04.2021
After finishing my powerwall project, i was looking for next big project, that will make my brain and my hands. Few years ago, i was employee of ProjectSoft HK company as a programmer. One businness field was system control of sugar factories, brewhouses and mini-brewhouses.
(Czech republic is super-nation in count of mini-brewhouses :) )
At one business trip i had the opportunity to debug and put into production mini-brewhouse in Switzerland (Captain-Mousse). Two owners - brothers, who took out a mortgage to buy i think 50hl four-vessel brewhouse.
I remember one moment when one of the brothers stand up in front of the brewhouse, spread his arms and said: "I don't understand why somebody spend the same money for car. We bought THIS!".
This was fun and at least i knew something about it, but honestly more from process control than from technology point of view. Now i began to be interested on the technology side.
I like beer, my friends and family also, so the project topic is choosen!
Idea
The idea was that i want automation wherever it can be (but sensible). Touch display will show process scheme, temperatures, times and phases. With this i can achieve repeatability and debug recipe and evaluate small changes. I want to brew mostly lagers, but keep the possibility of brewing ALE. The size should be at least for 30l batches. 30l will dissapear at family party quite fast.
This means 50l vessels. I cannot have this in house, no room for that - so i need to build something at the garden.
About the price - i want to push it to the minimum with making DIY of what make sense.
Where to put it
There is article about the brewhouse room/ cellar:
This mini cellar is for lowering the ambient temperature to better reach 0-4°C even in hot summer - with usage of fridge.
Automating mashing
One of the first problems was how to solve mashing. Pump capable of transferring dense hot wort costs around 500$. So i began to experiment with persitaltic DIY pump.
I tried to pump the wort, but the pump should have really big silicon hose (2cm inner dia) and from construction point of view it is no fun. Motor should be very powerfull and the contruction solid from steel. I found some people on the web, they used the brake drum as base, but i think they didn't use it for dense wort anyway.
I was inspired by this method. Connected vessels - with changing mutual height, one can pump the wort by use of gravity. I want this, but simplier. So here is the purpose:
Mash-tun will be 1m higher than lauter tun. Pumping this way is the job of gravity, backforth is by air-pressure connected to inlet of the lauter tun. The dia of the hose should be 1". Hope this will work. :D
(Note: it was not working, the pressure needed is so big, that the vessels cannot hold this and having vessels that can handle this pressure is really expensive, see continuation in articles coming soon)