I love homebrewing. It’s the ultimate geek hobby: creative, technical, innovative, and at the end of it all you get pints and pints of lovely beer (usually). With the introduction of the all-in-one brew pans like Grainfather and BrewZilla, higher level homebrewing has become more accessible. With this newfound interest comes a whole range of exciting tech and equipment, and for people like me who love a good gadget - especially when it assists me with my beer - I’m all in!
The guys and gals at Plaato have very kindly sent some of their award winning tech to the MASHED! HQ. So, in this issue we’ve been testing out the Plaato Keg Management System.
The concept behind Plaato’s Keg Management System (PKMS) is to measure the beer levels in your keg. My initial thought was: why would I need to know this? Surely picking the keg up is the simple way to know what level you have. So I was eager to learn if there were any real benefits to this equipment.
We’ve been testing it on Dark Farm’s 5L and 10L mini kegs, but kegs of all shapes and sizes will happily sit and work on the PKMS.
First impression when opening up the box was the quality and design of the build, both of which I confess are important to me. The PKMS sleek design and snazzy magnet power cable connectors undeniably tug at my cords.
The PKMS is managed via their app, which also manages other systems from Plaato like their airlock valve, which we’ll hopefully review in a later issue. The app and the system is relatively easy to set up, but does rely on you having a strong wireless signal.
Once setup, it‘s easy to calibrate: simply add in the empty weight of your kegs, not forgetting to add the additional weight of any taps or fittings that might be connected. Then all you have to do is pop on the kegs, and the graphics will come to life telling you what level each kegs is at. We were lucky enough to have two PKMS: each individually showed up on the same screen. So is this newfound knowledge useful? Surprisingly, yes; and here’s why.
I generally have around 20L - 50L of beer kegged at any one point, mostly in Dark Farm 10L mini kegs. One of the first things I found very useful was filling the keg. I brew around 15L - 23L per batch and ferment in a conical fermenter, and, under pressure, transfer the brew directly into my kegs. Overfilling kegs is not ideal, especially if you wish to carbonate them. So knowing exactly what levels of beer were being transferred from fermenter to keg was really helpful - even more so if you have a steel fermenter.
Secondly, for a similar reason I like to transfer my beer from 10L kegs into my 5L mini growlers for when I’m having a BBQ or visiting friends. Not only was it good to know what levels I’ve transferred, but also whether there was enough brew left in the first place.
I also found the PKMS very handy for use in my Kegerator, or if you have a bar setup where your kegs are sometimes not in the most accessible of places. Knowing the level of each keg (which will save any future disappointment of a keg running dry) was a surprising addiction, and for a geek like me it was interesting to see which beer was more popular on the last darts night.
Another useful function PKMS can help with is measuring your grain bill as it also works as “Accurate as f**k!†scalesâ€. If, like me, you’ve been struggling with small kitchen scales and a large pan for a 5KG+ grain bill then PKMS have made this a painless task.
This didn’t happen for me when testing (brag), but also worth a mention is the fact that the PKMS can also detect leaks. An electrical current between two probes is measured continuously; if a leak occurs, the current increases and the device will alert you.
Overall, this product definitely surprised me and has become a very useful tool both on brew days and storage. I can imagine that, teamed up with their airlock system, it would be a great addition for any homebrewer to up their game, digitally. 4 out of 5 stars.
