Awesome, Frank, thank you so much for the cross-pollination effort, and my sincerest apologies for not being there in person to support said effort!
Speaking of cross-pollination, I went to the Counter Culture Labs meeting last week - they are still very focused on building out their space and attracting new members/projects to fill it, so they were very eager to accommodate the Fermentation Station. That said, they do also have rent to cover, so I made the agreement on our collective behalf that we would pony up the cash for 2 reduced-rate memberships ($25, I believe...possibly only $20, my notes are unclear) in return for a dedicated portion of the outer space for our set-up.
As for SF Biohackers, Matt Harbowy (founding member and primary financial baclker for CCL) also proposed that we could trek out to the Sunset to check out his home lab - it could probably fit 10-12 folks in a meeting situation, maybe 6-8 working in clusters...I've only seen it once about 6 months ago, so my memory is a little fuzzy, but it sounds like a sweet setup, and may be worth checking out?
Last, but not least - I think we have the clear makings of 3 separate sub-projects/groups that all tie together, focusing on 1) the gastronomical aspects of kombucha/vinegar/beer/yogurt/kefir/etc. production (that would looking at the correlations between environmental conditions and chemical/flavor profiles), 2) the molecular aspects of same (such as species identification and characterization, manipulating species composition, looking at cellulose production, and engineering individual species for specific chemical/nutritional/etc. profiles, and 3) the technical development of bioreactors/cultivators for all of these awesome microbes.
Anyhow. Sorry for being a total flake this week, will endeavor to do better next week. See you on Monday!