Hello old friend, Fatal Error #1

Ah, it’s been a while, Fatal Error #1. Have you missed me?

Yes, after several months gathering dust, I switch on the Zymatic to see whether the Picobew servers were still working. And they were. Wow. So I did a quick rinse and set out to make a brew. And I was met with my old chum: Fatal Error #1!

My post My Fatal Error #1 was buying a Zymatic is the top post on Google for Zymatic FE1, and every so often I’ll get a mail asking me how I fixed it. At the time Picobrew was still in operation, I was in contract with them about FE1, and they were actually reading my blog – I know this because the support person got pissed when I wrote something unfavourable about his attitude and I had to delete it to get further support! – so I was deliberately vague about the solution.

Doesn’t seem much point being vague now, eh?

Picobrew insists (insisted?) that FE1 is caused by gunk in the machine – eg in the heat exchanger – which causes a difference between the wort and heat loop temperature sensors. Anyone (previously) contacting them would be told to clean, clean, and clean some more. Now don’t get me wrong, cleaning is a good thing. But Picobrew never got past that. They never admit that this happens:

See that bubble. That’s an air bubble in the glycol which is being pumped through the heat exchanger. Looks small and innocent enough, doesn’t it? Well, with a bit of massaging to move air hidden in the “closed loop”, it becomes this:

And THAT is the cause of Fatal Error 1 in my case. Somehow over time this air bubble develops in the closed loop, and no amount of cleaning will help that. Switch the machine on and run a brew, and the machine with bork out after a few minutes due to heat sensor differences, shown clearly in the session graph:

I should point out that there could be other reasons for a FE1 – in fact anything that would cause a difference between in temperature between sensors. A blockage where the machine is sucking in air rather than water/wort, for example. Or massive amounts of gunk in the machine – hence Picobrew recommending cleaning. But there gets to a point where you’ve ruled out all the daft things and cleaned the machine more than you clean your teeth before going to the dentist, and you still have FE1 and a graph like the above.

If you get a Fatal Error 1 at the start of the brew, first check you haven’t made any silly mistakes – like connect the hoses the wrong way round. If all looks ok and you still get FE1 after restarting, check the session graphs to confirm the heat differences.

If it’s your first time encountering FE1 and – like myself – you have a brew loaded up, it is (usually) possible to get past the FE1 and get the brew going. Once the water temp hits around 80-100F, the machine is able to continue the brew to the end without hitting FE1 again. So if you hit FE1, run a cycle with the water going through the machine for a minute or two, then restart the brew. And keep doing that until the water gets hot enough and FE1 stops happening. You can help the process by removing the water from the keg, heating it on a stove, and putting it back in the keg before restarting, to get you into the 80-100F zone.

This is what the session graph looks like after the brew finally gets going. You can see the large difference between Heat 1 and Heat 2 at the beginning, and you can also see how it spikes up and down at that time. As the brew progresses, the difference between the heat sensors falls, but there is still a large gap between the wort temp and the heat sensors temp. Chances are if you look at your previous successful brew, it it was recent, you’ll see gaps between the heat 1 & 2 readings at the beginning, and a difference between the wort and temp sensors later on.

That solution mentioned above is temporary, to get the brew going. To fix properly, you’ll need to top up the glycol like so:

And then Bob’s your granma’s uncle. Working Zymatic again. This is what the graph looks like after top-up:

Massive difference, eh? See how much closer Heat 1 and Heat 2 are throughout the brew. See also how close the wort temp is. You do see some wort temp drops at the end of dough in and mash 1 – those co-incide with the wort draining and so are normal.

Below is a PDF outlining the glycol top-up process. Before you download it, please read this warning/disclaimer CAREFULLY.

1. I am not the author of the guide and I am making it available as it was provided to me because it helped me and because many people have asked me how I fixed FE1 on my Zymatic. I take no responsibility for your usage of the guide.
2. USE EXTREME CAUTION WHEN FOLLOWING THE PROCEDURE (OR DO NOT PERFORM IF YOU DON’T FEEL COMFORTABLE). USE THE PROCEDURE AT YOUR OWN RISK. DAMAGE TO YOUR ZYMATIC CAN OCCUR. THERE IS RISK OF ELECTRICAL SHOCK THAT COULD RESULT IN DEATH. THIS PROCEDURE IS FOR REFERENCE ONLY.

Seriously – the Zymatic pumps hot fluids through it and there are electrical everywhere. You need to be very careful. And if that wasn’t enough, some of the edges inside the Zymatic are razor sharp and I have cut myself dismantling the Zymatic. You follow the guide at your own risk.

Zymatic Glycol Top-upDownload

If you want to get in touch with me, leave a comment. I do not publish comments but I do reply when I can.

 

Goodbye, Picobrew

As I am sure most of you are aware, Picobrew has gone tits-up. The servers are still running – so for the moment my Zymatic is still working – but there’s no longer any support nor ability to get parts. According to the Picobrew forums, which are still up, Picobrew held a fire sale for locals near their warehouses selling off parts. If that’s true, there probably ain’t any parts left, and it kind of signals a recovery isn’t on the cards.

Not all is lost, however. At the time I was getting Fatal Error #1’s and feared that I might get booted off Picrobrew’s servers for self repairing the glycol (which was the only thing that fixed the Fatal Error 1 – write me a comment if you want the info) I discovered this reverse engineered picobrew server on github. At the time it was buggy but with a few edits I managed to get it running, and by adding a DNS override to make picobrew.com local, I was able to run the Zymatic without needing Pico’s servers. The person who wrote the server has started developing it again and told me there’s renewed interest in it, so I expect it will get better.

I’m still brewing with the Zymatic, on average about 1 beer a month over the last year. And if Picobrew.com goes down, I’ll probably power up my own server to continue until my step filter is no longer repairable or a part goes.

As readers of this blog know, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with my Zymatic. At times I’ve liked the convenience (usually at the beginning of the brew, until it gets to cleanup), and particularly lately it’s been relatively stable since I fixed FE1. But it has caused me a mountain of pain – from the contents of a keg exploding on my ceiling during a brew, to the Fatal Error 1 saga, to the step filters cracking, to the egos of some of the support staff….

But perhaps most importantly, I’ve never been truly happy with the hoppy beers it produces – even trying multiple techniques to whirlpool. I use it now because it’s there and it frees up the kitchen and I hold onto the dream that one day I’ll crack hoppy beers in a repeatable manner on it, but I’ve often asked myself the question: if the machine stopped working tomorrow, would I buy another? And the answer to that has generally been “probably not”. Guess the question resolved itself though.

If I was in the US, I might pick up a second hand Zymatic for like $50 as spares once the website goes down and they start getting sold on eBay, but I think there’s only about 5 of them in Japan, so it ain’t very likely.

Even though I am not posting here often, do feel free to get in touch via comments. I don’t publish the comments but I do reply back to people via email.

 

What’s been going on, like

I’ve not written for a while because I’ve not made beer for a while.

Around the time I was fixing the Zymatic, I decided to go for the JLPT N2 exam – giving myself around 4 months to “level up” from N3 which I had just passed (and hadn’t been bothered to do any study after taking the exam). If you don’t know what JLPT is, never mind. But if you do, you’ll know that N2 from N3 in 4 months is a rather aggressive target. It was an intense experience that I never want to repeat again (like Ruination 2.0) but I passed.

After that I joined a gym to erase the years of accumulated 6 packs. In the last two months, I’ve gone down two clothes sizes, returning to when I was Austin Power’s s-e-x-y-m-a-n. Girls no longer look away in disgust at my flab. Now they look away in disgust at just my age.

As the tropical heat dies down, my Japanese study returns to a “for fun” level, and my belly wobbles less, I’m starting to think about brewing again. Not quite now, but possibly around October time. I have a metric crap-load of hops, grain and yeasties to get through

 

Zymatic – Working again

Zymatic Fatal Error #1 – Fixed

I’m back brewing on the Zymatic again. I won’t detail here how I solved the Fatal Error #1 as it involved taking the Zymatic apart – but if you’re having the same issue, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll get back to you at the email address you provide.

I would like to say it was great brewing on the Zymatic again – and in fairness, as I lay in bed while the machine run the mash program, it was pretty nice. But as usual it was overshadowed by the cleaning – which, given recent history, I decided to take no chances and ran multiple rinse sessions, a cleaning session, and a flush of 20L of water. Net result was a longer brew day than when I don’t use the Zymatic!  And on top of that, there’s the worry of when the step filter will next crack and I’ll be face with a bill.

 

My Fatal Error #1 was buying a Zymatic!

After more cleans, hex soaks and beta cleans than I can shake a metaphorical stick it – enough to crack and render useless TWO step filters – I still get Fatal Error #1:

My Fatal Error #1 was buying a Zymatic!

I’ve sent the evidence of the cleanings – showing clean output – to Picobrew. So far no reply for the last three days.

I’m pretty much convinced it’s glycol (read this forum). The machine is spotless.  Will Picobrew finally admit as such?

I’ve had two step filters crack during this cleaning debacle. While Picobrew sent replacements for free, the last one came with a warning that they would not be free any more – while still instructing me to keep cleaning with Finish tablets, which they know cracks the step filters! Insanity!

So to sum up: Picobrew know the plastic Zymatic step filters have a design flaw which results in cracking. When machines go out of warranty (mine is 2 years old), they will no longer replace them free – they will require postage to be paid, which they estimate at about $50 to Japan.

I requested to discuss the situation with the person who made this decision and was told:

I have requested someone reach out to you regarding this but we are unfortunately very busy with the roll-out of the Z line and thus do not have the bandwidth to carry on this discussion.  This is the same information you would receive from any other person we would put you in contact with and it is the way things will be moving forward.

With Zymatics developing Fatal Errors after less than two years and them not standing by products which they know have design flaws, I’d be very worried if I was ordering a Z1, Z2, Z3, Z4.

Update: Downloaded the Zymatic Z manual and found out that the new machines are using the same polycarbonate plastic material for the step filters as the old Zymatic. The manual also has warnings about cracking. 

Update 2: See this later blog post on FE1