I don’t get the way they scaled it either. The only advantage i see is using less bins if the mash isn’t too large.
Keep in mind that a lot of the focus of this product is restaurants and other commercial operations like that.
You keep saying that, but your not explaining the logic. What makes this design better for restaurants than another design? What are it’s primary benefits?
I think the idea is, the Z is fully automated. Other brew systems can scale easily with bigger pots, but, those aren’t fully automated. Those other systems still need someone to mash, sparge, start the boil, add hops, etc. The Picobrew Z cuts a lot of that out. Crush grain, load the Z with ingredients, press a button and come back in 4 hours to cool, pitch yeast, and ferment. A few more buttons to cleanup. Presumably this is easier for a restaurant that wants craft beer without having to develop recipes and find a brewer. They can buy PicoPaks and assuming they manage the fermentation and kegging process correctly (which is not that hard) they get craft beer made on premises.
The stack ability keeps the cost down. Picobrew mass produces the same 2.5G unit and sells it in 4 batch size increments. It looks awkward to use because we all have one mash, but, it should work.
I think the main annoyance for a 10G brewer would be dividing all the ingredients in 4 parts.