Would you buy?

Hello everybody,

Been an active homebrewer for about 4 years now and always loved finding interesting things to do with my spent grains. Mostly all the typical things like making muffins or fertilizing my garden.

My other part time hobby is woodturning, mostly making pens and taps as gifts and selling at craft fairs. So I thought, what if I cast my spent grains and turned that into a pen...hey, maybe other people would like this to.

So the question, would you buy a pen made out of spent grains? Obviously my friends that brew want one for their brew note taking but I was wondering what kind of a retail market would there be for it. Currently I'm casting my spent grains but I figure most people won't want that, they would want either their local craftbrewers grain or maybe their own homebrew.

What do you think?

 

How are you casting the grains? How sturdy is the product? Would it make sense to turn them into tap handles?

 

Currently I'm casting in Polyester resin and it comes out as a rigid plastic filled with grain (need to post a picture when I get home). Sturdy enough to drill and tool on a lathe. Yes, I am looking at tap handles also if there is an interest.

 

If the price was right, I'd be interested in either a pen or tap handles. More interested in the tap handles though, unless the pen was distinctive enough to be a conversation starter.

I like smaller tap handles (I use the generic black plastic ones now)... So if they're, say, 5" handles, that'd be the max.

Could you cast them out of unused/uncrushed grain? I'd probably prefer that for a tap handle.

 

Also make them in different colors using different grains. Something very light like Pilsner, something medium like C40 and something dark like black patent malt would be sweet. I'd also want a wheat...

 

I'd probably rather have one with whole grains, rather than crushed or spent grains.

Cool idea.

 

For tap handles I was thinking similar. Unless someone wanted to use their own spent grains to serve their own beer!

I haven't tried using uncrushed grain for pens yet, the pen walls are pretty thin so not sure how that would look.

As for conversation starter, my pens look similar to this one:

But being made out of grains would make it more unique since there are lots of woodturners out there.

Cost of pens would probably range between $20 to $50 depending on the pen style. Depends on the cost of the kit and the intricacy of the design.

Tap handles could probably start are $12 for small handles (like the little black ones) and up depending on size and detailing.

 

I'm a penturner too. I vote for whole grains too, as it would look more interesting than a bunch of broken grains.

I have seen pen blanks made from whole coffee beans. Whole grains might give a similar effect.

Edit: Making pens and tap handles from different grains would be interesting. You could, for example, make a set of tap handles with grain ranging from pale to roasted. The handles could correspond to the beers being dispensed.

Also, why not turn some bottle stoppers? Those are quick and easy to make.

 

Will have to give the whole grain pens a try and see what I get. Will post pictures once done.

 

I love the look of turned wood. I would be interested in just some short simple tap handles, like the ones that come with the Perlicks made out of some nice walnut or oak or curly maple.

 

I'm going to be setting up a website to sell some beer-centric turning projects in the next few weeks. I'll send you a PM to let you know it's up and I will probably open a new thread for requests / ideas on what people want.

Simple beer taps seems to be a no brainer to make available, be it wood or cast grain.

 

Cool idea, but this is the type of thing where as soon as I saw the price I would immediately put it back on the shelf and flee the store/booth, hoping I didn't make eye contact with the vendor.

 

I'm interested in this as I work at a Thermoset plastic company and we have a two part ultraclear product. Just curious if you had any issues with air bubbles in the pen? I would think grain would hide air that would end up in the final product...

 

I could be interested in short cast grain tap handles, short being important to clear the freezer door.

 

I haven't had any problems with air bubbles that I have seen in my casting. I have been tooling them down and there haven't been any voids. It's possible that the grains are hiding some bubbles but this hasn't been an issue.

 

All the money we spend on Beer Gear and a $12 tap handle scares you away?

 

Cool, I'm very interested and also building a kegging system in the next few months.

 

I might also be interested. I have a few chalkboard tap handles, but haven't been using them.

 

I don't keg, but I'm curious to see how the pens turn out.

 

Interested in tap handles, and definitely in the camp of whole grains. Interesting idea OP.

 

+1 on tap handles. I currently just have boring black plastic handles that are...boring.

 

+1 on the tap handles with whole grains. I would buy a set of 3-4 different colors if they were the same dimensions as the black plastic "El Cheapo" handles.

 

Thanks for the replies everybody. I'll give it some work and see what I get. Will post some pictures.

 

The $12 tap handles are very reasonable. It is the potentially $50 pen that I was referring to. I understand they are more involved and thus more expensive, but at the end of the day it is a $50 pen. I'd rather spend that $50 on more gear or ingredients.

 

Hey everyone, I opened a thread a while back for making replacement handles out of some better then that black plastic.

I have started a kickstarter campaign to replace them with ones made out of either cherry or walnut. check it out:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1348189730/quality-wood-tap-handles?ref=category_newest

I have successfully used kickstarter before to deliver handmade wooden razors. Message me if you have any questions. If you do order, send me a message through kickstarter and I'll give homebrew talk buyers priority to get their order by Christmas.

 

I think your link is broken.

 

Oops, fixed it