KegLand Questions and Answers

[bobsledboy]

There is a lot of difference between Beer Stone and a Calcium (usually Carbonate) buildup. You really need to identify which problem you have.

It's definitely beer stone. As I said, BS Remover is effective where acid is not. BS Remover is just way overpriced so I am looking for a cheaper alternative. Phosphoric/Nitric blend also works very well but getting Nitric acid is a pain.

 

[MHB]

Most beer stone removers are a blend of N/P acids, usually with some wetting and sequestering agents added, tends to be one of the most expensive chemical preps used in a brewery but you should only need to use it once or twice a year.
If you hit up a couple of your local micros and happen to have a chem safe bottle and some dollars in your pocket you might get lucky.
Mark

 

[donald_trub]

Kegland, might have a free idea for a RAPT fermentation fridge accessory. It could be a good vessel for dry aging beef at home. A lot of the home built setups are an old fridge, temp controller and a fan for airflow. You would need to come up with a couple of parts to allow a chunk of beef to be hung and a tray to collect drippings. Seems like an easy win.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

In my keg fridge I don't have a board like this but I do have a 5 way manifold that I have mounted to the roof of the fridge inside. Would this be an option? It might making adjustment a little bit fiddlier but that would be the case for anywhere in a fridge full of kegs.

Roof mounting is an option for ball lock kegs. Some of the other keg styles like commercial pony kegs (20L) do not have the head space to make this work. Ideally if we found a solution that could suit all keg configurations this would be best but perhaps we have to just accept the compromise and go for a solution like this. The Pony kegs are not really common in Australia anyway I guess.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Kegland, might have a free idea for a RAPT fermentation fridge accessory. It could be a good vessel for dry aging beef at home. A lot of the home built setups are an old fridge, temp controller and a fan for airflow. You would need to come up with a couple of parts to allow a chunk of beef to be hung and a tray to collect drippings. Seems like an easy win.

Yes this is something that we have been thinking about also. At one stage we were talking about putting a mounting hole so a hook could be mounted in the top/middle of the fridge so you can screw in a hook to mount meat but then it's just as easy to just use normal meat hooks and hang off the wire racks.

We have also been looking at ways to control humidity too for this application. We have a spare I2C input on the circuit board and have specifically make the fridge so there is room for additional sensor to be plugged into the board that feeds into the fridge cavity and this would make it possible to log and control humidity.

Just out of interest have many of you guys out there done any mushroom growing? We have also been considering setting up the RAPT fermentation chamber for mushrooms but we do not have much experience with this yet. I have done a little of this at home with mixed results. Some of the more complicated mushroom varieties require more tight controls over temperature, air circulation, humidity etc. We were thinking that we could make an aftermarket door modification so mushroom growing could be done.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Has anyone done the Robobrew 3.0 to 3.1.1 board swap? is it worth the upgrade?

What benefits does it has over the old 3.0 board?

One of the major benefits of the BrewZilla Gen 3.1.1 was really the ultra low watt density. In fact I would say in my opinion this was the biggest upgrade of the lot. Many of the other single vessel breweries have higher watt density meaning that you get more scorching and it's harder to do really light coloured beers. So this is something that you really can't upgrade. Other than that I don't feel the functionality was improved a great deal. We did improve the robustness of the controller electronics so it's a more reliable unit and we have extremely low failures given the many thousands sold every year. So I would mainly upgrade for reliability rather than functionality.


The lower watt density costs us about $40 more to manufacture from a manufacturing cost basis but it's really worth the upgrade as it give you a much more gentle boil, less scrubbing elements, and brews better beer.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

There is a lot of difference between Beer Stone and a Calcium (usually Carbonate) buildup. You really need to identify which problem you have.
A Carbonate buildup can be removed with most any acid. Just make sure it isnt strong enough to harm you, your brewing equipment...
Beer Stone is quite a lot more complex, you really are best advised to use a made for the job chemical from someone who really knows how to manage the problem.
Beer stone is a blend of both Calcium Oxalate (mostly from malt) and Proteins (mostly), the Proteine protects the Oxalate from some acids, the Oxalate protects the proteine from Alkaline (NaOH) cleaners.

Bit of an Advertorial, but this from Morebeer isnt too bad a start, covers how to and a bit of the chemistry behind how it works.
Mark

Someone like Kegland should be able to order 25L of a dedicated Beerstone remover and repack it. There are some that might even not need to be shipped as DG, worth asking around some of the better chemical manufacturers, preferably one who specialises in brewing solutions.
Mark

Yes beer stone is not really that likely to occur in home brewing hardware. It's generally something that is formed through multiple hot caustic washes. To remove beer stone the PBW that we sell does a great job and it's probably one of the safest products to remove beer stone.

 

[MHB]

If you were right I would agree with you.
Beerstone is mainly Calcium Oxolate, the only thing that will shift it is an Acid. Bases simply wont move it. Nore is it made from Caustic Soda (NaOH) used in cleaning, true than can make it harder.
The biggest problem comes from Malt Oxalates reacting with Calcium salts in the mash.
Mark

 

[CJW]

Please do not cheap out on app development, its literally you get what you pay for, it's all good having a plan of a highly connected IoT brewery and the hardware to back it up but if the app doesn't work then it's all for naught.

I'd go as far as to say that the underlying API is even more important than the app, get that right (reliable and robust) then open it up to the users. That way the community can develop their own applications etc.

Having a stable and open API means the app developed by/for KegLand can be basic.

 

[CJW]

I only use the refractometer on the brew day (prior to fermentation). Once alcohol is present it's just easier to use the hydrometer.

You can still use it to check for terminal gravity. It doesn't matter what the refrac reads, just as long as it is stable from reading to reading. That way you are only using a small sample. Once you reach terminal gravity then you can pull a larger sample for the actual reading.

 

[bobsledboy]

Just out of interest have many of you guys out there done any mushroom growing? We have also been considering setting up the RAPT fermentation chamber for mushrooms but we do not have much experience with this yet. I have done a little of this at home with mixed results. Some of the more complicated mushroom varieties require more tight controls over temperature, air circulation, humidity etc. We were thinking that we could make an aftermarket door modification so mushroom growing could be done.

FYI the same things needed for growing mushrooms are also applicable to growing Koji and I think you would see a lot of foodies interested if the ferment chamber had these capabilities.

 

[RRising]

@KegLand-com-au

Will this affect the longevity of duotight connector? The tee piece is the worst but both connectors to the disconnects are starting to discolour as well.

Used my bucket blaster yesterday for the first time in a couple of months and seen that parts of it has discoloured, funny thing is that these have been sealed in the bucket in my shed so not in any amount of sun. and it was dry.

This bucket blaster is about 6 months old at this point

.

 

[S.E]

You can still use it to check for terminal gravity. It doesn't matter what the refrac reads, just as long as it is stable from reading to reading. That way you are only using a small sample. Once you reach terminal gravity then you can pull a larger sample for the actual reading.

Doesn’t even need to be a calibrated refractometer. Homebrew hydrometers often vary considerably in accuracy but we make do. So even if you pull a larger sample for the actual reading you would need to be sure your hydrometer is calibrated if you want to know the true FG.

 

[nickxb]

Hi Any further details on the new modual font design and ETA? I am keen on the Series X plus and want to see how far away the design is and what is different to the current modual fonts.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

I'd go as far as to say that the underlying API is even more important than the app, get that right (reliable and robust) then open it up to the users. That way the community can develop their own applications etc.

Having a stable and open API means the app developed by/for KegLand can be basic.

Yes I would agree. An open API is what we will eventually do but this might not be in the first released firmware. Once we are comfortable that everything is going well with the standard firmware then some time after the product is released we will do a firmware upgrade so that the device can be controlled using the API. The good thing is that we are making it possible to do over the air updates so firmware upgrades are really fast and simple to roll out.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

FYI the same things needed for growing mushrooms are also applicable to growing Koji and I think you would see a lot of foodies interested if the ferment chamber had these capabilities.

that's an interesting article. I will have to give this a go. Thanks for the link.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

@KegLand-com-au

Will this affect the longevity of duotight connector? The tee piece is the worst but both connectors to the disconnects are starting to discolour as well.

Used my bucket blaster yesterday for the first time in a couple of months and seen that parts of it has discoloured, funny thing is that these have been sealed in the bucket in my shed so not in any amount of sun. and it was dry.

This bucket blaster is about 6 months old at this point

.View attachment 120068

Some time ago we made a change on the duotight fittings. We historically were using POM which is the same plastic as John Guest. We noticed that strong acids could etch and attack POM and cause damage to the duotight fittings. As a result we now use POK which is much more chemically stable. With that said the acids can change the colourant in the fittings and some strong chemicals used in cleaning and make the POK change colour. With that said it doesn't effect the strength of the POK so it will be no problem to use but unfortunately it just does stain a little as you have pointed out.

If you are interested we have some additional information on this in this PDF release here.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Hi Any further details on the new modual font design and ETA? I am keen on the Series X plus and want to see how far away the design is and what is different to the current modual fonts.

We have been having some issues getting a nice finish on these new punched fonts. We have already spent a lot of time and money in this area. It's possible that if we cannot improve the tooling the new modular font designs may not be made and this project could be abandoned. With that said we do still have these quad fonts as an option or these current modular ones. So we do have acceptable alternatives.

 

[nickxb]

We have been having some issues getting a nice finish on these new punched fonts. We have already spent a lot of time and money in this area. It's possible that if we cannot improve the tooling the new modular font designs may not be made and this project could be abandoned. With that said we do still have these quad fonts as an option or these current modular ones. So we do have acceptable alternatives.

Good to know they are a while away if at all. For the current Modular, how many staights can fit between the elbows so that the whole goal post is between the font holes?

 

[Bothe337]

It looks like we are going to change the software on these to save more battery power so we might have a small delay on the digital gauges.

We really want to ensure that the battery lasts at least 6 months but with some changes to the software I think we can get the battery to last more than 1 year and if you only check the pressure once 2 times a week then you can probably get 2-3 years from the one button cell battery. It attractive option to sell them like they are now as we can start recouping the development cost but I think if you guys can just wait slightly longer this further optimisation will really be worth waiting just one more month.

So we might hold off on the release until late December or early Jan.

Hey Kegland,

Are we still on track for an April release?

Cheers