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

Wed Mar 30 10:59:54 EDT 2016

Let's do July, in this case.  Pick a weekend that's good for you and we'll
bookmark that date.

~Gergana

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 11:11 PM, Dena Strong <dena.strong at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yay, more brewing collaborations! :)
>
> What's the most appealing time frame for folks? Close-term, medium-term,
> or summer?
>
> How much I personally could be involved would depend on the specific month
> as much as the specific weekend. My own schedule is kind of crazy for the
> next three months - I could help with something on April 16 (if it's mead
> or cider), May 14-ish or 28-ish, or some time in July or August.
>
> However, I suspect April 16 would be a pretty tight advertising and
> scheduling turnaround and it'd have to be cider or mead because I don't
> think we'd have time to prep a batch of TV-magic pre-brewed-and-racked
> beer. May 14 may be too close to finals for most students. May 28 would
> probably be good for in-town students but would be bad for some of the SCA
> folks who are going to a big event that weekend, so we'd have to lean more
> on Makerspace folks if that was the chosen weekend.
>
> May 21 might also be a good option for folks who aren't me - it'd be after
> the end of finals and there doesn't look to be a big SCA thing that
> weekend, but I'll be in Chicago for two back to back conferences. So if
> someone else wants to run one on the 21st I'll happily cheer you on
> remotely!
>
> June or July may have more openings in general too? For me June is out,
> but for a lot of folks it's past finals and pre school work.
>
> (For reference, the Women in Chemistry group's also interested in
> collaborating on a brewing type of event over the summer - they didn't want
> to try to fit anything else into the school year themselves, and they would
> be interested in somewhere between late May and early August.)
>
> Thoughts?
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 8:01 PM, Andy Gibbs <andygibbs at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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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