# keg meter



## mischa62 (9/8/15)

Hi guys, new member here. Im looking for something thats similar to the kegbot or keg meter that can tell me how many glasses are left in a keg. i brew into 50litre kegs and its a real bummer to have that thirst and find you have just poured a glass of foam to find out that you have run out.
is there any links to anything even if its a kit type.
i have seen http://www.keg-meter.com/ but they wont respond to any communication with them.
I have seen the kegbot system but the web site shows as always out of stock on everything
Can someone give me some ideas please


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## Danscraftbeer (9/8/15)

Have next kegs ready to go. I've got a 3 keg, 3 tap kegorater. That does the trick.


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## Danscraftbeer (9/8/15)

To add to (when it will run out? some judgment from observation and feeling, and just gently lift the keg to check its weight.
and re- have next kegs carbonating ready to go.


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## dblunn (9/8/15)

I concur with Danscraftbeer, the only way to avoid the stresses you mention is to ensure you have a few more well conditioned kegs ready to go. Sadly however, this is not always possible.


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## Grott (9/8/15)

I use an A5 size magnetic white board pad on the fridge by the tap. I know how many pints I get out of the kegs and mark off with a marker as I go. Simple, cheap and the marker sits on the drip tray so I don't forget.
Cheers


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## MastersBrewery (9/8/15)

if you are do it yourselfer try raspberry pints.  Kegbot went bust :huh:


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## rude (9/8/15)

Classic Grott + 1 for intellegents perfect solution

You know they will want a robot to operate the marker now though


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## Danscraftbeer (9/8/15)

I want a brew bot. Then again not. A good bot yes, to help to brew, garden etc then yes.


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## dicko (10/8/15)

First up if you calculate how many glasses of beer per keg in relation to glass size and then use one of these per tap 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-0000-9999-4-Digit-Manual-Hand-Tally-Mechanical-Palm-Click-Counter-/281695689155?hash=item41965f19c3

You can also get electronic units as well.

There was discussion a long while ago on a suitable load cell to sit the keg on for weighing the beer.
I also seem to remember a stick on indicator for a keg was available at one stage, similar to a gas indicator.


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## Kingy (10/8/15)

Yea ive got a couple of stick on ones i dont use em anymore as there is always a full keg waiting to take the place. They did work well tho. Not real convenient in a chesty but.


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## Mardoo (10/8/15)

I believe in a robotic solution, one with artificial intelligence which will figure out how many pints per keg and mark them off on a whiteboard for me 

If there's anything that's curing me of a technological solution for everything it's brewing. Right tech, right place. 

I'm crapping on again, aren't I?


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## Glomp (10/8/15)

How about this from picobrew. Not yet out there but their kickstarter has finished.


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1708005089/kegsmarts-the-worlds-smartest-kegerator/description 
​


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## sstacey (10/8/15)

The simple way is to keep the keg on scales. You are getting low when it reaches the tare wt.


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## Grott (10/8/15)

Mardoo said:


> one with artificial intelligence which will figure out how many pints per keg and mark them off on a whiteboard for me


After a few beers I think my intelligence is artificial. :blink:


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## Harry Volting (10/8/15)

Keep an eye out for the Aldi Luggage scales on special.
Best $10.00 empty keg early warning system.
Good for 40kg in 10 gram increments from memory.
Keg check takes 10 seconds.
With lots (and lots) of practice; you'll get really good at feeling for that last perfect pint.
Harry.


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## MastersBrewery (10/8/15)

A bit more on the Raspberry Pints solution:
I'll be testing $12 flow meters next month, already have the tap list displaying whats on tap, other than the TV it displays on total cost will be around $100 for four taps and accurate to +/- 100ml( though some of this cost is also being used by brewpi... soon ...I hope). I'm yet to work it out but it also has a keg tracking type feature to help keep track of what's where, good when you have a dozen or so about the place. Oh and it looks freakin cool above the taps


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## mischa62 (11/8/15)

MastersBrewery said:


> A bit more on the Raspberry Pints solution:
> I'll be testing $12 flow meters next month, already have the tap list displaying whats on tap, other than the TV it displays on total cost will be around $100 for four taps and accurate to +/- 100ml( though some of this cost is also being used by brewpi... soon ...I hope). I'm yet to work it out but it also has a keg tracking type feature to help keep track of what's where, good when you have a dozen or so about the place. Oh and it looks freakin cool above the taps


thanks mate this sounds like what im after, i have a panel mount pc available to me and am curious if this might work in some way as well?
this is similar model
http://www2.advantech.net.au/products/1-2jkjm3/ppc-l158t/mod_816a0427-5094-4969-a4bf-1b4fc6d1b642.aspx
any thoughts on if it would work or am i barkin up the wrong tree ? 
Is the Raspberry easy to setup software wise? i have no experience with them at all i have seen them but never ever used them
What type of flow meters are you going to use the ones they recomended seem a tad bit expensive at around $80 each from USA.
Any info you can send me i would really appreciate, send me a PM and ill send you my email address if you can send me any info you have on how you have got yours working
Cheers


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## cspencer (11/8/15)

MastersBrewery said:


> A bit more on the Raspberry Pints solution:
> I'll be testing $12 flow meters next month, already have the tap list displaying whats on tap, other than the TV it displays on total cost will be around $100 for four taps and accurate to +/- 100ml( though some of this cost is also being used by brewpi... soon ...I hope). I'm yet to work it out but it also has a keg tracking type feature to help keep track of what's where, good when you have a dozen or so about the place. Oh and it looks freakin cool above the taps


Any details on where you got the cheap flow meters. I'm having a play around with the kegbot system (I've already got most of the parts lying around, Arduino's, mini/uno/ethertens, Android tablet that I use for monitoring temps during brewing) and a some bluetooth adapters plus strain gauges.

I've converted the kegbot Android app to communicate via bluetooth and plan to use the strain gauges instead of flow meters (i also thought the $80 was expensive, plus just extra stuff to clean)

Otherwise I've got that app on a tablet above the taps showing a list on tap (pity 3 of my 4 keg are empty, need to spend more time brewing and less time tinkering) as yep MastersBrewery it's looks good.


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## MastersBrewery (11/8/15)

Guy I'll post some thing tommoz when I'm at the pc.
Cheers

MB


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## MastersBrewery (12/8/15)

Firstly, Raspberry pints was started by a few keen members of our sister site HBT. There are two threads the first for the Initial release, that was tap list display only, the second was the release of version 2 that included flow monitoring. Now note the swiss flow meters used by all the above mentioned keg monitoring projects were also employed here. For a good while the SF800 was going fairly cheap second hand and refurbed on ebay through a yanky seller ( 4 were like AU$150 deliver here). This source dried up so a few people have tried cheaper meters from ebay with pretty good success. Note that this means editing the file contain the tick count, and a bit of faffing about. Also note as it is; the software is set up in oz and gal so if you want metric there some more creative editing to do. These are the flow meters I'm going to try. Can't guarantee they'll work the way the swissflow ones do, but $12 to find out is pretty cheap and there are many more to try.


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## cspencer (12/8/15)

thanks for the info. keep us updated on how your trial goes.


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## mischa62 (21/8/15)

any update on how the cheap flow meters worked out mate?


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## MastersBrewery (23/8/15)

No update on the flow meters, too many other projects half done I need to finish, and like everyone; life can sometimes slow things up a bit, should have something in a few weeks. When I do, I'll post up a decent write up with pics. I'm not so great on the software side and I'm going to try and bluetooth this like has been done with Brewpi, so I'm expecting a few hiccups along the way. I'll be sure to document what I've done. I currently have the tap list w/o flow meters on a 32" TV above my taps ATM and it really looks the part.


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## mischa62 (25/8/15)

One more question for you Mr MastersBrewery  what board have you used as the alamode board as i can only find from usa the alamode board (at near $120 not paying that), is there any alternative board i can use that will do the same thing thats available in melbourne? or can any arduino board do the same job?


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## MastersBrewery (25/8/15)

The alamode attaches directly to the Raspberry and communicates over serial, so any arduino connected over serial(eg USB or even blue tooth will work) with a few small changes to the code on the raspberry side of things.



Note: Mike is taking heavy pain meds and head is not 100% up to speed, but the above is accurate just not as in depth as it could be :blink:


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## mischa6262 (9/9/15)

Any updates on the flow meters?  im in the process of getting all the bits n pieces together and will start my building soon just gotta find someone with good eyes to do the soldering for me lol


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## Feldon (9/9/15)

Just piss in a bucket.

For every 19 litre keg of beer you drink you will urinate about 30 litres.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/02/28/3441707.htm

So when you've pissed about 28 litres you know the keg is near gone.


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## mischa62 (10/9/15)

Going to be trying a http://www.ebay.com/itm/TURBINE-FLOW-RATE-SENSOR-FT-110-173936-c-GEMS-LOW-FLOW-0-5-5Litres-p-min-/181506975975?hash=item2a42a8a8e7&vxp=mtr for flow meter, hope its going to do the job


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## real_beer (10/9/15)

If the beer is mainly for yourself and you have a regular drinking pattern which for this example we'll say is 3 imperial pints a day, or 1.70478 Litres.

The day you tap your keg put a little sticker on it with the date and you'll know that in about 29 days it should be about run out (50lt divided by 1.70478 = 29.329). If you drink a little bit more on the weekend just take a few days off and it should be close enough.

1 imperial pint = 0.568261 of a litre just calculate to suit your own drinking habit as required. If you drink 88 pints a day your keg will be ............... EMPTY in one day! :lol:


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## Grott (10/9/15)

grott said:


> I use an A5 size magnetic white board pad on the fridge by the tap. I know how many pints I get out of the kegs and mark off with a marker as I go. Simple, cheap and the marker sits on the drip tray so I don't forget.
> Cheers


 Including the set of white board markers, under $10. Works every time.
Cheers


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## Grott (12/9/15)

Feldon said:


> For every 19 litre keg of beer you drink you will urinate about 30 litres.


This has got me thinking. What a bloody great diet- drink 2 kegs and drop 22 kilo (base on 1 litre of water weighs 1 kilo). I knew there was another great reason to drink


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## DJ_L3ThAL (21/9/15)

https://www.aldi.com.au/en/special-buys/special-buys-sat-26-sep/saturday-detail-wk39/ps/p/magnetic-gas-tank-gauge-1/

I think that's worth a crack?! Place toward bottom of keg and at least you get warning it's half way/nearing the end?


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## Kev R (21/9/15)

I just sit my keg on a $9 set of bathroom scales from kmart. 19lt is about 19kg


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## DJ_L3ThAL (21/9/15)

Bit hard with 4 kegs jammed next to each other in a kegerator though...


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## Moad (6/4/17)

Well my obsession with all things arduino and Rpi has led me down the rabbit hole to Raspberry Pints and Kegbot. I got both running last night, kegbot I didn't particularly like the interface so got RPints running. It feels limited compared to Kegbot. I've ordered some cheap flow meters through ebay that are the same as they link to on the adafruit store.

Kegbot you need an arduino board for each two taps whereas RPints you can get away with one arduino for as many taps as you have pins available. Someone also has arduino logging over bluetooth for RPints which could be cool.

Does anyone have experience with both systems, what did you prefer?


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## Lionman (6/4/17)

These look like a simple solution.

A magnet float on the inside and a magnetic ball on the outside. The ball on the outside rolls down the keg as the beer level drops.

http://www.brewmart.com.au/brewmart-shop/catalogue/?detail&ItemID=2756&SZIDX=0&CCODE=16432&QOH=2&CATID=246&CLN=1&keywords=magnet


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## malt junkie (6/4/17)

Moad said:


> Well my obsession with all things arduino and Rpi has led me down the rabbit hole to Raspberry Pints and Kegbot. I got both running last night, kegbot I didn't particularly like the interface so got RPints running. It feels limited compared to Kegbot. I've ordered some cheap flow meters through ebay that are the same as they link to on the adafruit store.
> 
> Kegbot you need an arduino board for each two taps whereas RPints you can get away with one arduino for as many taps as you have pins available. Someone also has arduino logging over bluetooth for RPints which could be cool.
> 
> Does anyone have experience with both systems, what did you prefer?


I've only played with pints but if you read through the HBT V2.0 release thread ( yes it's huge) one of the guys did a full rebuild allowing for flow meter calibration and metric as well as graphical changes from an easy to use setup page. I'd link but on the phone on a train.


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## Moad (6/4/17)

Yeah I rolled out v2.0 and wasn't impressed. I'm going to go back to kegbot but the challenge is working out the pin change interrupt code changes required to add more sensors in the default sketch.

I'm not a coder but do enjoy a challenge. Either way I'll have something functional once the JG fittings arrive to screw onto the flow meters I scored at jay at today (last stock).


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## malt junkie (6/4/17)

jay? Jaycar?....


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## Moad (6/4/17)

That's the one!


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## Moad (7/4/17)

Malt Junkie I'd be very interested if you had the rebuild with Metric included, I did see a post somewhere among it but you are right the thread is ridiculous!

edit: this it?
https://github.com/HentschelT/RaspberryPints/releases/tag/th-2.1.1


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## malt junkie (7/4/17)

I'm half way through keezer MKIII, my now very old Raspberry is in a box waiting. Probably like you, my brain keeps morsels of information that are handy, some times difficult to find though. Your link may well be it, I don't think there have been too many rewrites which is surprising. When I get into my next implementation, I'm going to wifi the arduino, as the keezer is a sit at bench on wheels with taps off one end. Also when I move 18mths ago my 32" TV display got smashed so another piece of gear to save my pennies for.

Baby steps.


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