Binary Beer "smart" kegs

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Interesting.

I hope it survives the brutal life of a commercial keg.
 
Saw it yesterday, curious to know how it tracks volume. Fairly vacuous web content, sadly so still don't know how.
 
RdeVjun said:
Saw it yesterday, curious to know how it tracks volume. Fairly vacuous web content, sadly so still don't know how.
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From reading that article, it does it by listening to the tone of a tap that the unit produces.

Mr Burton said one of the trickiest challenges was working out when a keg was nearly empty. The UoW students were helping develop a machine learning algorithm which could "listen" to the sound of a tap triggered periodically to the side of the keg, and send out an alert to pick up and replace it when the pitch indicated it was nearly empty.
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Oh, thanks, AFR is different content, hadn't seen it until now and was referring to the project's content.
The tracking/ loss prevention purpose might be alarming to prospective home brewers eyeing off a new keggle, but it doesn't look that sturdy either.
 
I would expect that the release version would have a more robust external casing that is tamper resistant (by the looks of it you could just take the top off and remove the battery)
 
I wonder if these will become available for home Brewers? If they can get the algorithm right to tell when kegs are almost empty it would be awesome.

It seems like this project might be why the pourtal hasn't progressed!
 
Maybe I should acquaint them with my sure fire method of checking keg levels.

Open Kegmate
Leave door open 5 minutes
View condensation line on cornie.
 
Some stock (sheep/cattle) watering tanks have a float on the inside (goes up and down with water level) attached to a flag on the outside so you can just drive past and see where the tank is at (how high or low the flag is and hence water level) without having to get out and fk about.

bit trickier on a pressure vessel though I imagine..
 
How the unit works is part of the IP, needless to say this will have a massive impact on asset tracking.
 
How big a cost is this to breweries? I guess the potential cost of poorly handled beer being served and the impact on reputation and brand is hard to calculate but stolen kegs would be known you would think.
 
Just heard Michael being interviewed on triple j about this and apparently it is currently being rolled out. So when will this be available for home brewers? Come on Mr Burton, get in here and take my money!
 
While he's at it he could knock out some more awesome stir plates I NEED another one ... ok 2 but want like 4.
 
contrarian said:
How big a cost is this to breweries? I guess the potential cost of poorly handled beer being served and the impact on reputation and brand is hard to calculate but stolen kegs would be known you would think.
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It's huge - both Brewers have close to a million kegs each and loss rate at approx 5% a year.

Customer complaints for lion are about 4 complaints per million litres, cub were higher at about 21 complaints when I' did work for DSI. Make a million litres a day and it adds up.

The other issue is being able to isolate a problem keg and make sure it does not go back into the float and happen again and again ...
 
/// said:
The other issue is being able to isolate a problem keg and make sure it does not go back into the float and happen again and again ...
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Being able to inspect and rectify issues with problem kegs when the problem first arises would help any brewery big or small. First impressions are the ones people pay most attention to, craft beers are being tried for the first time more often. Retaining loyal customers takes work and consistency, gaining new customers and changing staunch loyalties to brand is a much bigger hill. As much as no brewery can afford to send out taited or off tasting beer 2 bad kegs could represent 10% of a micro's weekly output.
 
contrarian said:
How big a cost is this to breweries? I guess the potential cost of poorly handled beer being served and the impact on reputation and brand is hard to calculate but stolen kegs would be known you would think.
Click to expand...

It is a little sad that professional bar staff and cellarmanship are a thing of the past and breweries now depend on casual staff with often little care or concern to promote the product.
 
S.E said:
It is a little sad that professional bar staff and cellarmanship are a thing of the past and breweries now depend on casual staff with often little care or concern to promote the product.
Click to expand...

You would not believe how big an issue this is.

QA from the mega swill breweries is appalling lately with regards to their keg quality. I would estimate that 1 in 10 kegs will have a faulty seal on the mount, or some similar trivial fault.. Staff in pubs etc do not know what to look for, and will just continue to pour foam down the sink.
 
As the craft brewery, what would be the main concerns from your end? I'd say temperature of transport/storage, and time since it was packaged.

Surely there's a simple stick on solution for these sort of things, similar to the postal shock indicators that mythbusters use for everything. There should be some sort of chemical reaction that you can use to judge a high temperature exposure situation, and time should be straight forward.

Doesn't help with how full the keg is, but is anyone really worried about that? The bar will just change kegs, and the sorts of bars that serve craft beer are probably going to put a different beer on anyway.
 

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