Pico Disaster

I wanted to get a fresh hop going this year as last year our kitchen went kaput and I couldn’t use those hops. So this year… I was ready. I harvested a full bowl of hops (with the help of Gigi), I dried them out, I stopped after work at the brew store to build a nice Czech Pilsner (minus the hops!)… and I was ready for a brew day on Saturday.

The Pico had been giving me some flow issues in the last batch. I got an error #1 a few times until I got all the connections worked out (or temp sensors warmed up). It wasn’t that big a deal as the batch started and finished brewing properly and all was well.

So this batch, I had one issue with an error #1 during the warm up and it was ready to go after that. Until I went to check on it after dinner… the mash was spewing water everywhere. I had to stop the cycle, rush towels in, and cleaned up the biggest mess I’ve seen in awhile.

I’ve only had my Pico two years now… here’s hoping it’s an easy fix but the way I’m dealing with support I’m quite concerned that out-of-warranty on an emergent product means out-of-luck. I guess I’ll have to investigate one of these if that’s the case.