Help me get PAID to brew beer!

So this is the situation I'm in. I work for a software company that makes software for process industries. Specifically, the core product is a database to store real-time information for processing plants (oh yeah... it's sexy stuff!)

Me and a team of pretty good natured guys need to learn our software inside and out but need something to apply it to in order to do so. My company would likely be willing to pay a few hundred - maybe a grand or so to do it. I think you're seeing where I'm going...

I'm looking for areas of the brewing process where specific measurement over batch time is critical to quality. I'd likely be able to purchase monitors and automated equipment to facilitate this. It would be nice (but not needed) if these would be things that would ultimately help me convert to all grain and/or a Brutus in the process. The more measurement areas the better, but I'd like to keep them focused on areas where measurable change affects outcome the most. For example - fermenting temperature would be obvious, but I'm looking for other areas as well. These are some thoughts I had. Please post what measurement areas you think would be best and relevant equipment (cheaper the better) I could use to automatically transfer measurements to a computer.

Ferment temperature over time
Secondary temperature over time
Mashing temperature over time
Bottle conditioning temperature over time

Thanks so much in advance! Thoughts?

man that is awesome. i dont have any suggestions really, but ill be keeping an eye on your progress here!

If I understand what you are wanting to do, you should start looking at programs like beersmith, promash, beer tools, and other softwares. Also, one for water ph. Then for monitoring, there are programs, I think its called BCS and Ohio Brewing technologies.

post on probrewer.com and see what happens. you might even get someone who is just getting into the biz.

Just out of curiosity .... what software will you be using for this?

Sounds cool, how about mash Ph and wort density/gravity during the boil.

Thanks for the tips guys - much appreciated. This will likely take a while to gather the info to make my pitch and then a bit longer to (hopefully!) actualize. I'll certainly keep the thread updated with where this goes.

If I understand your post your company makes process monitoring software?

You could monitor the temp of your sparge process.
If you force carb you could add a pressure transducer for CO2.
You could add energy monitoring - gas/electric usage, for strike water, sparge, boil, and any equipment to control fermentation temp.
As mentioned you could monitor ph during mashing.

up to a grand? is that even worth your time?

budbo said:

up to a grand? is that even worth your time?

Click to expand...

Yeah, seriously. I mean, I just hate it when someone offers me money to do something I love, that I probably would have done for free anyway.

Update: Well it appears that this probably won't pan out unfortunately. I won't bore you with the details, but if this opportunity pops up again, I'll certainly update the thread.

Thanks!