As a homebrewer $1800 can get you an amazing setup. It looks to me that the picobrew is for those who don't want to do the 'heavy lifting' of homebrewing and w

As a homebrewer $1800 can get you an amazing setup. 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 http://www.brewpi.com) 5 Gallon Keg $60 used $110 new (http://www.homebrewing.org/5-Gallon-Cornelius-Keg-Ball-Lock-Used_p_70.html 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-Mash-Tun-With-False-Bottom_p_1006.html 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