Beer Forum

I've been thinking about building a flowmeter for kegging from a conical so that I know when I've hit 5gal. I was thinking I could hook an Arduino up to some flowmeters like folks do for kegbot projects. Then I saw this at the bike shop yesterday for around $30:

http://www.camelbak.com/Sports-Recreati ... meter.aspx

Anyone know if this would be a safe and flavor-neutral option for kegging? Kinda seems too good to be true, but for that price I'd be willing to take a chance on a small quantity of low-cost beer.

Hows about you weigh the kegs?

snowcapt wrote:Hows about you weigh the kegs?

This is what I do. I've got an old bathroom scale I set the keg on and tare it with everything hooked up

Bokonon wrote:

snowcapt wrote:Hows about you weigh the kegs?

This is what I do. I've got an old bathroom scale I set the keg on and tare it with everything hooked up

I've been meaning to get a scale for this purpose, but I like the idea of being able to precisely control how much volume is transferred.

snowcapt wrote:Hows about you weigh the kegs?

Techincally this will not work due to the diffences in weight of solution with variable sugar content, and variable alcohol content. You could make an approximation for this and have a small amount of variance of volume based on that or create a chart for weight of solutions based on different starting gravities.

CRBrewHound wrote:

snowcapt wrote:Hows about you weigh the kegs?

Techincally this will not work due to the diffences in weight of solution with variable sugar content, and variable alcohol content. You could make an approximation for this and have a small amount of variance of volume based on that or create a chart for weight of solutions based on different starting gravities.

I think that at 5 gallons, the difference would be pretty damn negligible.
so there.

Agreed, on it not mattering a whole lot. The residual gravity against water generally ranges from (1.010-1.030), that works out to less than 0.17 pounds. When you're talking about 5 gallons of beer clocking in around 42 pounds (42.35 for a 1.015 FG), you won't be very far off.

I tried it once with a cheaper scale. Right before it hit 38 lbs., beer sprayed everywhere (just ahead of schedule). And yes, I zeroed it with the kegs and everything hooked up.

Now, I just flush with CO2 and fill with aluminum foil over the keg mouths (two at a time---Fredo style). Oxygenation doesn't scare me as much as wasted beer all over the garage floor.