Fully Automated Brewing System Design

[Zwickel]

Bandito, what for do you need a pinch valve? if youre going to use roller pumps, you wouldnt need any pinch valve. As the roller pump stops, the hose in it will be clamped, you wouldnt need an additional valve.
The setting of the rolls in the roller pump should be occlusive, so when the pump stops, the flow stops too.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[Bandito]

There are lots of valves in my preliminary design, while some will be made obsolete with gravity and simplification, there will still be quite a few. I'm hoping to use them everywhere (well, not everywhere). They are completely sanitry if I use ones that fit onto existing tube. And there are models that can switch multiple tubes at once which would reduce the total number.

In all the searches, I found a couple of manual ones that others might be interested in for their sanitryness:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Flow-Control-Pinch-Val...=item2a03e72062

and

http://news.thomasnet.com/fullstory/10995#_normalStart

 

[Bandito]

You know, when I first saw the term BIAB - brew in a bag, I thought it meant fermenting in a bag. I just Started searching for conical fermenters and remembered the initial thought - perhaps bags that could be used for fermenters, and yes, they are the teflon kind. Found some standard style square ones for US$20 to US$55 (the modified PTFE liners are US$13 to US32) for 20 litre and 220 litre respectively. At the moment this is just a pie in the sky thought, as I would want to either fit nicely into a conical container, or have an outlet at one lower corner and hang it in the fridge.

http://www.fluorolab.com/teflonpfadrumliners.aspx
http://www.fluorolab.com/teflonpfapailliners.aspx
So question is: does anyone ferment in a bag? - thought I saw something once, but is hard to find with all the biab stuff around.

 

[fcmcg]

I did hear that the poms ( in the 70's) used to ferment in a bag..in a fermenter...but then i am half cut as my poor little dog is very sick and if he doesn't make it to Friday without eating...its the green dream...but anyway...off topic...
From what i can remember...bag...in a fermenter....
So sort of ferment in a bag....but still in a fermenter...
Interesting thread this...what with all the sh&t being thrown...but good luck man...
Cheers
Ferg

 

[Bandito]

Sorry to hear that dude, I lost my little rotty to parvovirus, was not nice. Hope all turns out well. Need to get to a 24hr vet.

Will search with those terms.

 

[Bandito]

Emergency vet links from yarraville vet website:

http://www.yarravillevet.com.au/joomla/ind...8&Itemid=13

More:
http://www.localbusinessguide.com.au/listi...nimal-hospital/
http://www.localbusinessguide.com.au/listi...tes-yarraville/
http://www.localbusinessguide.com.au/listi...west-footscray/
http://www.localbusinessguide.com.au/victo...tona/Pets/Vets/
http://www.localbusinessguide.com.au/listi...r-williamstown/
Vets will let you pay off the bill

Think I'm getting too much practice with google!

 

[komodo]

For your filling and cleaning of fermenters would you not be better off with a conveyor design. Less sanitary issues and plumbing. I'm thinking like the McDonalds drive thru automated drink filling machines. If your only moving 5L around at a time it could work.

 

[Kieren]

You know, when I first saw the term BIAB - brew in a bag, I thought it meant fermenting in a bag. I just Started searching for conical fermenters and remembered the initial thought - perhaps bags that could be used for fermenters, and yes, they are the teflon kind. Found some standard style square ones for US$20 to US$55 (the modified PTFE liners are US$13 to US32) for 20 litre and 220 litre respectively. At the moment this is just a pie in the sky thought, as I would want to either fit nicely into a conical container, or have an outlet at one lower corner and hang it in the fridge.

http://www.fluorolab.com/teflonpfadrumliners.aspx
http://www.fluorolab.com/teflonpfapailliners.aspx
So question is: does anyone ferment in a bag? - thought I saw something once, but is hard to find with all the biab stuff around.

I believe the U-Brew-It franchise use some sort of bag to line their fermenters. Never been to one myself, just what someone told me who has "brewed" there. I think they then just throw away the bag to save cleaning the fermenter. Don't know how they transfer the beer, syphoning i would imagine.

Kieren

 

[Bandito]

Whats that like? Moving the vessels instead of the wort? not sure...
Planning on 20L batches now.

 

[Brewman_]

I believe the U-Brew-It franchise use some sort of bag to line their fermenters. Never been to one myself, just what someone told me who has "brewed" there. I think they then just throw away the bag to save cleaning the fermenter. Don't know how they transfer the beer, syphoning i would imagine.

Kieren

Yeh, exactly right. Never brewed there but went and had a look and they use bag liners that fold over the top of the fermenter. And yes I believe they syphon the beer out - well so my mate who brews there told me. I reckon the bag liners make sense in that commercial application.

Fear_n_Loath

 

[Frank]

Fermentabag for the wine industry.

 

[Brewman_]

That's a good link.

I like the idea of the bag when you are using a polythene fermenter. With the bag they will almost last forever.

The ideal for me is a SS fermenter and probably too for the wine makers, but the same issue I think would be the capital. Then a frame with a Poly bag, does the job.

Fear_n_loath

 

[Bandito]

Found a specific pinch valve but the price for 1/4" OD and 3/16" ID is US$84 quite a bit more pricy than I was hoping, add a feedback sensor and its US$135, and the larger size that I want would be way more, but they are magnificent. Will keep looking for cheaper versions. Might have to call a few suppliers and ask for advice on where to get cheaper ones.

https://www.biochemfluidics.com/cart/store/...?idCategory=250

I'm hard at work here kicking it up another notch. I have all but decided to get the pinch valves mentioned above. There was note on the biochemfluidics site saying that orders over $500 got wholesale prices, so I am hoping the price to go down considerably. The tube size above is the smaller size I have ordered - just by luck!

I wont get the feedback sensor version - as with all faults (power outage, unexplained faliure etc.) the batch will just be dumped.

I plan to order about 20 of the pinch valves mentined above next week - probably a combination of normally closed and normally open.

The only burning issue at the moment is that 4.7mm ID might be too small for the compact yeast cakes produced by ver flocculant yeasts - S23 is the hardest cake I have seen, but if any valve is going to pass it, it is a full bore tube pinch valve. Oh, an by that I mean the 1/4" ID tubing will be the main lower connection into the fermenters.

I will put sieves on the outlets on the MLT and Kettle to avoid husks, twigs, hops and cockroaches from entering the lines.

Next thing is to find proper T piece and X piece teflon connectors. These will reduce the bore a bit, and am trying to redesign the PFD to avoid them, but they will be needed.

Still looking for a Peristatic pump - it will most likely be a cole-palmer brand as the have drivers for the Labview graphical automation program, so will allow flow control etc. A link to a random pump (not one I want): http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/product_...asp?sku=7822130 and so I dont loose the link of the only page that mentions the tubing sizes: http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/product_...asp?sku=9641015

So the question is: is 4.7mm Inside Diameter tubing too small? Me, I think it is on the verge.

 

[Bandito]

Just got off the phone with biochemfluidics in the US but it is only 7:30am there and there is a snow storm atm so no engineers or sales people in at the moment. The guy I spoke to said that they have tested teflon tubing, but the cost was prohibative. So it sounds like it could work, but will have to stay up for another hour to call back and get the modulus of elasticity of their tubing to compare it to mine and get a wholesale price .

And just tried calling cole-palmer in the UK but they are on lunch!

 

[Westoz]

Manticles under 30 buck rig vs your whatever rig same brew same ingdients at what cost
per litre.Most of us on here are are about making better beers and cheaper than we can buy from
the mega swillers. K.I.S.S. brew for what suits your needs .Anyway you look at it its the end vs the
means. Good luck in your quest. Question do you like beer. ?

 

[Pete2501]

:icon_offtopic: Your avatar freaks me out Bandito.

 

[Westoz]

Carefull Pete that may just be bandito .brewer from another planet. :blink:
Sorry dude im not in your all out process to re invent the brewery.
Take a trip to what is a fully automated mass produced swill factory.
We make it how we want it , SIMPLE

 

[Bandito]

Love the taste of my HB - just hate the cleaning and the time it takes away from my work and fishing.

Yea, my avartar is a concrete alien scultpture that took 4 years to clone - thats the 4th generation - he is called Mikael (after the archangel) - may have taken a long time to make, and everyone said it was a waste of time and money, but I see him every day and I love it - a true work of art. All adults are freaked out by it - "Its looking at me!" they say.

Just got off the phone to biochemfluidics, I will have to send them a sample of my tubing to test it and adjust springs and mabee make a custom knife - free service. The discount starts at 25 pieces with 15% off, then 50 pieces, then 100 pieces with 22% off (I was hoping for 50% )

And only just got off the phone to coleparmer in th UK - they wont give out the sizes of their masterflex tubing as it is a secret aparently! and only one of their pumps is pc compatable. I think I got them mixed up with ismatec pumps.... called them and after thinking I had called the wrong number, the third person they handed the phone to said to go to their aussie distributor processpumps.com.au

I'm tired, bed now.

 

[Pete2501]

It still freaks me out but as a conselation I like the story that goes with it.

 

[bigfridge]

Well, inspired by Zwickels other thread, I spent the afternoon googling, and found that my grain hopper design is called a rotary valve. All I can find are metal ones and way too big. then it dawned on me that there must be some general use product available - automatic pet feeders! So something like this will be used for the grain measurement. http://uniquedistributors.com/autopetfeeders.html

It also seems my crushed tube design is called a pinch valve, like this http://news.thomasnet.com/images/large/020/20950.jpg
Just need to find one with a motor.

It is nice to know that the designs I came up with actually exist.

Yes, they might exist - but not in automated breweries.

I pleaded with you to read a professional brewing book as all the design process has been done for you. They do not use 'pet feeders' in breweries, but they do use a tipping skip ie a bin that fills with a known amount of grain and then tips the grain into the crusher. Count the number of tips and you know what grain you have measured out. No physical contact means nothing to bind or get caught. You could adapt this to use a water wheel type device.

There, I guess that I have just designed your grain control system for you.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

You know, when I first saw the term BIAB - brew in a bag, I thought it meant fermenting in a bag. I just Started searching for conical fermenters and remembered the initial thought - perhaps bags that could be used for fermenters, and yes, they are the teflon kind. Found some standard style square ones for US$20 to US$55 (the modified PTFE liners are US$13 to US32) for 20 litre and 220 litre respectively. At the moment this is just a pie in the sky thought, as I would want to either fit nicely into a conical container, or have an outlet at one lower corner and hang it in the fridge.

http://www.fluorolab.com/teflonpfadrumliners.aspx
http://www.fluorolab.com/teflonpfapailliners.aspx
So question is: does anyone ferment in a bag? - thought I saw something once, but is hard to find with all the biab stuff around.

You mean something like this??

Proof of concept



A more refined design



An alternative that is easier to make, does all the same stuff... but isn't as pretty or "conical" as the other design.



Constructed from oxyproof bags that previously contained hop pellets... I'm working on a cheaper easier to make design that could be torn off a roll and used as a "one time" fermenter. These ones are cut out by hand and plastic welded on my vacuum sealer.... time consuming and sporadically leaky. But its got pretty much all the features of a metal conical fermenter.. except you hang it off a rail and toss it out when you are done.

I claim this idea as mine... so there Anybody who commercializes it and makes a million bucks - you owe me a slab of damn good beer at least.

TB

 

[domonsura]

You mean something like this??

Proof of concept

View attachment 35478 View attachment 35477

A more refined design

View attachment 35479

An alternative that is easier to make, does all the same stuff... but isn't as pretty or "conical" as the other design.

View attachment 35480

Constructed from oxyproof bags that previously contained hop pellets... I'm working on a cheaper easier to make design that could be torn off a roll and used as a "one time" fermenter. These ones are cut out by hand and plastic welded on my vacuum sealer.... time consuming and sporadically leaky. But its got pretty much all the features of a metal conical fermenter.. except you hang it off a rail and toss it out when you are done.

I claim this idea as mine... so there Anybody who commercializes it and makes a million bucks - you owe me a slab of damn good beer at least.

TB

Nice idea thirsty...very nice! cleaning fermenters...a thing of the past soon perhaps?

 

[MHB]

Sorry TB not a new idea, remember the first home brew commercially available in Australia was Coopers, in a plastic bag, that was the fermenter as well as the shipping container.
Ive got some 20L bladders, like big wine bladders that we have tried fermenting in.
The problem is that to get a production run made of a custom bag, you have to order 10,000 of the suckers, at around $3-4 each.
MHB

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Sorry TB not a new idea, remember the first home brew commercially available in Australia was Coopers, in a plastic bag, that was the fermenter as well as the shipping container.
Ive got some 20L bladders, like big wine bladders that we have tried fermenting in.
The problem is that to get a production run made of a custom bag, you have to order 10,000 of the suckers, at around $3-4 each.
MHB

ahh - but were they shiny and conical?? Just a bag to ferment in isn't the idea, there's quite a few wine fermenting bags out there - boring!! - what you want is a bag that does all the stuff that a great big expensive cylindro conical does.

I know about the issues with commercialization.. I did kind of look into it. Wouldn't be too hard to rig up a plastic welding "jig" to knock em out in a few minutes a piece though. Section of wide plastic tube (or two sheets) goes in... conical bag fermenter comes out. I couldn't be arsed but I dont think it would bee too hard.

Anyway... should stop diverting this thread. Sorry.

 

[Bandito]

Yes, they might exist - but not in automated breweries.

I pleaded with you to read a professional brewing book as all the design process has been done for you. They do not use 'pet feeders' in breweries, but they do use a tipping skip ie a bin that fills with a known amount of grain and then tips the grain into the crusher. Count the number of tips and you know what grain you have measured out. No physical contact means nothing to bind or get caught. You could adapt this to use a water wheel type device.

There, I guess that I have just designed your grain control system for you.

One of my first thoughts about the grain measuring was to use a bucket elevator - I'm guessing thats what you are describing, but I discounted it due to the large space it would require and the high mechanical engineering it would require. I am only making a small automated brewery - I think a small automatic pet food dispenser will be perfect for the scale and cost I am after.

I am aware that pinch valves are not used in brewerys - I think it is because flexible tube doesnt work in them above 2" diameter, above that size they have flange fittings and the internal valve is mabe of flexible elastomer which comes in direct contact with the fluid - the large ones are usually used for sewridge and water treatment plants where the fluids can contain large amounts of solids that would block other valves. The small ones are used, um, not sure where - in my brewery? yea, thats it!

There are pumps that have a check valve on each side of a pinch pump - both check valves are pointed in the same direction. The pinch valve closing compresses the fluid forcing it out one check valve, then when the pinch valve opens it draws in fluid from the other check valve - thinking of using one as a dosing pump for the cleaning chemicals. Large versions of this are used to pump sewridge :icon_vomit:


Nice custom bag Thirsty boy! Thats sort of it, but with fittings for a tube in the bottom and top.


I am still on the fence as to wether 1/4" Outside diameter & 4.7mm (3/16") Inside Diameter tube is too small for the wort side of the system. The overflow tubes which will be used for cleaning will be 1/2" OD & 3/8" ID to allow for passing stray grains, twigs, hops, roaches etc. Think I may have caused some confusion earlier where I mentioned the wrong ID of the smaller tubing.

Speaking of which, should arrive next week, then I will send a sample off the the US to have the valves customised - big weekend ahead going into the weekend after finalising the valve specifics!

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Nice custom bag Thirsty boy! Thats sort of it, but with fittings for a tube in the bottom and to

If you look at the design closely you will see you dont need fittings. There is a vent/input at the top. You fill through there by poking in a hose and jam a nice standard bung with an airlock in there to seal.

The bottom needs no fitting, it is sealed closed and remains so until you want to drop the yeast. Pinch closed with fingers, snip end off with scissors, control flow with the simplest sort of pinch valve -- fingers. When the yeast has been removed you just roll the end up and close it with a little clip. I used a clothes peg and you can see it working in the last photo.

Its a design thing - fittings mean expense, lack of flat packing, a need to open the fermenter and fiddle with it etc etc. No fittings means it is simple and able to be easily cleaned and sanitised. And easy to clean and sanitise is pretty much the most important thing to consider in the design of anything in a brewery.

Gotta read those brewing texts... plant design is massive for proper cleaning. Pipe diameter, fluid velocity, vortex and turbulence patterns. Not too vital in a normal HB setting... but if you are truly looking for automation that stuff will become important.

You seen those water features in peoples gardens -- a chunk of bamboo pipe on a pivot that fills up with water then overbalances and tips itself out.... repeat. Think about a version of that for your grain measurement. Thats more what Bigfridge was talking about. You count the number of times it tips, you know how much tips out each time and you get your weight measurement. And leave out grain elevators altogether if you can...go with gravity. Grain elevators (especially damn bucket elevators) are a pain in the arse.

look at this page - substitute a stream of grain for the stream of water and add a little jigger to count the tips and turn off your grain flow - Bob's your mothers brother. Or a lot of breweries just use a time of flow. Silo opens for x seconds per unit of weight. Not particularly accurate, but not too bad either.

Basically you need to start with a grain silo at the top of the stairs and work your way down in a tower. Silo (or silos if you plan to use more than one type of grain), Weigher, Graincase, Mill, Grist case, Masher, Mash tun.

 

[RdeVjun]

You seen those water features in peoples gardens -- a chunk of bamboo pipe on a pivot that fills up with water then overbalances and tips itself out.... repeat. Think about a version of that for your grain measurement. Thats more what Bigfridge was talking about. You count the number of times it tips, you know how much tips out each time and you get your weight measurement. And leave out grain elevators altogether if you can...go with gravity. Grain elevators (especially damn bucket elevators) are a pain in the arse.

look at this page - substitute a stream of grain for the stream of water and add a little jigger to count the tips and turn off your grain flow - Bob's your mothers brother.

Bugger me Thirsty Boy, that's what I know as a Tipping Bucket, although was there supposed to be a link in there? Anyway, most of the world's rainfall measurements are actually made with a Pluviometer which is a small version, we use large versions for surfacewater hydrology but most pictures of them are behind subscriptions, they're just a much bigger pluvio though.
Simple to sense, just a proximity or reed switch and most dataloggers and interfaces can handle switch closure or pulse inputs, their calibration is reasonably stable at low rates, say <20 tips/ minute but the manifold can have a serious impact on performance with fluids (no citation, personal experience). I only use them in pluvios nowadays, but I have seen some enormous ones up to 1.8m along the axis. I had no idea they would be useful for solids though, only ever used them for fluids!

 

[yardy]

Basically you need to start with a grain silo at the top of the stairs and work your way down in a tower. Silo (or silos if you plan to use more than one type of grain), Weigher, Graincase, Mill, Grist case, Masher, Mash tun.

:lol:

 

[rwmingis]

I am still on the fence as to wether 1/4" Outside diameter & 4.7mm (3/16") Inside Diameter tube is too small for the wort side of the system. The overflow tubes which will be used for cleaning will be 1/2" OD & 3/8" ID to allow for passing stray grains, twigs, hops, roaches etc. Think I may have caused some confusion earlier where I mentioned the wrong ID of the smaller tubing.

Back in this now...

Bandito, you might want to use bigger tubing if possible, the 4.7mm ID hose will give you a lot of back pressure. The graph below gives you the friction head of 1m of 4.7mm ID tubing at 60C for various flow rates. In this case, using 1m of tubing at 7L/min, you'd have 10m of head or 15psi. To get the value for 3m of tubing just multiply the friction head from the graph by 3, so 30m of head or 45psi. You'll need a decent pump if you using more than a meter of tubing, and that's before you start adding valves, elbows, and fittings...

The flow rate is in L/min

 

[Bandito]

Thanks thaps bob! I'm currently redoing the pfd - I have temporarily deleted all but one fermenter, and using gravity and now head height of pipes to try an eliminate as many valves as possible. I am planning on using the concept you have shown in the graph to make use of gravity valves - make the head height high enough and the inside diameter small enough, and you have effectively created two valves out of one (one being a machanical valve that will take all the fluid when open, then the gravity valve takes the rest when it is closed. In the zone atm so gotta go.

Oh, by gravity valve I mean say you are pumping into a T piece, one outlet is connected to a valve to control the flow, but the other outlet is perhaps a much smaller inside diameter and goes up mabee 1 meter before turning 180 degrees and going back down - thus, the head height limitation is used for good rather than evil!

Of course, the same could be possible in the reverse - increase the diameter enough and the weight of the fluid in the vertical section of the gravity valve will overwhelm the open normal valve and thus will come to equilibrium when open before fluid passes through the gravity valve threshhold.

Oh, and the gravity valve term I just made up - not sure if it exists or not for real.