a longer period, you need to buy an the optional regulator and CO2 cartridges. I have been a small-batch homebrewer for a while and choose to use a Kegerator to both force carbonate and serve the beer. The main plus to using a Pico, versus the original stovetop process is that mashing is completely controlled by the Pico. Start it up and go do something else. The web page (and soon app) will keep you posted on the process and what is being done. This includes the mashout (raising the temperature at the end) and adding the hops. This is much better than hunkering over a stove with a thermometer and making micro-adjustments (at least on my stovetop) to keep the wort the proper temperature. The main downside to using a Pico is that you need to buy the PicoPacs (grain, hops, yeast) in order to brew. Pico has a nice selection of available beers and they do allow you to make your own through their website, but the raw ingredient selection is a bit limited. The cleaning of the unit and brew keg is very straightforward. Cost for a PicoPack is in the $22-$29 range and the yield is about 1.2 Gallons. Directions could be a bit more helpful.

I'll start this review by saying I'm new to home brewing, but I have many friends who are experienced home and commercial brewers. I also live in San Diego, so there is no shortage of excellent local breweries (and beer snobs). Finally, I'll state the main reason why I haven't been brewing yet is that I'm incredibly lazy. I backed this project on Kickstarter with the intention of eliminating my excuses and objections, and to stop leeching homebrew from my friends. THE GIST: The Pico has fulfilled it's promise to deliver a simple, easy-to-use appliance that makes great tasting beer. THE GOOD: If you can pour water and follow simple instructions, you CAN do this. The machine walks you through all of the steps with clear instructions, and really does do all the work for you. So while my home brewing friends have to set aside an entire day as a "brew day", I can pop in a PicoPak, turn on a movie, and have completed wort ready to cool by the time the credits are rolling. There's no fussing over temperatures, messing with grains or extracts, scalding yourself with boiling hot wort, or cleaning and sanitizing giant stainless vessels. Speaking of cleaning, the machine cleans itself. For real. Add water, hit a button, and walk away. The brew keg gets put in the dishwasher. It really is that simple. And the beer? Well, so far I've only completed one pak, the Helles Lager from Lucky Envelope Brewing, but my friends argued with me that I couldn't have made this on "that machine" with "that yeast" at "that temperature". And they were surprised at the quality of the beer that had not been "properly lagered" for months. Needless to say, they were impressed... even the bearded beer snob hipsters. THE BAD: This machine isn't going to kickstart your career in the brewing industry, or allow you to open your own brewery. It's not really going to save you money, and you'll probably put on some extra pounds from drinking all that beer. Joking aside, this machine makes small batches. The 5 Liter mini-keg goes quickly when you have a group of eager beer-swilling friends over. But the intention here isn't quantity. It's quality and variety. A lazy guy like myself can choose from a hundred different styles of beer, and make them almost as easy as popping a Blu-ray into the player. You're going to need to learn patience. It takes two to three weeks (sometimes more) from brewing to drinking. So while it's very easy, it still takes some planning if you want to have a batch ready for an event. There really isn't a magic bullet here... fermentation is still a natural process that takes time, and no matter how much you salivate over the beer locked inside that keg, you'll still have to wait until it's done to drink it. My second batch is carbonating now, so I'm trying not to drool on the keyboard as I type. There's a great selection of PicoPaks (100 and counting!), and more being added all the time. You can even design your own, and try those recipes your friends keep saying will make them famous. But then again, there are only so many ingredients to choose from. The Freestyle PicoPak designer on the website is very cool and easy to use, but ultimately your're restricted to the grains, hops and yeasts that PicoBrew makes available. You can't just go to your local homebrew shop, buy some exotic ingredients and experiment with complete freedom. Maybe there will be a reuseable, fillable PicoPak in the future, but there isn't one today. And so far that I have seen, you can't add adjuncts or flavorings like coffee, spices or fruit in the designer. That being said, I remember buying a Keurig coffee maker when they first came out, and only had a dozen or so coffee flavors, so I'm confident that it will only grow and improve as the ecosystem matures. My last and only real gripe with the machine is that it is quite loud. It reminds me of that first Keurig brewer I had... it's a constant purring and humming throughout the brewing process, almost like a lawnmower idling outside. I solved this by putting the Pico in my dining room, so I could hear that movie playing... THE FINALE: I had to really think hard to come up with issues for the Pico C. Realistically, the bad is minimal compared to how great it is to make something even your twirly-mustachioed friends will raise an eyebrow in approval for.