[Makerspace-keymembers] Possible future SCA-and-Makerspace brew days, and a quick breakdown of this one?

[Andy Gibbs]

I'm also interested in helping with this.  I have two cappers that I can
bring if we're bottling anything, among other miscellaneous brewing
supplies.

Andy

On Sun, Mar 27, 2016 at 11:42 PM, Gergana Slavova <
gergana.s.slavova at gmail.com> wrote:

> I can definitely help out with this.  Dena, pick a day (or a couple of
> dates) that are convenient for you and we'll narrow it down to just 1
> that's good for everyone.
>
> ~Gergana
>
> On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 3:11 PM, Emily Knox <emilyknox at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Dena,
>>
>> Thank you so much for all your work last week! We can make a quick list
>> for anyone that's interested in helping out. (Keymembers, let me know and
>> we'll just make a group from the Makerspace email.)
>>
>> What dates/times work for you?  It doesn't need to be anytime soon.
>>
>> Emily
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 8:50 PM, Dena Strong <dena.strong at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all! I'm not 100% sure whether having both a mailing list and
>>> individual folks on an email thread will keep the individual folks once
>>> replies happen, but I thought it would be worth a try? (If anyone SCA-side
>>> knows Terra's email address, she'd probably be a good person to talk with
>>> too.)
>>>
>>> Part 1:
>>> Emily and I had a really nice chat-slash-debriefing over tea tonight
>>> after work and she said that the Makerspace crew is also excited by how
>>> many folks are interested in brewing and that the Makerspace can contribute
>>> more hands and more equipment (ranging from brew-type to things like the
>>> Square card reader for credit card taking) to future joint endeavors. She
>>> suggested starting a joint email thread to discuss the possibility of more
>>> like this.
>>>
>>> Since it seems like there's definitely untapped interest out there, what
>>> do folks in both groups think about the possibility of some future brew
>>> workshops?
>>>
>>> If so, do any particular dates look appealing to folks?
>>>
>>> Part 2, the recap and review:
>>>
>>> What went well this time:
>>> Using the St John basement and kitchen for brewing or cooking workshops
>>> is *fantastic.* There was plenty of room to have the sanitizing and
>>> bottling and capping stations out in the main room and reserving the
>>> kitchen for things that need the six burners.
>>>
>>> Logistically (water, heat, and seating-wise), it was a ton easier to do
>>> a brew day in the church basement and kitchen than it had been when Ro and
>>> I did it in the Makerspace itself. And the reservation fee was only $50,
>>> which we could math in to the workshop fees.
>>>
>>> Bringing a portable projector and projecting the slides on the wall
>>> worked well too - since it's in the basement, dimming a bank of lights was
>>> enough to let the projector be visible on the wall.
>>>
>>> It was also really helpful having Stephanie teaching coffee and Rick
>>> teaching sake at the same time -- not everyone can be hands-on at the same
>>> time when you're bottling and capping, so having them both taking part of
>>> the group while other people were individually cycling through the
>>> sterilize-rinse-bottle-cap-label dance helped keep more of the crowd
>>> occupied.
>>>
>>> Pre-loading the stuff into the storage under the church stairwell on
>>> Friday was really key to being able to set up and get going on time.
>>> (Thanks again for the tour and the storage key, Liz!)
>>>
>>> Having people sign up in advance for the hands-on slots and pay online
>>> in advance gave me both a built-in way to cap the attendance and a
>>> guaranteed pool of cash to buy the ingredients from. We could control the
>>> hands-on numbers that way (though in hindsight I shouldn't have added the
>>> extra 5 gallons to let more people in; I should've just said 'sorry, next
>>> time').
>>>
>>> What didn't go so well:
>>>
>>> Friday's hauling-in took me about 4 hours, so next time let's put out a
>>> call for more stuff-hauling crew during prep day.
>>>
>>> It takes a long time to bottle ten gallons of beer, even if there are a
>>> ton of people interested in doing it; next time, I'd say we should cap a
>>> hands-on beer segment at the number of people who can get 6-packs out of
>>> one five gallon batch (I think about 8?)
>>>
>>> Math fail: I wasn't aiming for anything resembling a profit, I was
>>> trying to make the workshop cost match the materials cost. But I'd
>>> miscalculated how expensive the honey would be in bulk from Amazon, so I
>>> didn't break even. I now know the cost of honey better; I'm chalking that
>>> up to learning curve.
>>>
>>> Also, Emily says it's OK to calculate a profit in for future workshop
>>> cost math, and we could split a profit between the groups.
>>>
>>> Emily's recommendation of one teacher per ten students sounds like a
>>> good ratio to me. We had about one per twelve to fifteen this time, I
>>> think?
>>>
>>> (I'm not entirely sure if everyone signed in on the sign-in sheets,
>>> which I'm still trying to find - if anyone sees a small black messenger bag
>>> at St John with a couple brewing books and a bunch of handouts in it, that
>>> would be it.)
>>>
>>> Planning ahead for extra and/or backup teachers in case someone gets
>>> called away on the day-of is sounding like a good idea too.
>>>
>>> I think that's the highlights?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Dena
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> Makerspace-keymembers at lists.chambana.net
>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/makerspace-keymembers
>>>
>>>
>>
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