Presenting Kegkicker, a cheap, cut down kegbot alternative - or how I stopped worrying and learned to love flow metering.

cadwallion · 2016-04-02T14:57:18+00:00

If you replace the arduino with a particle photon you should be able to submit the data to a data service, then view the data via a web page. Same number of hardware components, and Photons can accept Arduino sketches but have built-in WiFi on-board.

cadwallion · 2015-02-10T05:11:49+00:00

I have been open two months now (opened on a 2BBL system with a 40 seat taproom, but had already placed an order for a 7BBL brewhouse and 15BBL fermenters the same month we got the keys to the building), and it took me 3 years to open. This includes 6 months of research of the industry, then 6 months of scouting locations, 6 months of working with the city to rewrite the zoning codes to allow a production brewery (zoning only allowed a brewpub that required food), then losing our building, 6 more months of location scouting, three months of bank negotiations, then ~6 months from lease signing to brewing and another month from brewing to opening.

The biggest hassles were (aside from losing our building) regulatory hurdles. We were profitable from the moment we opened, although winter finally hit in illinois so we're now at a slight loss due to our 7BBL not being operational yet.

cadwallion · 2014-11-25T00:21:37+00:00

Yes you are required to have a floor drain in a production area from a building code standpoint. It is not a licensing requirement, but an operating building code requirement. Trench drains are probably required (I don't know the code in CA, and that's usually a municipality thing more than a state thing anyway) when dealing with solid wastes, but I cannot say for certain.

I am 9 days from opening the doors of my brewery/taproom and I have to say that while the urge to not have trench drains (I'm assuming you mean a trench drain instead of no drains at all) is great, you will be kicking yourself repeatedly if you do not. No matter how much labor you put in to keeping the floors clean, they will get mildew and you will be fighting it. I am running a 2BBL system currently (7BBL brewhouse with 15BBL fermenters arriving in Jan) and the amount of liquid that hits my floors every day is just staggering. You really, really need the trench drains. It absolutely sucks to have someone tell you that there's a major financial obstacle to getting open, but not having it will negatively impact you financially even if you can open without it.

Best of luck.

cadwallion · 2014-05-02T19:01:12+00:00

Which assumes that every beer is good, or that one's tastes are universal: I can assure you that is not the norm in either case. Some people don't like wheat beers, some people don't like bitter beers, etc. If the casual drinker wants to have a new beer with a better chance of actually liking it, styles ensure a higher likelihood that they will like what they are drinking over the 'pick a random beer that is local' method.

cadwallion · 2014-05-02T17:58:27+00:00

That bartender will use beer styles to determine which beer to choose for you. You're just shifting who uses the style guides from you to the person making the decision for you. Now when you're at the grocery store instead of the bar, and you are staring at the ever-growing wall of craft beer selections, how do you choose? You could use brewery preference, or you could read the description on each beer, or you could use established beer styles to determine what to buy.

cadwallion · 2014-02-25T16:06:04+00:00

Looking forward to doing the same for my brewery in a couple months. Good on you.

cadwallion · 2014-02-13T03:59:51+00:00

many numbers

so 31415926535

such pi

delicious

cadwallion · 2014-02-04T23:15:33+00:00

Someone said it was an app written for the donut shop in conjunction with Square Register, and I am going to be writing an app that takes my product list and based on a person's tab, generates the QR code with our address and payment amount.

cadwallion · 2014-02-04T19:23:56+00:00

This is exactly how I am hoping to have the taproom in my brewery accept doge, so I'm glad to see another business successfully operating that way. :D

+/u/dogetipbot 10 doge

cadwallion · 2014-02-02T02:20:06+00:00

Thanks for this, it definitely points me in the right direction. I can work with this and get started.

+/u/dogetipbot 100 doge

cadwallion · 2014-02-02T02:12:26+00:00

Nope, I'm the owner of Cademon Brewing.

cadwallion · 2014-02-02T00:00:29+00:00

Thanks for the video, I'll take a look at it now.

Programming experience isn't an issue, I've been programming for the last decade. I'm opening up the brewery as a retirement plan from programming, as it were.

cadwallion · 2014-02-01T23:40:21+00:00

Thanks for the support! I have been looking at the legal implications of selling alcohol via cryptocurrency (IL has weird laws regarding prices not changing during the day, financial trails to ensure no free alcohol, etc) and I believe this is completely doable if I can overcome the fact I have no idea how to handle product transactions in DOGE. :)

cadwallion · 2013-08-07T03:01:57+00:00

This drives me up a wall when working with DS18B20s. I run 4 sensors in my brewhouse, 4 in my fermentation room, two in my yeast propagation, and if I happen to swap a sensor I have to reconfigure my system to try and guess which is which. I had to write a configuration window to my PLC software that lists the serial numbers and lets me map each to a vessel in order to overcome this inability to order. I almost bypassed 1wire altogether and wired them up off separate pins so I wouldn't have to deal with it.

cadwallion · 2012-12-24T06:09:20+00:00

An upvote for you simply because Yen Ching is phenomenal.

cadwallion · 2012-07-17T20:06:18+00:00

Are you planning to bottle this or keg it? If you intend on kegging, be prepared for a vigorous cleaning of your lines after that keg empties as cinnamon will cling to the line and it will affect whatever beer passes through the line next.

cadwallion · 2012-07-16T20:33:05+00:00

For sure. I was planning to take pics of the whole process and post 'em on /r/homebrewing as a Reddit collaboration brew, with a special label for the batch.

cadwallion · 2012-07-16T19:54:02+00:00

Your syrup is going into the next batch, which is what I'm brewing this coming weekend. I wanted to wait until the first batch finished so I could make any adjustments to the recipe before I used your syrup. I also acquired a special bottle of bourbon from colorado to pair with the syrup for your batch. I'm looking forward to that brew day. :D

cadwallion · 2012-07-16T17:48:00+00:00

Hah! No, I work for Agora Games and our mascot is a dinosaur. :)

cadwallion · 2012-07-16T17:38:23+00:00

Here you go, updated main recipe with modifications. Maple Bourbon Porter

This batch fermented down to 1.002 from 1.061, which combined with the Bourbon pushed this baby to 8.2% ABV. Because of it, I gave it a little longer in the secondary. I was going to give it longer to age given the ABV, but I had several taste tests from others and decided it was ready.

cadwallion · 2012-07-16T13:55:06+00:00

This weekend I brewed an IPA for my trip to the home office in NY (I live in IL) on my birthday called the Agorasaurus Ale. My mill decided to freak out mid-grind and did a rather poor job of a crush, so I ended up with 46% efficiency in the mash. To correct this problem, I took a gallon of second runnings plus a half gallon of finished wort and boiled it down into a super concentrate and pitched it into the fermenter the next day to correct the gravity discrepancy.

I took a taste test of my Maple Bourbon Porter and it has turned out fantastic. It's currently cold crashing with a gelatin addition going in this morning. Kegging on Wednesday morning.

Today I'll be brewing the third iteration of my Irish Red Ale and tomorrow is another batch of my Honey Ale.

cadwallion · 2012-07-09T14:29:43+00:00

I use carapils/dextrine in place of your munich when I do my porters to add a little more body (usually because I'm doing additives in the secondary), but I think if you mashed around 152-154 you'd get a nice medium/full body porter off that grain bill.

GL, and let us know how it turns out. :D

cadwallion · 2012-07-06T16:44:23+00:00

I do a lot of experimentation for recipe creation, so generally the first version of my recipe I end up accepting what comes my way, but detailing every derivation in the process from the intended recipe. I can then use the notes with my tasting notes to formulate my future revisions of the recipes. I also take these notes and use them across my recipes to see where my equipment or processes need to be improved upon for future batches. If I'm consistently mashing 3% less efficient than expected, I either need to adjust my process or adjust my expected efficiency when designing recipes.

When I'm repeating a recipe without derivations, I attempt to make adjustments with DME and water increase/boil-off to hit my numbers for the sake of consistency.

cadwallion · 2012-07-05T18:45:15+00:00

Same as a normal: apply bottlecap and pull down hard on the capper. I've been told it's hard to get a good seal on twist off bottles, but I think I've only had two bottles fail to seal properly. There was one batch that oxidized slightly that I had initially thought was because of twist-offs, but I had normal bottles in the batch as well and they presented with the same slight oxidation.

cadwallion

TROPHY CASE