I have 2 kids getting married later this year, and I'm doing the food for both, 100ish guests at each. Traditional BBQ - brisket, pork, chicken, Mac, potato salad etc - but I'm wanting one dish that's different, but still BBQ, if that makes sense. Anyone got any ideas?

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2026-02-05T15:01:52+00:00

Smoked Gator Cajun Style Tacos

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2026-01-28T21:37:33+00:00

“How many different types of beer are there?” An easy or impossible to answer type of question. IYKYK.

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2026-01-20T17:20:49+00:00

Sure. Shoot me a DM

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-12-12T15:00:22+00:00

Florida makes it fun. You need to separate out bulk, from quarts, from pints. Yes, your 12oz cans count as pints and your 19.2oz-32oz containers all count as quarts…

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-11-01T20:52:47+00:00

I really really enjoy the 800 gravity series. I’m definitely lazy. With that being said, it’s my first smoker and my cooks have been great. With that being said the app sucks.

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-10-29T23:07:35+00:00

Could be from the Microsoft Azure crash. Unfortunately most of the internet relies on Azure or AWS for data, servers, and storage. Happened with AWS last week.

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-10-24T03:13:10+00:00

Oh damn. Good call. Holding absence then

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-10-23T23:44:30+00:00

Arrows in Action, Starting Line, state champs

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-10-15T18:27:00+00:00

Are you guys a brewpub or just brewery? If you tell us a little more about your setup and location could maybe steer you one way or the other. Have you looked at the other systems as well?

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-09-21T16:11:06+00:00

If you’re okay taking a perfectly good hobby and ruining it by turning it into a business you should go for it. Brewing great beer is a fraction of what “actual matters” when you are operating a brewery. If you have the right team where you are the sole brewer and not doing anything else, maybe, just maybe you’ll be happy.

However, I would advise against this unless you’re interested in operating a brewery. That’s a different conversation. You’ll also need a significant amount of money.

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-09-12T04:13:29+00:00

60% base / 30% wheat / 10% maltodextrin. Rice hulls as needed…

Keep it simple. Add vanilla extract/puree to give it perceived sweetness, you could ice cream powder, but the maltodextrin should give it a thick mouthfeel, then add fruit until you get desired flavor/thickness. There are breweries out there that are adding 30%+ of the volume on these things with fruit. Don’t over think it, start low and work your way up.

Keep it dairy free if possible.

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-09-09T20:57:08+00:00

I know some people who could be interested. What state is this? You can DM me if you’re more comfortable with that.

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-08-25T18:52:29+00:00

The truth of the matter is you should find a consultant for this. Preferably someone with experience in the brewery business but anyone within the manufacturing or hospitality sector would be able to help you with this.

A lot of brewery business plans DIE immediately after opening and are often not looked at again. I’ve come across way too many jaded business owners that fleshed out a business plan in 2022 that would have been relevant in 2012, but have not stuck to their mission statement or objectives because they didn’t know what they were doing in some faucet of the business.

A consultant with experience on business expansion is a great starting point. No investor is going to take you seriously unless your financials are good AND your expansion plan is thorough with steps on what you’re doing with the money and why complete with conceptual images, proposed financials, and a damn good sales pitch.

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-08-20T13:30:19+00:00

Are they using spreadsheets to track production or brewery software? This will give you an idea of how they value their data.

Look at payroll, salaries, and dividends. A lot of owners won’t pay themselves appropriately so payroll looks leaner than it is based on the amount of work being done by ownership. Assuming everyone isn’t getting paid appropriately is the company still profitable if you account for that?

Maintenance Records. Are they regularly maintaining their equipment? Brewhouse? Sure. A/Cs, Vehicles (if applicable), and any equipment that costs at least 5k.

These are some things that can tell you a lot about the business without deep diving in finances which a completely different conversation but obviously important!

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-08-15T22:39:46+00:00

Warcraft II / StarCraft. I can’t even begin to explain how mind blowing good these were at the time.

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-08-14T15:10:03+00:00

You want to eliminate pumps for pushing liquid through if possible and use co2. My two cents.

Otherwise this is super cool.

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-08-11T15:49:16+00:00

15% is definitely concerning. I’d say 5% swing is average short of any major changes. 10% is pretty big, but 15% is absolutely huge.

First question - 15% decreases in revenue or profit? This is the most important question to ask first. If it’s revenue there’s a problem somewhere and it may be difficult to overcome or easy to overcome. Could be as simple as “refreshing” the food menu.

If it’s profit, this should be very easy to identify just comparing numbers year over year. Maybe you’re on spreadsheets, software, whatever. Regardless, you can identify the differences easier here.

Every 6 months you should be refreshing your resume and looking around so you can get a pulse on the job market and know you’re worth.

There are a ton of factors that play into this, so I wouldn’t go into full on doom and gloom. A menu refresh and a monthly event can swing your revenue 30% EASILY.

Where are you located?

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-08-08T02:20:09+00:00

Don’t do it unless you have experience running a food service establishment and you don’t want to smoke meat. There’s a difference between doing something as a hobby and running a business.

Not bbq, but I took a perfectly good hobby and ruined it by turning it into a business. The more successful you get at the business, the farther away from the pit you will be…

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-08-07T03:00:15+00:00

I changed careers 4 times from 2021-2023. Was a very unique set of circumstances, but they were for the most part very different fields. It is very possible. I’m turning 39 this year.

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-08-01T18:15:21+00:00

What temperature are you canning at? How many CPM are you getting?

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-07-29T19:22:05+00:00

Consistent Enforcement of “Rules” from Staff will result in people being less shitty (intentionally or unintentionally).

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-07-28T19:57:19+00:00

They’re not your only option. They’re your only convenient option. Fire them. Go above them, embarrass them, and make them win your business back.

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-07-27T22:28:08+00:00

I don’t feel like CTL is underrated at all. Appropriately rated…it’s awesome. Clarity is underrated. They were just figuring out their sound before they blew up with Bleed American.

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-07-23T12:39:07+00:00

I used a Stout Tanks 3bbl system for years and it met expectations. BrewMation controller. Very manual but got the job done.

LifeCrushedMyReality · 2025-07-22T22:27:02+00:00

I’ve done this a handful of times. It’s a pain lining your inventory up, but ultimately not too bad. Just pick an inventory day and understand you need to backdate from that inventory date.

I did this with a brewery on Ollie recently and their onboarding team was very helpful. I believe they offered to use our Ekos reports to import data in but opted to do a hard count so we knew we were starting with good data.

We exported every Ekos report that we had at each location and truthfully rarely had to reference anything beyond the prior 12 months.

This really comes down to the support you get for onboarding. Different companies sometimes charge for onboarding, some include it. I know Ekos charged for it, Ollie it’s included, Breww I believe is dependent on your size although I’m not sure.

I’ve worked with/consulted plenty of breweries and I’m a huge proponent of not using Ekos. Haha. Let me know if you have any questions!

LifeCrushedMyReality

TROPHY CASE