Fully Automated Brewing System Design

[technocat]

Jaycar have a 240V 40A Solid State Relay CAT no. SY-4084 for $47.95 Doesnt say its a zero resistance one. Has control inputs that work from 4V to 30V dc. Have a look at Jaycar.com.au
quote]

Virtual Village on ebay have them for $16.00 + $7.00 P&P, I use two on my system and they work fine. Twist their arm and you will get it cheaper. Jaycar are licensed to print money.

 

[yardy]

why not a decent sized dump valve in the base of the Tun to assist with cleaning ?

for this to work you should be underletting your strike water also (water from HLT flows in under the false bottom)

to CIP after the spent grain has been dumped your rinse/spray water would first flow from the top and then from the underlet, everything goes out the dump valve.

One thing to consider is instead of dumping the mash tun why not use a large valve and dump the grain?

good idea


another thing to consider is the steam from the kettle and the placement of the pipe from the hop distributor, ( i refuse to say hop hopper ) steam and residue from the hops will get messy in that pipe.

cheers

 

[lonte]

... you could potentially do the whole brew in one vessel, so no issues with pumping etc, would keep the whole pumping part of things to a minimum.

I could kill for one of these http://www.speidels-braumeister.de/shop_co...The-Braumeister - they even have a 200L version too! I'd add a HLT and sparge the grain once lifted from the vessel I think. Neat package all up though.

 

[katzke]

Size of a fridge is my aim. There is also the cleanng chemical tanks which need to be larger than the largest vessel to be cleaned (2 x 30L)- this beefs the overall size up. And was hoping to use a 500W herms (just as an initial guess). But will see what the overall size comes out at in a few weeks.

Well if you change from storing pre mixed chemicals to mixing them in the HLT then you remove that part of the problem. An automated system intended to brew multiple batches should only need a quick rinse after each operation. Even the ring of gunk in the boil kettle should respond well enough to a hot water rinse. If in doubt brew light to dark in color and flavor to keep the brews in style. You could even use a metered system of mixing to mix on the fly. Either of these would remove the need for a single or set of large tanks.

With what you will have tied up in this project flushing cleaners and sanitizers after one use is not unreasonable. Again you can use the HLT for temporary storage when doing a complete system clean. If you do it like a dish washer, then you can reduce the amount of cleaner used by an extended spray of the cleaner.

There are advantages to one time use of cleaners and sanitizers. No need to monitor them for effectiveness.

I find that Powdered Brew Wash is effective enough that a prolonged spray should do the trick. StarSan is a very effective contact sanitizer. You may want to get the new low foam product for this application or the foam may be a problem for you. In either case you would only need enough to fill the longest line plus some so the pump does not cavitate.

 

[komodo]

Ok im gunna sound like a jerk here but personally I think you should just **** off the grain hoppers unless your going to keep them with recipe grain bills. I think if you want the hoppers to actually opperate as I think your intending them (ie to weigh out the ingredients to each grain bill) your going to have countless issues with such small grain bills - especially if you are after repeatability. Not to mention that many recipes have more than 3 grains.

I would piss them off all together you could easily do two brews a day by doing some manual labour and prepering your recipe grain bills yourself. Do one in the morning before work and one when you get home. The rest of the system should take car of cleaning and running itself so all you'd have to do would be to chuck the grains in the tun and hit the go button.

Likewise for the fermenters - piss off the automated distribution system and change over the fermenters when you prepare your grain bill. You'd save a tonne of effort in building something thats going to give you headaches trying to resolve small niggles. 2 batches ever 24 hours is 70L per week. If your drinking 10L of beer per day you have a serious health issue. if you upsized to 12L batches as your being encouraged to thats near on 170L. Lets discount that by 20% due to losses to trub etc and you still looking at 56L and 135L respectively or 2900L to 7000L per year or 320 slabs to 780 slabs per year... Even if your throwing a pissup every weekend 14slabs a week is a lot of beer.

 

[OzMick]

What is air top pressure? Gravity? edit- yea it is.

Due to the position of the pump, it seems I cant pump from fermenter 1 into fermenter 3 without either reversing the pump direction or adding a few more valves. Reversing the peristatic should be fine.

Sorry, I didn't realise the air you had connected was for wort aeration, just used to the way things are done at the big breweries. If you only have a wimpy fish tank pump it won't be powerful enough for what I was trying to describe, and would be connected at the bottom of the tank anyway. That being the case, you might want to think about having air injected inline at the outlet of the wort chiller. Will be easier to clean and only requires a single valve to be controlled regardless of tank number. The problem with having each tank individually aerated is that while not in operation, the tube running to the bottom of each tank will fill with beer and you'll have one helluva time making sure that tube is sanitised. You'll need to macgyver some section of pipe with an airstone inside of it, but would be my preference if I were building something.

What I was trying to describe was that pressurising a tank will hydraulically push a fluid in the same way as a pump, so while it is sort of like gravity, you can effectively push uphill with the pressure difference from one tank to another. 10kpa of pressure is roughly the equivalent of 1m of water head on a pump. You would need the ability to close off all CO2 airlocks and fermenters that can take a small amount of pressure, but gas valves should be cheaper considering you've got overflows on each fermenter to prevent any beer contacting them. Possibly not worth doing though if you can instead simplify the aeration system to just have an inline injection setup, but if gas valves are significantly cheaper than sanitary liquid ones and you have an air compressor that can deliver enough pressure, might still be an option to save a bit of coin.

 

[Zwickel]

..... Not sure if silicon is used in peristatic pumps? so not sure if it can handle repeated squashing?

yes you can. Silicon is an inert material, relatively soft and preferred for usage in peristaltic pumps. All the labaratory analyzers Im working with, are equipped with silicon tubes.

:icon_cheers:

 

[LethalCorpse]

Norprene is also used in peristaltic pumps

 

[rwmingis]

Bandito,

2 things, ocean controls is another option for sourcing supplies like SSR's, they've gotten me out of a few binds, and they're Aussie which is nice. Don't know how their price relates to others however.

With regards to your crush valve, have you considered using a cam or an eccentric wheel (much easier) to crush the hose. You would probably need to put a bit of thin metal plate between the cam and the silicone tube to prevent wear on the tube from rubbing. A cam or an eccentric can help develop heaps more force with less torque. You could make the cam out of wood, or an eccentric wheel with something like 20mm round bar sliced into wafers with an eccentricly located hole for the shaft.

Cheers,

Rob

 

[Bandito]

I could kill for one of these http://www.speidels-braumeister.de/shop_co...The-Braumeister - they even have a 200L version too! I'd add a HLT and sparge the grain once lifted from the vessel I think. Neat package all up though.

Will have to have a good look at that, thanks.

Well if you change from storing pre mixed chemicals to mixing them in the HLT then you remove that part of the problem. An automated system intended to brew multiple batches should only need a quick rinse after each operation. Even the ring of gunk in the boil kettle should respond well enough to a hot water rinse. If in doubt brew light to dark in color and flavor to keep the brews in style. You could even use a metered system of mixing to mix on the fly. Either of these would remove the need for a single or set of large tanks.

With what you will have tied up in this project flushing cleaners and sanitizers after one use is not unreasonable. Again you can use the HLT for temporary storage when doing a complete system clean.

Yea, I agree, concentrate it is me thinks! Dont want to require a doseing pump though, mabee my new grain hopper design will also work for powder, dumped into a pipe and washed out by water.

Ok im gunna sound like a jerk here but personally I think you should just **** off the grain hoppers unless your going to keep them with recipe grain bills.
SNIP..
Likewise for the fermenters - piss off the automated distribution system and change over the fermenters when you prepare your grain bill. You'd save a tonne of effort in building something thats going to give you headaches trying to resolve small niggles.

Hmmm, nah, its a fully automated system it is and a fully automated system it will be. Your post did give me the motivation to think about the grain hopper design and have decided that a gum ball machine type design will work. It is basically a large ball valve but with only one end open - when the open end is facing up, it fills with grain, when it is turned so it is facing down the grain falls out. The weight should be able to be accurately measured initially and all grain additions from that hopper will be in multiples of that amount. Currently making a prototype from a tin of tomatoes that I opened on the side.

Sorry, I didn't realise the air you had connected was for wort aeration, just used to the way things are done at the big breweries. If you only have a wimpy fish tank pump it won't be powerful enough for what I was trying to describe, and would be connected at the bottom of the tank anyway. That being the case, you might want to think about having air injected inline at the outlet of the wort chiller. Will be easier to clean and only requires a single valve to be controlled regardless of tank number. The problem with having each tank individually aerated is that while not in operation, the tube running to the bottom of each tank will fill with beer and you'll have one helluva time making sure that tube is sanitised. You'll need to macgyver some section of pipe with an airstone inside of it, but would be my preference if I were building something.

The air pump that is mounted inside my fridge isnt strong enough to make bubbles if the tube is any more then 10cm below the surface! It wouldnt even pass as a wimpy fish tank pump . Interesting concept. The wort will still be warm when it comes out of the tap water chiller so not sure if I should be airating warm wort. Originally I did have a glycol chiller after the tap water chiller but deleted it for simplicity, space and cost. I have reciently learned that pitching yeast into warm wort is acceptable as it takes a while to use up the oxygen, by which time the wort would be cold - not sure if I subscribe to this as it might shock the yeast. You are right about needing to sanitise the air lines, was hoping to avoid this but nah, it would be needed I think. Lately I have just been airating wort by putting the tube 7cm or so into the wort from the top.

yes you can. Silicon is an inert material, relatively soft and preferred for usage in peristaltic pumps. All the labaratory analyzers Im working with, are equipped with silicon tubes.

:icon_cheers:

Not as good as teflon, but Silicon it is! Thanks.

Neoprene is not clear, I would really really prefer clear tubing all round - had a bad dream last night where there was mould in my brew lines and I was cleaning them out with a pressurised hose - freaky!

Bandito,
With regards to your crush valve, have you considered using a cam or an eccentric wheel (much easier) to crush the hose. You would probably need to put a bit of thin metal plate between the cam and the silicone tube to prevent wear on the tube from rubbing. A cam or an eccentric can help develop heaps more force with less torque. You could make the cam out of wood, or an eccentric wheel with something like 20mm round bar sliced into wafers with an eccentricly located hole for the shaft.

Cheers,

Rob

I did Bob, even the geared motor I am using has a shaft which is flat on one side. The thin piece of metal is what I am looking for but aside from a bearing - holy shit, that it, just mount a bearing on the exxentric cam! Your a geneous Bob! Thats the design!

Well, extremely happy with todays work. We got the grain dosing concept underway, which will also be used for the cleaning powders and hopfully for the hop dispenser too (he he). The tubing for the crushed valves and probably the entire system was decided. The design for the crushed valves was improved and will probably be the final design. and the system was reduced to just one pump! Frekin mad! Thanks for the help!

 

[Zizzle]

Well this thread is hilarious!

But there are a few gems of wisdom here.

... I think you should just **** off the grain hoppers ....

Likewise for the fermenters ...

+1 Totally agree.

If you look at the people who have done successful automation projects (a few have popped up in this thread, and I humbly include myself) they end up simplifying. Lots of shit can and does go wrong. Often the solution is some simple retry logic in software. Over-engineering just gets you in trouble. Especially if you are not and engineer to begin with.

I'd recommend getting a decent working AG setup first. Then automate the easy parts. Get some experience with the trickier parts. Like automated valves. It took me a few different designs to get mine working nicely. And once I did I even reworked my system to need only two of them.

Software is key, and there will be bugs and trial and error. I intended to do the brewbot first in cheap & easy copper, brass and silicon before moving to more stainless.

Also protect your equipment. The brewbot has a flow sensor so it knows when the march pump is running dry or not primed. It has level probes in the vessels so that power is not applied to uncovered heating elements. The valve actuation motors have a series resistor of a few ohms so that they will not burn out if driven to stall against a value stop.

Anyway, enough for now. Lets see some real progress first.

 

[Bandito]

If you look at the people who have done successful automation projects (a few have popped up in this thread, and I humbly include myself) they end up simplifying. Lots of shit can and does go wrong. Often the solution is some simple retry logic in software. Over-engineering just gets you in trouble. Especially if you are not and engineer to begin with.

The software and logic part of the design will come later - Strap yourself in when it does because there will be lots of failsafes' and fallbacks. I am a designer - does that count? or do I have to be a proces engineer that cant make up their mind on anythving?

I'd recommend getting a decent working AG setup first. Then automate the easy parts. Get some experience with the trickier parts. Like automated valves. It took me a few different designs to get mine working nicely. And once I did I even reworked my system to need only two of them.

I dont subscribe to this. Jump in the deep end is what I say! The testing will be done before it is built in the research and development phase.

Software is key, and there will be bugs and trial and error. I intended to do the brewbot first in cheap & easy copper, brass and silicon before moving to more stainless.

Also protect your equipment. The brewbot has a flow sensor so it knows when the march pump is running dry or not primed. It has level probes in the vessels so that power is not applied to uncovered heating elements. The valve actuation motors have a series resistor of a few ohms so that they will not burn out if driven to stall against a value stop.

Obviously these things will be implemented also, and documented in the P&ID phase.

Thanks for the input. There will be a continuous simplification process, but I always start out making it very complex, then simpliflying it - its just the way I work.

Anyway, enough for now. Lets see some real progress first.

The real progress is always done in the design stage - otherwise you just spend ages redesigning and tweaking stuff after its built onlt to find it doesnt work.

 

[Zwickel]

Bandito, Im with Zizzle, sorry mate, you cant do the second step before the first one.

First step should be to get an AG setup running and then, when everything works failsafe, start designing step by step the automation.

Mate, I know exactly what Im talking about, started around 5 years ago with my current AG setup and its automation and Im not yet finished with it, although I gave up the plan to do a full automation, did only a semi automated system.

There are so many things you cant involve into the automation process, you have to do manually. The knowledge you need for automation, youll get whilst brewing manually your first beers.

Nevertheless, I wish you all the best :icon_cheers:


edit: spellnik

 

[katzke]

The air pump that is mounted inside my fridge isnt strong enough to make bubbles if the tube is any more then 10cm below the surface! It wouldnt even pass as a wimpy fish tank pump . Interesting concept. The wort will still be warm when it comes out of the tap water chiller so not sure if I should be airating warm wort. Originally I did have a glycol chiller after the tap water chiller but deleted it for simplicity, space and cost. I have reciently learned that pitching yeast into warm wort is acceptable as it takes a while to use up the oxygen, by which time the wort would be cold - not sure if I subscribe to this as it might shock the yeast. You are right about needing to sanitise the air lines, was hoping to avoid this but nah, it would be needed I think. Lately I have just been airating wort by putting the tube 7cm or so into the wort from the top.

A proper counter flow chiller will chill to Ale pitching temp in one pass. The exception may be if you are using warm water.

I think I would stay with a counter flow chiller so you do not have to back flush like a plate chiller. The Chillzilla is a great chiller but costs a few bucks. Better ask the Easter Bunny or Santa for one. The big difference in the design is the tubing is not round inside. It was designed by someone that must know fluid dynamics. The wort is in turbulence so all of it gets exposed to the coolant.

 

[technocat]

Bandito, Im with Zizzle, sorry mate, you cant do the second step before the first one.

First step should be to get an AG setup running and then, when everything works failsafe, start designing step by step the automation.

Mate, I know exactly what Im talking about, started around 5 years ago with my current AG setup and its automation and Im not yet finished with it, although I gave up the plan to do a full automation, did only a semi automated system.
edit: spellnik

I couldn't agree more. I went through the same process couldn't see the point of it all as it achieved very little except to bolster ones ego at enormous financial expense.

:icon_cheers:

 

[Bandito]

Well, dont take my determination to do this as ignorance or not listening, but the project will go ahead as planned. It is the 7th day and there are only 27 weeks to go till deadline, but am way ahead of schedule .

Redrew a fair bit this morning. Removed the cleaning and brew water tanks, redrew the grain hoppers, added cleaning powder hoppers and updated the valve list - currently at 32 valves plus 2 float valves. I realised that similar designed hoppers for hops wouldnt work so decided on a carosel type design like Zwickel's, a motorised flap in the lid of the kettle should avoid steam wetting the pipe (similar for the grain pipe too).

Tonight I'll start adding tube sizes and specifications, and try to get something workable for the air in and out on the fermenters.

View attachment AUTOBREW_01_rev_F.pdf

 

[paulwolf350]

............... a motorised flap in the lid of the kettle should avoid steam wetting the pipe ................

you have a lid on the kettle?

AFAIK The idea is to boil off the nasties, so they are carried away with the steam. With a lid on you will introduce these unwanted volatiles back into your wort.


Paul

 

[Bandito]

Well, I will need at least a half lid to achieve the purpose above. I was thinking of an exhaust, but just realised it wouldnt get cleaned. hmmm.

 

[bigfridge]

Well, dont take my determination to do this as ignorance or not listening, but the project will go ahead as planned. It is the 7th day and there are only 27 weeks to go till deadline, but am way ahead of schedule .
...

Tonight I'll start adding tube sizes and specifications, and try to get something workable for the air in and out on the fermenters.

Mate,

I have to ask - this is just a theoretical exercise for you right ? You don't actually intend to build this do you ?

Yes ? Oh dear - there is just so many actual and potential problems

Just quickly, how do you solve the basic requirement that the grain crushing area must be seperate from the fermentation area to avoid raging lactic infections ?

What about the steam moistening the grain and hop chutes and causing them to clog ?

How does the volitiles driven off during the boil escape without without condensing back into the boil ? Perhaps you like DMS in your lagers.

Where are the failsafe systems and mix proof piping ? There are so many valves that a minor stick or leak will introduce cleaner into your beer or wort. I don't see any overflows to ensure that vessels dont overflow if a valve sticks etc - there should be an outlet to drain that prevents vessels filling past the safe limit.

But anyway, have fun doing whatever you are doing.

Dave

 

[WSC]

Well done and good thinking on this project.

Lots of reasons this won't work or will be difficult BUT people probably said that to the first guy that tried to brew his own beer.

And I'm sure people have all said to most of us...why would you bother brewing, you can just buy it.

The only way we ever learn is by trying new things.

Good luck and good on ya.

:super: You are a pioneer!!!.....with way too much time on your hands...