An Automated brewery

[Peter Smith]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1708005089/picobrew-zymatic-th...

Ok I know that as "brewers" most more from kits -> AG biab - AG 3 vessell   but what about building a fully automated brewing system 

obviously it can be done, see above,  rather then debate if this is desirable (for many it wont be)   RATHER what are the engineering issues you would face....

thinking monitoring of levels, blockages  cleaning etc etc

be a cool project to take a reasonable electric brewery and play with automation......    

[Barry]

Incredibly successful kickstarter that.

Been a while since I looked into that project, seems like they've back-filled a ton of detail that was missing early on, and answered a lot of brewer's curly questions – regarding DMS, gravity and hop limitations, all that stuff.

Biggest concern I would have about it is chilling. As we learned in that off-flavours session with Bradford that unquestionably has to produce DMS eh.

[Peter Smith]

have been looking on aliexpress for a water volume flow pump, ie I want to be able to dial in 19.4L  and get that amount transfered thinking a combination of cheap flow meter, cheap simple pump and cheap basic plc...   also use same the plc to run the grant pump 

I dont want to fully automate ie I still want to chuck in the hops by hand etc and stir the mash, just want to get strict volume control.... if its easy and cheap.

[Barry]

I'm not sure there's such a thing as a cheap flow meter, but if you find one I'm sure plenty of people would be interested.

I have to admit to having no desire to automate flow of liquid in my system.

[G S]

Had a little experience in this from a previous life. One option needs a flow meter, a pump, an automated valve, and a control box typically known as a batch controller. So the black box works out that x litres per second, for y seconds, and it takes z seconds to close then valve, = what to do. Its an expensive way to go, won't be that accurate, but is used for 1,000s of litres.

The other option is a dosing pump. Its a displacement pump (cylinder and piston) which might have an adjustable size of piston. So it knows it delivers x litres for each stroke of the pump. 

A third option might be monitoring the level of the water in the receiving or delivering vessel?

[Peter Smith]

yeah I have a couple of Peristaltic Dosing Metering Pumps I got off Grays online from a laundry liquid control system, that can do x L per min and each turn is a known volume....   the issue is building a controller that gives me x L   where I can easily change x, was thinking perhaps a raspberry Pi brew type controller.... that can do a number of things.    most of these pumps work on x L per how not "I want x L as fast as possible"....

[Peter Smith]

yes BUT the DMS boils off during the boil so if you boil 90 mins there isn't AS much left during whirlpool etc  too long a boil and he mentioned that causes other issues....   also I personally think a really hard boil is best not a mellow one.    I think if it hard a fan at the back that would easily extract the dms.... and a lot of steam.   the issue with pot lid is the dms condenses on the lid and drops back in,   its parts per billion....    I mad a DMS bomb once as I had lost one element and put lid on to keep boil going...  mine must have had huge amounts as it was way way worse then his taste sample and as it matured in bottles it got even more pronounced.    that batch was worse then kit twang...

http://beersmith.com/blog/2012/04/10/dimethyl-sulfides-dms-in-home-...

[Barry]

The strongest message I took away from that off-flavours tasting was that no-chilling would result in DMS pretty much every time. Reason I took that away so strongly is that it's something I've plenty of experience in – I've never chilled and I pretty much always get DMS. One of my biggest reasons for making sure a chiller is part of the new brewery, no excuses.

Even if you boil strongly for 90 minutes, if you don't chill DMS continues to be made in quantities you can taste (especially for lighter beers where there's nowhere for it to hide).

They go to great pains to point out that pro brewers that have tasted beers made with the Pico haven't picked any off flavours, but because the chilling and fermenting side of the process isn't covered by the machine or automated they kind of leave that up to the user.

[Adam Sparks]

Im still on the fence about no chill eh…. There's only so much SMM (the dms pre-cursor) in the malt and boiling for 90 minutes or more should reduce the precursor to very minimal amounts thus reducing the formation of DMS after boil. a Good healthy ferment should then scrub out the converted DMS to acceptable levels.

I sometimes feel like its  maybe more to do with ingredients (base malt) than it is process if you follow the above rules.

Ive had some issues with some no chill beers but Ive also won gold at nhc with a no chill beer, so who knows?

There are some very notable american home brewers using this machine now and so far no reports of any DMS issues. Id love one!

[Peter Smith]

Maybe the pro home brewers are doing an external chill??? 

Take a look at this site as well

http://www.brewbot.io/

I was thinking last night while brewing, that from the moment my sparge finished until the beer was chilled and in a carboy,  that it could very easily have been automated,   I did 4 hop additions, then chilled.....  all easy to automate.  So I could just come back and pitch later on....

[Adam Sparks]

That sounds awesome Guy! Whats the plan? start your brew day form the office and head home to wort boiling ? :)

[Barry]

I've golded too at NHC with no-chill beers, but (and it's a big but) both were dark (mild, and American brown). Any light coloured beer I've ever entered has done very poorly, in any competition – NHC, WBC, Limbo. No mention of DMS but then I don't recall ever getting the judging sheets for any of them except perhaps WBC (too long ago to remember what the faults were or whether there was even any notes).

You can be on the fence about whether you care about it, but the scientific fact of the matter is that DMS continues to be converted if the wort temperature is above 60deg. It's impossible to boil off every last bit of SMM. A 90min boil is absolutely a good idea, but it should be combined with rapid cooling. Read this.

[Adam Sparks]

Can't argue with the science, its going to be in your beer. But sometimes its detectable and sometimes its not. Id chill most of the time but I wouldn't dissuade someone from using no chill… meh… hence the fence :)