The Brewskey box uses CoAP (constrained application protocol) over DTLS or AES. All features like communication and OTA firmware updates occur over a single CoAP connection.
If you are on a company network, they will often lock down all non-web ports.
Have your IT open port 5683 over TCP and your box should start connecting!
If that doesn't work, you can always contact us and we'll help you figure it out.
The Brewskey Box, the power cable, and a flow sensor, all of which will be available from our kickstarter campaign. If you want to secure you kegerator you will need to get a solenoid valve as well.
The size of the prototype box is 84mm x 84mm x 27mm (3.3" x 3.3" x 1"). The newer box will be slightly larger in order to accomidate the multi-tap hookup.
Brewskey uses a flow sensor to measure every pour to the nearest ounce. In doing so, it also can tell you how much beer is left inside your keg so you can enjoy it until the very last drop.
Each Brewskey box can be set to cleaning mode in order to clean the beer lines through the mobile app. When you turn on this setting, the valve is opened up for an hour and you can then flush your cleaning solution through the line.
If you are really worried about cleaning out the sensor and valve, we will make things easy for you. The hardware will come with John Guest Speedfit connectors which will allow you to quickly and easily detach the sensor. While we can't reccommend soaking the sensor, you should be able to really flush it out while it's detached.
A normal Brewskey box will only run one tap, but If you buy a Brewskey Expansion Kit you can run up to 4 taps. Each one of your taps will need its own valve/flow sensor combo to hook up to the beer lines.
Yes. You can use the app anywhere you have WiFi or cellular data and update/monitor your Brewskey box. You can log into this website as well.
While not required, using a phone with the mobile app downloaded is the easiest way to use Brewskey. An alternative option for those still living in the dark ages, is to use NFC tokens. You can read more about this here.
You can run your Brewskey without the valve and allow anonymous pours. If you still wish to track your own consumption, you just need to use the normal pour authentication.
Because there is a flow sensor in the middle of your beer line, you may be worried about too much head on your beer. With the setup we are using, we haven’t noticed additional foaming. If you use a non-standard valve or flow sensor, flow and foam can definitely vary.
The purpose of the valve is to only allow authorized users to pour and allows you to lock the tap so people cannot access your precious loot without your consent. Without the valve, you can still measure the amount per pour, but you won’t have the added security of being able to lock up your tap.
Installation of Brewskey with your kegerator should only take about 10 minutes, depending on your BAC level at the time. We are trying to make this product very easy to use so anyone can run Brewskey. You shouldn’t need to be a technical wizard in order to measure your beer. In fact, we made this nifty guide to explain the installation.
The app can run on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. Android and Windows Phone users will be able to simply tap their phone on the box to pour beer, while iOS will need to type in the password on the Brewskey Box screen before pouring.
No. Brewskey can be used without a valve which allows you to pour anonymously but will still track the amount poured.
Friends don't want to download the app? No problem!
You can use NFC tags to "tap to pour" with Brewskey. These tags are readily available and come in various forms like stickers, tokens, cards, or bracelets.
Using cards is only supported with Android. Apple phones do not support NFC writing.
Brewskey supports the following NFC card formats:
Yes. We have tested this with both and the system works great.
Yes. We currently have some basic statistics available online for you to display on a monitor/tv and stats are always available for viewing on mobile devices and tablets through the app.
Yes, without an internet connection we cannot do user validation or store any pour information.
We are focused on launching Brewskey as fast as possible. After launch we will look into integrating with these services if there is enough interest.
Push notifications for low kegs or daily pour limits will probably come after launch. These features are very high priority, but will take a bit of time to implement correctly.
For now Brewskey is a consumer-based product. We currently do not have any integrations with POS systems. If you are interested in using Brewskey commercially, please reach out to us through our contact form. We are already testing with a few partners and would love to work with your company if you are a good fit.
Yes, the only issue you should run into is running the flat cable from the Brewskey box inside your kegerator/keezer. You shouldn’t need to drill any holes if that’s what you’re wondering :).
Brewskey uses BreweryDB in order to search for beers. You simply use the app to search for a beer and select it. For homebrewers, we allow you to create custom beers. These custom beers will only be searchable by your account.
No. Brewskey's primary purpose is to mesure beer and add security for your kegerator. We may allow integration points for other services to help with your brewing but we want to focus on making a great product that focuses on measurement.
For right now, Brewskey has the hard requirement of needing a WiFi connection. That doesn't mean you can't tether your phone and connect your box through that! We've thrown a few parties where we hooked brewskey up to a hand pump and used a 12v rechargable battery to connect Brewskey. It worked great and we had a ton of fun.
Brewskey uses a 24v power supply with a 2.1mm jack.
Brewskey can work with any 5v hall flow sensor. We have a set list of common sensors we use but you can also set up a custom configuration if you know the pulses per gallon. You can use any 12-24v valve. The standard Brewskey setup will use a 24v solenoid valve with a 24v power supply. If you want to use a 24v solenoid valve you will need a 24v power supply. Replacing any of these components is very easy. You just need to disconnect it from your kegerator and follow this wiring guide.
| Pin | Color (typical) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Orange/White | Temperature Sensor - signal |
| 2 | Orange | +5V |
| 3 | Green/White | Solenoid positive |
| 4 | Blue | Solenoid negative |
| 5 | Blue/White | GND |
| 6 | Green | Flow sensor - signal |
| 7 | Brown/White | Solenoid positive |
| 8 | Brown | Solenoid negative |
Brewskey works with any 5v hall-based pulse flow sensor. You can find many of these on ebay but here is a list we've actually tested.
Cheapest food-safe sensor. This is what we
recommend since it has very foam.
Pick one up from the Brewskey store
We've used this in the past and it worked well. We recommend John Guest fittings to minimize foam.
This one works great but is a bit pricy. We recommend John Guest fittings to minimize foam.
We've tried the YF-S301 before and that worked. The S401 looks to be an improvement since it has built-in barbs! This should decrease the amount of foam.
Yes. We will allow you to export the data on all the kegs you’ve tapped and floated. We will also allow you to export the pour data after it has been scrubbed. We don’t allow you to export any user information on who actually poured.
The Brewskey box firmware can be updated over your WiFi connection so you don’t need to worry about having the latest update. If there is a bug we will find it and automatically send out an update. This keeps the entire setup and management simple so you don’t have to be a technical wizard to use Brewskey.
Right now we don’t have documentation for the API but you can view the source code for the Brewskey box as well as the Brewskey app on github. We will be documenting our API as well as introducing webhooks at a later time.
The app
and firmware
are open source.
We've also forked the Particle Cloud and added a ton of improvements!
The main server code is closed source.
If you'd like to roll your own server, you will just need to point your Brewskey
box at your own Particle cloud and supply the appropriate webhooks.
From there you could integrate with KegBot server. The Brewskey box uses webhooks
so it should be fairly easy to set up. We don't have a ton of bandwidth to
work on this but we'd be willing to answer any questions if someone were to work
on getting this working.