It’s the 21st century, which means there is now officially nothing in your life that you can’t make smart. And that includes things that often aid in your making choices that are not so smart, like your beer keg. Meet the Kegtron, a new device promising to bring “intelligence to your kegerator.” Because we all know that nothing else really will.
With this keg monitor and its companion app, you’ll be able to wirelessly track the number of pours you have remaining in your keg from your phone. The expandable system can be leveraged by beer enthusiasts of both the amateur and professional variety, so whether you’re a home brewer, a restaurateur, or just someone with a keg sitting in your kitchen, you can use this handy device.
“Beer lovers and resellers know that kegs are the ideal way to store and serve beer,” the Kegtron team notes on its Kickstarter page. “Unfortunately, keeping track of what’s in those kegs is not so easy. Everyone knows the clumsy routine of keg lifting, shaking, and guessing or the dreaded tap blowing foam.” But Kegtron promises a slightly more elegant solution.
The Kegtron keg monitor itself is a small box that will sit between your keg and your tap. There’s an internal flowmeter that measures how much liquid has come out of your keg, and a wireless processor that feeds this information to the companion app. Installing the monitor seems to be a pretty straightforward process (as evidenced by the video below, which shows how you can do the whole thing in under two minutes). In effect, it seems to require plugging in the Kegtron and adding some additional tubing that runs between your keg and the monitor. The splash-resistant design means that even in humid or messy environments, you won’t end up with a short circuit.
The companion app promises to provide all the critical information you need about your keg at a glance. You’ll be able to see the name of the beer, its description, the keg size, starting volume, volume served, percent remaining, and servings remaining.
Of course, you should always exercise caution when backing a Kickstarter project, but if you’re interested in remotely monitoring the status of your kegs, Kegtron is offering early bird pricing of $125 for a single keg monitor.
