Tries to establish a Kafka consumer connection

def _create_producer(self):
        """Tries to establish a Kafka consumer connection"""
        if not self.closed:
            try:
                self.logger.debug("Creating new kafka producer using brokers: " +
                                   str(self.settings['KAFKA_HOSTS']))

                return KafkaProducer(bootstrap_servers=self.settings['KAFKA_HOSTS'],
                                     value_serializer=lambda v: json.dumps(v).encode('utf-8'),
                                     retries=3,
                                     linger_ms=self.settings['KAFKA_PRODUCER_BATCH_LINGER_MS'],
                                     buffer_memory=self.settings['KAFKA_PRODUCER_BUFFER_BYTES'])
            except KeyError as e:
                self.logger.error('Missing setting named ' + str(e),
                                   {'ex': traceback.format_exc()})
            except:
                self.logger.error("Couldn't initialize kafka producer.",
                                   {'ex': traceback.format_exc()})
                raise