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Stouts and the stout tube Beta

Nitro stouts, starting with Camden Stout, pour through PerfectDraft’s stout dispense tube (the one with the yellow crown), and the machine treats them differently from every other keg. So does the sign. This page explains what you see on the keg screen when you’ve tapped a stout, why some of it is not what you see for a lager, and what the stout tube reminder does.

As this is a brand new feature, we’re still learning how it works and how the machine reports information when using a nitro stout. PerfectDraft recommends a fresh tube per session but does not say what a session is. Without official guidance from PerfectDraft, we have defined ‘a session’ as 3 hours based on what users have reported on social media. Pour detection is a Beta feature which we’ve only been able to test on our own machine, so please let us know if you experience any issues with it, such as missing a pour or reporting one which did not happen. Raise a ticket and send a support bundle.

What the machine cannot tell you

In stout mode the machine records neither the volume remaining nor the pours, and the official PerfectDraft app shows the same frozen figures. The sign can only show what the machine knows.

What the sign shows instead

Three things on the keg screen change when you tap a stout, and a fourth appears once the tube is due.

The keg screen with a stout in A drawing of the sign's keg screen, with a stand-in beer rather than a real one, at the moment the tube is due. Four parts are ringed and numbered: one, a stout tube marker in the row naming where the beer is from; two, the volume bar, which reads "Last pour 4 h ago, replace before the next pour" instead of litres; three, the freshness ring and the line reading "16 days left"; four, an amber button above the coaster reading "Replace stout tube, tap here when it's swapped". REPLACE STOUT TUBE Tap here when it's swapped STOUT NITRO STOUT Brewery STOUT 4% ABV NEEDS STOUT TUBE FROM CITY BREWED TOWN Last pour 4 h ago · replace before the next pour SERVING 4°C TAPPED 5d AGO 16 days left 1 2 3 4
The keg screen with a stout in, at the moment the tube is due. The ringed parts are the ones that change.
  1. A stout tube marker appears next to where the beer is from, so you know before you pour that this keg needs one.
  2. The volume bar becomes a clock. In place of litres left it shows the time since your last pour, and how long the tube stays fresh.
  3. The freshness ring counts down from 21 days, not the usual 30, because that is how long a Camden Stout keeps once tapped.
  4. A replace button appears above the beer mat once the tube is due. Tap it when you have swapped the tube and the clock starts again.

How the sign sees a pour on a stout

The machine reports nothing at all about a stout pour, so the sign works one out for itself from what it can see of the keg. It knows that a pour happened, not how big it was, and it can be a few minutes behind. That is enough to run the tube reminder, which is all it is there for.

The stout tube reminder

After a few hours with no pour, the keg screen puts REPLACE STOUT TUBE above the beer mat, and it stays there until the tube is marked fresh. The default is 3 hours, and you can change it in the sign’s settings.

Any of these clears it.

  • Pour. The next pour the sign sees clears the reminder on its own, so most of the time you need do nothing at all.
  • Tap the reminder on the screen.
  • Open the fridge door, since the tube is behind it.*
  • Press Mark the tube as replaced in the sign’s settings.

* The sign only checks the machine every few minutes, so it spots the door only if it happens to look while the door is open. If it misses one, the next pour clears the reminder anyway.

Three ways to run it

  • From pours. The clock runs from the last pour the sign saw. This is the default.
  • On a timer. The clock runs from when you last said the tube was replaced, whether or not anything has been poured. This is the only option in Manual mode.
  • Off. The stout tube marker stays; only the reminder goes.

Smart polling

Spotting a pour on a stout means watching the machine closely. While a stout is in and the reminder runs from pours, a Standalone sign checks PerfectDraft at least every three minutes, or at your usual interval if you have set it shorter. Once the stout comes out it goes back to your usual interval. There is a switch in the Stout tube section to turn this off, with the caveat that pours may then be missed.

In Home Assistant mode

The sign only ever sees what the PerfectDraft Pro integration has fetched, so a faster check on the sign would change nothing on its own. Instead the sign asks Home Assistant to refresh the machine every three minutes while a stout is in, unless the integration already polls at least that often, in which case it asks for nothing. Three things make that work.

  • Version 0.6.1 or later of the integration, from the brettjenkins fork. The sign works with the brettjenkins fork of the PerfectDraft Pro integration, not the original it was forked from. It adds the sensors the pour detection reads, plus two small diagnostic sensors that tell the sign how often the integration polls and which version it is. From 0.6.1 that version reads 0.6.1+brettjenkins, and the tag on the end is how the sign knows it has the right integration rather than one that happens to carry the same number. If the sign has not heard from those sensors, or hears a version without the tag, the Stout tube section says so in red and reminders from pours will not run.
  • The two new sensors named on the sign’s Home Assistant settings page. Update interval and Integration version. They fill in from the top field like the others, and a sign updated from an older version works them out for itself.
  • Permission for the sign to ask for a refresh. This is a setting of the ESPHome integration, not the PerfectDraft one: go to Settings, then Devices & services, then ESPHome, open the sign’s entry and press its Configure gear, and tick Allow the device to perform Home Assistant actions (older releases call it service calls). Home Assistant has asked for this since 2023.9; without it the request is ignored and a warning is logged. The alternative is to set the PerfectDraft integration’s own polling interval to three minutes or less, and then no request is needed.

See the Home Assistant guide for the setup itself.

In Manual mode

The sign is not connected to the machine, so it cannot read anything from it, pours included. The tube reminder runs on the timer only, from whenever you mark the tube replaced, and the freshness countdown runs from the tapped date you type into the settings page. Everything else on this page needs a PerfectDraft Pro and one of the other two modes.

Known limits

  • No litres or pints figure for a stout, ever. The machine does not measure them.
  • A pour shows on the keg screen within about five minutes, not instantly.
  • Small pours and quick second pints can be missed. The reminder still works.
  • The detection is tuned on one machine and will be refined. Reports welcome.
  • Home Assistant mode needs the fork at 0.6.1 or later and the permission above.
  • Manual mode has the timer only.