Anybody tried Ball and Keg indicator?

Has anyone tried this yet?
https://www.ballandkeg.com/
What's your experience?
I like the idea, but not the price so much.

I've not tried it. I'm with you. I like the idea. The price seems steep to me too. The low tech of it is great, pretty fail safe.

That looks like a fantastic idea, and one that could easily be replicated. Think the trick would be getting small enough magnets that they can interact with each other without inhibiting the float from moving with the liquid. Unless you have the three magnets required in the right sizes on hand, it might be "easier" to just buy the kit from that site. If you replicate it or buy, do post back how well it works! Cheers!

Neat idea..
Im going to be using flow meters with raspberrypints personally

Maybe its me but I think this is a pointless idea if you have a keezer with multiple kegs.

Maybe that's just my opinion on it!

I think it depends on your needs, I could use a gadget like this at times when friends or family are coming over. I keep four beers on tap, so it could be useful in knowing if a keg is getting fairly low, and I may run out. Other than pick up, moving a keg to see how light it is, ( risk stirring up sediment) I am not sure how much is in it. I keep a chalk board on the wall near my bar with a list of all the beers on tap. I also put the date beside the name of the beer so I know when it was tapped. This helps to a degree as to how long it's been on and / or how soon it may kick. The up side is, its not that expensive, and they only get you one time, or I my case four times.

I received one of these for Christmas. It seems like a cool idea. However, my kegs are in a keezer so I'm not sure I'd be able to see the ball indicator very easily. Maybe the keg that sits on the hump will be a good candidate since I can see more of it than the others.

I am a little concerned about the ball that goes into the keg though; it feels rough and cracked. I'll sanitize the heck out of it but I'm unsure about the long term safety of this thing. I'd hate to ruin a keg of beer by placing this ball inside of it.

I saw those a while ago. I think for certain brewers, it can be handy. It just isn't for me. I have 14 beers on tap, and over 70 in the walk-in cooler. I don't actually care when a keg goes empty, as I have more than enough spare kegs ready to put on in its place. The cost would be extraordinary for me, and not that useful.

I can see how for others with a minimum number of kegs, it could be somewhat useful.

Have not used them my self, but they have a 20% going on right now if you use the code face20. Thinking about getting some for use in my kegerator.

I just purchased a couple of these, and put one in a keg in my keezer. It so far is working well. You have to position the keg in such a way that as the ball (very small) can travel down the side without being impeded by any thing else. It's a great way to have an idea of how much is left in the keg. As I said, so far I'm pleased. Before this the only good way to tell how much is left was to weigh the keg. I'll post back as the keg gets low, and let you know what I think....

I think something like this would be better, but too pricey for me: http://www.keg-meter.com/?p=35

Interesting idea. You can of course measure the amount of beer left in a keg gust by weighing it. You do have to know what your kegs weigh empty but after that it's: (Keg Weight - Keg Empty weight)X 8.345 X FG= gallons in keg.

You can skip the FG part if you want it makes only a slight difference for most beers.

It's more work than looking at the ball but it's free and has no sanitation issues.

It's probably what I would do if I were going to do something like the RaspberryPi. The flow meters sound like a sanitation nightmare to me.

noiz2 said:

[...]The flow meters sound like a sanitation nightmare to me.

Click to expand...

fwiw, I've been running six SwissFlow SF-800 meters for going on two years, and have had literally zero problems.
They get cleaned along with all of the beer line from the keg disconnects through the faucet spouts using a pumped recirculation system -
just like you'd clean an un-metered dispensing appliance.

No big deal...and totally worth it, imo...



Cheers!

I thought briefly about putting my kegs on a load cell and porting the data to a 10 segment LED bar display. Then I priced 50#load cells and threw it all in the trash. I think the idea is interesting, but I have kegs in a chest freezer, touching each other. If the float were to move out of position in the keg, it would loose connection with the float magnet and fall to the bottom, indicating the keg is empty!!!. plus, I still need to open the freezer and crane my neck around to see the pea. I solve the "emergency keg kicking" issue by having 2 serving kegs with keezer space and gas ports for 3. When a keg kicks I just switch the serving line to the spare and party on!!! Also, I tend to serve the "oldest" keg until its gone, so I pretty much know which one is going to die next.

stonebrewer said:

I think something like this would be better, but too pricey for me: http://www.keg-meter.com/?p=35

Click to expand...

the link isn't working. Has the page moved somewhere?

william_shakes_beer said:

the link isn't working. Has the page moved somewhere?

Click to expand...

Looks like the company has folded as I could not locate them online...

https://kegbot.org/
http://www.kegdata.com/

Above are a couple of newer items out there...a bit pricey but interesting concepts!

I just ordered from https://ballandkeg.com and I think it's a great solution (in theory - haven't tried it yet). I like magnets from when I was a kid so that sounds pretty cool if it works.
Raspberry Pi with flowmeter is considerably more expensive and complicated, but perhaps at some point I will go that route.