How much beer is left in the keg??

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

dyennie

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 28, 2011
Messages
81
Reaction score
18
Location
chesapeake
New to brewing and kegging and want to know; how will I be able to tell how much beer I have left in the keg??? How embarrassing would it be to have friends over and only be able to serve a few beers before nothing is left...I don't want to be that guy!!

I would assume that I could take the empty keg weight and use that weight to know when I am getting close to empty. But is there an easier way???


thanks

Doug
 
Don't be that guy! Have multiple kegs ready or lots of brew bottled.

To see if the kegs are near the end of the line I usually just open the kegerator and give it a lift, heavy kegs are good, light kegs are good to put more beer into.
 
You can get temperature strips that run along the side of the keg. you wet them with warm water and they'll cool faster where there is liquid, which ends up with a color-change mark on the tape.
Or you can do what I've done and build electronic scales for each keg which are then calibrated into pints left, which is shown on a panel by the taps :)
 
It's easy to tell if the humidity is high. Open the kegerator for a few seconds and the outside of the keg will sweat from condensation only up to where the beer level is.

Otherwise, I just use the tilt method. I can get a good idea just by tilting the keg a bit.

Having another full keg doesn't do much since it's warm and flat!

TB
 
When you pour a pint and it's super clear and it tastes much better than all the previously poured pints...well, there will only be 2 to 3 ounces left! :mad:

Isn't that the truth.

Estimating weight by lifting or being more accurate by using a large fish weigher and doing an current weight-empty keg weight to find the liquid weight and converting that to approximate volume works.

Same with temperature tests as mentioned.

The only difference with propane tanks is the lack of an inline gague.
 
http://www.micromatic.com/part-pid-SS100.html

I haven't actually used them but they seem like a cheap and easy solution and they are reusable.

Yep, that's them. I have them, and they work, but in the end found they aren't very helpful to me, since I need to pull the kegs out to get at the strips. I much prefer being able to know how much beer is in a keg without needing to open up the freezer
 
Here is our project:

http://www.mykegerator.net/pete/

Real time updates and posts to Twitter and Facebook :) Can measure any size keg and uses an inline flowmeter to measure ounces poured, etc.

Not for sale right now, but maybe in the future.

Pete

I like that. I tell my buddies I measure beer on hand by the gallon...not bottles. This would be a fun little addition to rub it in :p
 
When you give it a slight tip and it feels near empty you have around 6 pints left. You get to play the "when will this keg blow" game.
 
I use a tally sheet that is on a clip board by me keezer. When someone pulls a pint we make a mark. With the glasses I have usually I get about 40 or a little more pours and it kicks. This method works really good for me.

Measure your glasses and divide that into 5 gallons and you will be pretty close.
 
That's so cool. Can you give us any more info???

I can't give too much away as we are trying to work out the pricing to begin selling devices. It is flow meter based, and the only requirement is to have an internet connection at your home. No additional PC or computer is required, and it is very much plug and play.

Accuracy is good enough that measuring the exact volume of beer you put in the corny actually matters. I think right now we are within about 1% accuracy on a 15.5 gallon keg.

You can signup to receive updates on our home page: http://www.mykegerator.net

I will try and get some pictures together of the finished device and my setup here at home.
 
You can signup to receive updates on our home page: http://www.mykegerator.net

I will try and get some pictures together of the finished device and my setup here at home.

Pretty neat. I'm not sure I want my wife to be able to see every pint that was poured and when, but it's still a great idea. FYI your total taps dropdown for the pre-order doesn't have an option for 4 tap set-ups, just 1-3 and more than 4.
 
Pretty neat. I'm not sure I want my wife to be able to see every pint that was poured and when, but it's still a great idea. FYI your total taps dropdown for the pre-order doesn't have an option for 4 tap set-ups, just 1-3 and more than 4.

Thanks for the feedback, however there is full privacy control over who can see your consumption levels. She would never know :)

I updated the drop down, nice catch, thanks for that.
 
We have been receiving a bunch of feedback on the website, and really appreciate everyone's interest. I would love to make this a product that everyone can use and afford, however the flowmeter technology and suppliers at the moment are making that a little difficult.

We have been testing flowmeters for months now, with on and off success. We are narrowing down the manufacturers that are testing well and are trying to finalize pricing. Unfortunately the higher quality the meter the more expensive the whole product becomes. We'll keep everyone in the loop as we work towards the final product.
 
Subscribed to see what the price would be on this. If its less than 100 bucks per tap I may be interested in a two-tapper.
 
Hmmmm . . . Think this will work for beer?

rec-accessories-flow-meter-w-tube-s10-large-300.ashx
 
weight, weigh out empty keg and look at the diff.

1 gal = ~7lb

Its actually above 8 lbs. 1 gallon of water will weigh approximately 8.35 lbs. Beer is a little denser than water, so a beer with an FG of 1.020 is 8.5 lbs per gallon.

If you estimated 7lb/gallon, you would be short on beer. You'd be better off estimating 9lbs/gallon, then you will have a few additional beers that you didnt think were there!
 
I'm digging the CamelBack flow meter. I wonder if there are line size differences that might cause foam???
 
I'm digging the CamelBack flow meter. I wonder if there are line size differences that might cause foam???
Ordered one from Buy.com for $27 w/free shipping. I'll let you know how it works out.

Worse case . . . I use it on my CamelBak. :D
 
It's amazing people want an exact measure of the beer in the keg. Playing kick the keg is fun (as long as you have another keg ready to go)! I read on here once where a guy said if he could lift the keg with his pinky then there is only one pint left. Works like a charm. Likewise you can usually guess just by lifting no matter how close to empty it is. I don't need any fancy equipment in my house to figure out how much is left.
 
I read on here once where a guy said if he could lift the keg with his pinky then there is only one pint left. Works like a charm.
Unless you have a keezer with several kegs inside and a bunch of crap on top. Pretty easy to loose track of how much is left in each.

Why pop the lid open if I don't have to? :cross:
 

Latest posts

Back
Top