beer brewing process control project help

jsaddiction

Ok a good friend of mine is into brewing his own beer. I am into electronics and we figure that we could come up with a way to control the process. I need help from you smart guys. I do not have any experience with programming chips or some advanced electronics. Here are the details of the circuit requirements :

Need to monitor
1. Temperature of water X3
2. Flow rate X2

Need to control
1. Water temp for 10 gal of water (from room temp to 180F)
2. Flow rate around 10 gal per hour

Alarms
1. Water temp has stabilized (tolerance is 2 degrees F)
2. Flow rate difference is above 1 gal per hour
3. Flow rate is less than 5 gal per hour

Basically without too much reading it should work like this
1. Heat 10 gal of water to 150 or so degrees
2. Drain this liquid into a bed of grain as we drain this makes worth which should stay as close to 150 degrees f as possible.
3. We then heat more water to around 180 degrees in the first pot. ( no need for multiple heating elements)
4. This heated water is strike water. This is circulated through hops at a slow rate. (10 gal per hour) the strike water should maintain 2 inches of height above the bed of hops.
After all that it gets cooled and fermented.

I thank you all for any help you can provide

Rick_H

I can tell ya that using a positive displacement pump will simplify your process a bit. Look at PID control's and do cascade control for the temp also. Its easily done with A stamp using thermocouples and an ADC. Check out the parallax tutorials on industrial controls pdf, theirs some good stuff on PID and such in their. I personally would prefer using the Propeller but its doable on the stamp.

jsaddiction

This is currently an idea and the idea will probably evolve along the way. I am not opposed to using a propeller. It should also have some sort of display to show all of the parameters involved. This project will eventually be finalized on a pcb with conformal coating mounted in a box and become a permanant solution. With that in mind how can we go forward with the design with cost and simplicity. Keeping the final project as small as possible is also a priority.

erco

Finally, a project that unites us all: Stamps and Beer!

Stamps are quicker & easier to learn if you're starting from scratch, most any Stamp can do what you want. Props are cheaper and have lots more capability, but take time to master.

10 gal/hour is very slow, you could almost get away with an aquarium pump, except for your high temps. You'll need food grade, high temp hoses.

Definitely keep us updated, this project sounds interesting and you'll get lots of support here!

jsaddiction

I am wanting to display the temps and flow rates at the same time with a quick response so i can see the temp rise. I currently have 2 water heater elements both rated at 1500w im thinking that the temp control can be mocked from the solder pot circuit. I just have to find the SSR.

$WMc%

jsaddiction wrote: »

I am wanting to display the temps and flow rates at the same time with a quick response so i can see the temp rise. I currently have 2 water heater elements both rated at 1500w im thinking that the temp control can be mocked from the solder pot circuit. I just have to find the SSR.

'
Take a look at Peristaltic pumps.I see these used for Brewing.This is a super simple pump,very accurate,Really cheap if You make Your own DC drive for it.
'
I would start with reading temperatures and displaying the values on a serial LCD display or two.Take a look at the DS2760 T/C readers,They work great and theirs lots of code for them.They also have the ADC built-in,So theres nothing else needed.I used My index finger and thumb to check the T/C temp-98.6F.Use other known heat sources to check the accuracy.
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Know that You have an accurate temp reader,Start on the water heaters.
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I'd use the BS2P24 or BS2P40
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erco "Finally, a project that unites us all: Stamps and Beer!" I'm with Ya!

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Hope this helps?

Rick_H

That's a cool application for the DS2760. I have been using a 2 channel ADC and some amplifiers and fudging the Cold Junction. I'm gona have to check that chip out.

jsaddiction

I would like to display all of the monitored data (temps and Flows) on a display to the tenth. I would also like these to update at a fairly rapid rate so that it is pretty much real time. On top of that i need to control current to the elements and control flow rate some how. Can this all be done with a stamp? or should i go with a propeller? What displays could i use to acheive this? I would like to go with grafic display if it isn't too much more cost wise.

Rick_H

If you want more options on the display then I would say the propeller is the way to go, you can even use a regular TV for a display. I have an old handheld I have used that's cool, they no longer work anymore due to TV being brodcast in Digital.

Basically the Propeller is a 32 bit version of the Stamp with 32 I/O, way more memory and 8 cores. The down side is that if you are used to basic you need to learn another language but its not to big a leap. The upside is their are several languages you can learn to program it including Assembly for the Propeller,

jsaddiction

The propeller sounds good. As far as the display we want to have this whole project mounted in a water tight box with the display mounted to it. The idea is modular for similar portability and splash proof as brewing isn't the cleanest of operations. I need preferably a display that is large enough to show all the parameters at once with readability at about 5 feet or so. Backlighting is a must aswell as contrast adjustment. I was thinking that a dot matrix display would be good but i have no idea about compatibility or if there is any code that is pre wrote

RussH

Hello,

You seem to have some of your brewing terms and processes mixed up a bit, but either way...

Right now I am in the process of something very similar. I am building an all grain brewery in my garage that will be run off the BS2 Board of education. I have 3 vessels, all made from old 50 liter s.s. kegs.
- My Hot liquor tun (where I heat the strike water, and water added to the mash later, called sparge water) has a 5500 Watt heating element inside.
- My mash tun has no element, I circulate the hot water and the wort through separate sides of a heat exchanger to hold my mash temperature constant for 1+ hour(s).
- My Boil kettle has another 5500 watt element. Once the Wort is ready, I transfer here, and bring to a boil adding hops and such at certain points. From here, the wort is chilled and transferred to a fermenter, where I add the yeast.

For my controls, I measure the temperatures of the Hot liquor tun, the mash tun and the kettle. I am using LM34 temperature probes that I made by epoxying the IC into a piece of copper tube. I use an MCP3202 ADC to interpret the analog voltage coming from these. I have a PID routine that cycles the heating elements via 40A SSR's (one for each element).

As far as flow, you may want to know that during the sparging, depending on the approach you use. For ~10 gallon batches I will either batch sparge, so that flow rate doesn't matter, or I will just use manual valves on the pump outlets to control the flow of both inlet and outlet streams should I decide to continously sparge. I didn't want to get into flow sensors, cause the budget increases significantly. I have two March 809 pumps that I will use for fluid transfer.

This might seem like a bit of a ramble, which it is, I am just trying to get across that controlling temp is quite easy. When you get into flow control, you and your buddy need to decide whether it's really worth it, when it's so easy to do it by hand. (or just choose an alternative sparge method)

You can also look at theelectricbrewery dot com. The guy has done a fantastic job with his brewery, and documented everything. He used packaged PID control units, but you could just sub in a m/c at that point.

Good luck, and happy brewing.

jsaddiction

Thank you for the very informative insite. He is the brew master of the group so basically i have no idea of the process with the exception of what he needs to control via some sort of electronics means. I do like the idea of the heat exchanger and i may incorperate that idea. What do you use for a display?

RussH

Laptop right now, trying to line up a cheap tablet. Its nice that way, cause I can change setpoints etc, quickly and easily.

LoopyByteloose

Beer brewing can be a bit hazardous. I had a roommate that would brew 5 gallons of beer at a time and generally whenever he produced a batch nothing got done for a week or so. We just had a lot of visitors and a good time. Of course, we never got it into bottles, just consumed it from the tub in the refrigerator.

You may find that mason jars with screw lids are a better option to using beer bottles and a cap machine.

Why so? For one, the screw tops have made capping difficult. For two, the average beer bottle is no longer recycled and not very strong glass.

$WMc%

Don't forget the RTC! (real time clock)
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This is really important for the " BORN ON DATE "