KegLand Questions and Answers

[Mysticbrewer]

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

From my basic understanding, a humidity-controlled ferm fridge could also be useful to cheese making in addition to charcuterie, current products on the market are in the 3-6K range for this type of item. A little more for dry ageing chambers due to the salt blocks. depending on the logistics of getting humidity-controlled I would see the product as applicable to a wide range of applications and especially if you could make it as an optional add on would make your life easier. As an alternative option, has KL considered running a bulk buys page? Gameco do this for knife makers and as I understand it, use it as a way of pre-selling larger more expensive items at a discount, to increase the order quantity/reduce cost for them while keeping some stock for their store.

 

[Brew Bama]

Has anyone who is more ‘in the know’ heard any more about this?

I understand Kegland is planning on releasing bladders with special corny keg lids for serving.

The idea is that you fill the sterile bladder, screw to the underside of the special corny keg lid and then use an air compressor or CO2 to serve, as the air/CO2 does not touch the drink you do not have to worry about oxidation or carbonation.

I was considering getting a beer engine and doing bag in box but if I can adapt my current keg system I think it could be more cost effective to achieve the same result.

 

[vornoaussie]

Has anyone who is more ‘in the know’ heard any more about this?

I understand Kegland is planning on releasing bladders with special corny keg lids for serving.

The idea is that you fill the sterile bladder, screw to the underside of the special corny keg lid and then use an air compressor or CO2 to serve, as the air/CO2 does not touch the drink you do not have to worry about oxidation or carbonation.

I was considering getting a beer engine and doing bag in box but if I can adapt my current keg system I think it could be more cost effective to achieve the same result.

It is a great idea!
My understanding is you will also be abled to use town water as the pressure will be enough to compress the bladder.

 

[cb341982]

I see you've released a new 2L keg with a Corny lid. Is there any plans in the works for a range of small kegs with Corny lids?

 

[KegLand-com-au]

From my basic understanding, a humidity-controlled ferm fridge could also be useful to cheese making in addition to charcuterie, current products on the market are in the 3-6K range for this type of item. A little more for dry ageing chambers due to the salt blocks. depending on the logistics of getting humidity-controlled I would see the product as applicable to a wide range of applications and especially if you could make it as an optional add on would make your life easier. As an alternative option, has KL considered running a bulk buys page? Gameco do this for knife makers and as I understand it, use it as a way of pre-selling larger more expensive items at a discount, to increase the order quantity/reduce cost for them while keeping some stock for their store.

Bulk Buys:
The margin structure on our goods is quite tight and this would probably make bulk buys not that attractive for you guys. For instance if we did a bulk buy on a full container load of kegs it would be about 5% discount or something like that. We pride ourselves on getting our products into consumers hands in the most efficient way possible. With that said was there something in particular that you would like to see in a bulk buy. I guess the other part of a bulk buy is the social aspect in actually catching up with other brewers. I think we would be more interested in facilitating this type of thing and assisting with organising or providing facilities for you guys to meet up with each other and form a community with each other.

RAPT Fermentation Chamber for Cheese
Yes I think Cheese making is something that we would like to take further. I really thing we should probably offer more in the cheese making kits in general. The fermentation chamber would probably be perfect for this application. Also for aging meets would be a good idea. I have done some home meat curing and it's a bit difficult sometimes being able to predict the weather for 2 months in advance so having a fully controlled environment would make it a lot easier. I have this really good biltong recipe that is dead easy and only uses salt, coriander seeds, black pepper and chilli. It's dead easy but the only difficult part is keeping rodents and bugs of it and maintaining the right temperature. I am looking forward to seeing what other ideas you guys come up with.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

It is a great idea!
My understanding is you will also be abled to use town water as the pressure will be enough to compress the bladder.

Yes this is correct. If you use town water this would also do the job perfectly and I have already been doing some experimentation with this to much success. Australia has very high water pressures and as long as you use one of these inline regulators to reduce your mains water pressure it works quite well to dispense beer or other beverages.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

I see you've released a new 2L keg with a Corny lid. Is there any plans in the works for a range of small kegs with Corny lids?

We only have the 19L bladders in the pipeline at the moment. If the 19L bladders are successful we will then look to make other sizes down the track.

I really like the 2L kegs and much prefer them to the other mini kegs that we have. They are a bit more expensive to manufacture but a more compact and handy size to fit into an esky.

As the 2L kegs use the same ball lock keg lid size as the 19L kegs you could use the same bladder and reduce the size of the bladder with a standard heat sealer. So if you were really desperate you could do this at home yourselves. At least until we start manufacturing other sized bladders for you.

 

[yarrro]

Hi KegLand,

Is it possible to get access to Brewzilla 3.1.1 source code and/or information about flashing and the hardware (even under NDA)? Yes, I know it'd void the warranty. I have in mind some modifications, like:
- setting custom hysteresis value
- choosing a starting point of timer - adding option to start the timer immediately after starting a new stage
- adding support for setting power coefficient when distilling.

 

[JimmyMcFiddlesticks]

I just saw the Teku glasses on your website.
Are these legit? The shape of the ones you have photos of while measuring look weird. Perhaps it is just the angle.
They also don't have Teku on the base like my current ones, I thought all of them did?
Then there is the price...you must have got a great deal if they are the real thing and not a copy.

 

[Mysticbrewer]

Bulk Buys:
The margin structure on our goods is quite tight and this would probably make bulk buys not that attractive for you guys. For instance if we did a bulk buy on a full container load of kegs it would be about 5% discount or something like that. We pride ourselves on getting our products into consumers hands in the most efficient way possible. With that said was there something in particular that you would like to see in a bulk buy. I guess the other part of a bulk buy is the social aspect in actually catching up with other brewers. I think we would be more interested in facilitating this type of thing and assisting with organising or providing facilities for you guys to meet up with each other and form a community with each other.

RAPT Fermentation Chamber for Cheese
Yes I think Cheese making is something that we would like to take further. I really thing we should probably offer more in the cheese making kits in general. The fermentation chamber would probably be perfect for this application. Also for aging meets would be a good idea. I have done some home meat curing and it's a bit difficult sometimes being able to predict the weather for 2 months in advance so having a fully controlled environment would make it a lot easier. I have this really good biltong recipe that is dead easy and only uses salt, coriander seeds, black pepper and chilli. It's dead easy but the only difficult part is keeping rodents and bugs of it and maintaining the right temperature. I am looking forward to seeing what other ideas you guys come up with.

Bulk Buys:
Even at 0% discount, it works as a pre-order to guarantee an item for people. Also and I am not sure if this is applicable for your items, the kind of things gameco does it on are blacksmith items and steel, if an increased quantity drops your price from the manufacturer, sayy ou double your order. I recall them having instances where X orders would be at one price and it drops if orders increase, in tiers, as their landed cost drops. This could work with the fridges/keggerators, for example, you pre-sell them and determine demand, at worst case will reduce the number of people that miss out if demand is really high. Certainly, a social aspect is great too, and can help for items you are unsure of selling. Grain/hops may be another ideal product, you want a pallet of pale malt, you pre-sell a pallet or two extra of pale malt, that extra amount comes in and goes out, no storage, no real handling. Gameco do it via a fb group and just post there to advise of items.

RAPT:
I have done some fridge cured meats, but always cooked them as I have a concern about hanging meat in the irrational Melbourne weather, Bacon is always fun. Have you seen the billtong boxes on yt? filament light bulb and a fan, it dries biltong in about a week., it is similar to the little commercial boxes.

 

[onemorecell]

After using/cleaning the jockey box - what is the best way to keep it stored?
I have been pumping star san through it and keeping it like that, but is it better to put water through and store it with water?

 

[DazGore]

@kegland how is the progress on the mini digital gauges going?

Thanks

 

[Warwick]

@KegLand-com-au You mentioned before you would consider creating a predrilled all-rounder lid that suits a thermowell - is this still on the cards?

 

[Bark0s]

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.

I've done lots of gourmet edible mushroom cultivation and fruiting. Simply put, to fruit them effectively they need autumnal conditions, 12 hours of vivid bright light (blueish cool spectrum is best), high humidity and 6 fresh air exchanges per hour. The high humidity shouldn't be wetting, so you avoid mould growth. I've tended to blow the humidity in with the fresh air. So essentially you need a water res, or plumbed in water supply. As the fan blows a fogger runs, both on a cycle timer. So you'd need an in and most probably an out vent...out vent down low.
With regards to temps...shiitake love tropical warmth, king oysters like 16C and they are at the colder end of requirements, enoki are about the same. Most prefer warmer than that.

I'm more than happy to talk about it at length if you have further questions feel free to email.

 

[fdsaasdf]

Bulk Buys:
Even at 0% discount, it works as a pre-order to guarantee an item for people.

Not how these guys do business I'm afraid

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Hi KegLand,

Is it possible to get access to Brewzilla 3.1.1 source code and/or information about flashing and the hardware (even under NDA)? Yes, I know it'd void the warranty. I have in mind some modifications, like:
- setting custom hysteresis value
- choosing a starting point of timer - adding option to start the timer immediately after starting a new stage
- adding support for setting power coefficient when distilling.

Yes that is probably a fair point. I will talk to the others about this. For this type of device we do not usually give away this code as it's proprietary. For internet connected devices in future we will most likely make an API public but for these closed devices it's not likely that we would give this information away but I will check with the others. Perhaps if you can send me your details via PM we can take this further in a private conversation.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

I just saw the Teku glasses on your website.
Are these legit? The shape of the ones you have photos of while measuring look weird. Perhaps it is just the angle.
They also don't have Teku on the base like my current ones, I thought all of them did?
Then there is the price...you must have got a great deal if they are the real thing and not a copy.

Yes we have had to purchase quite a lot of glasses to get accesso to this price and get our own private branding on the teku glassware. There are quite a few different shapes of Teku beer glass designs. I would be interested to know what you think of them. As this is more of a merchandise item we are selling them at close to cost price. They do have a fine rim and I really enjoy drinking out of them. I do prefer drinking out of these when compared to a traditional pint glass.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

@kegland how is the progress on the mini digital gauges going?

Thanks

Yes this is coming along really well. I think we will have these available in a few weeks time.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

I've done lots of gourmet edible mushroom cultivation and fruiting. Simply put, to fruit them effectively they need autumnal conditions, 12 hours of vivid bright light (blueish cool spectrum is best), high humidity and 6 fresh air exchanges per hour. The high humidity shouldn't be wetting, so you avoid mould growth. I've tended to blow the humidity in with the fresh air. So essentially you need a water res, or plumbed in water supply. As the fan blows a fogger runs, both on a cycle timer. So you'd need an in and most probably an out vent...out vent down low.
With regards to temps...shiitake love tropical warmth, king oysters like 16C and they are at the colder end of requirements, enoki are about the same. Most prefer warmer than that.

I'm more than happy to talk about it at length if you have further questions feel free to email.

Great. Tanks for that input. I will PM you about this as I would like to know more about your experience in this area.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Bulk Buys:
Even at 0% discount, it works as a pre-order to guarantee an item for people. Also and I am not sure if this is applicable for your items, the kind of things gameco does it on are blacksmith items and steel, if an increased quantity drops your price from the manufacturer, sayy ou double your order. I recall them having instances where X orders would be at one price and it drops if orders increase, in tiers, as their landed cost drops. This could work with the fridges/keggerators, for example, you pre-sell them and determine demand, at worst case will reduce the number of people that miss out if demand is really high. Certainly, a social aspect is great too, and can help for items you are unsure of selling. Grain/hops may be another ideal product, you want a pallet of pale malt, you pre-sell a pallet or two extra of pale malt, that extra amount comes in and goes out, no storage, no real handling. Gameco do it via a fb group and just post there to advise of items.

RAPT:
I have done some fridge cured meats, but always cooked them as I have a concern about hanging meat in the irrational Melbourne weather, Bacon is always fun. Have you seen the billtong boxes on yt? filament light bulb and a fan, it dries biltong in about a week., it is similar to the little commercial boxes.

Yes I have seen some videos like this making billtong in cardboard box. Billtong seems to be a much more robust process and can probably handle a bit more temperature variation as the curing time is generally quite fast. I guess for salami and other thicker pieces of meat that take longer to cure this is probably where more reliable temperature control is more necessary.