OrangePiBrew - OpenSource Beer brewing system

Quickie · Published in 2015-11-15 17:49:45

¿Ever dreamed to produce you own beer with few resources and in a Open-Source friendly environment?This is the main goal of OrangePiBrew.

This project could be useful for those collectivities who want to produce their own products and share the experience with other fellows.

Main idea is to convert a small typical mechanical brewing system into a OrangePi powered automated brewing process.
This will cover the following processes: prepatarion, mash and boil.

Brewing hardware involved on the process would be: 3 pots, 2 probes, 2 pumps and a coil, tubes and faucets.
OrangePi additional shields/hardware : Relay shield, 5" LCD to use with lvds interface, touchscreen and a joystick shield.
Software: Receipe intregration with Brewtarget (Open Source Software)

OrangePI OS: Debian
Project framework: Mono for Debian

Kindly please vote and review. Thank you in advance!

fritz · Published in 2015-11-15 18:54:14

I use a simple temperatur-controller, but why not....
good luck!

KIKI · Published in 2015-11-20 21:59:02

Great idea!

makama80 · Published in 2015-11-20 22:51:36

Edited by makama80 at 2015-11-20 23:04

Idea is nice, but not realistic (to use Orange Pi) I am afraid... I think I can say this, since I am a brewer for about 4 years now. I started with mashing / boiling on an electric plate (3 kW), but this is nice for 10 liters maximum. I controlled the heating plate with an el-cheapo Sestos PID controller and Pt100 temp sensor. I used a simple battery drill for continuous stirring. Worked like a charm, about €20 of electronics and €10 for the 2nd hand drill (battery was defective, connected an external power supply).

Now I have a 60 liter brewing kettle and use a 15kW gas furnace. I only use a temp sensor and the PID controller for measuring during mashing. I do not use the PID functionality anymore. The mass of the mash is enough for regulating the temperature (gas) by hand: temp decrease is slow and easy to intercept. If you want to automate the the gas furnace, you need a gas solenoid and electric ignition on your gas furnace as most simple solution. Doable, but a good quality gas solenoid is not that cheap. Even better would be a full-blown gas regulator, electronic ignition and / or pilot / stand by mode of the furnace.

On top of this, you need the orange Pi to control this (you would need control and PID software, click here for an explanation of PID), while an el-cheapo PID controller and temp sensor can do the job for you.... Brewtarget is nice, but has no controlling features until now.

If you have other ideas, please share them: off course I am interested in improvement!

fritz · Published in 2015-11-21 16:02:16

Yeah, let's talking about Beer brewing!
This discussion is certainly more interesting and motivates me more then all the others in this forum.

I use a 12V wiper motor for stiring my mash and a "classic" STC-1000 for controlling the fermentation temperature on my modified fridge.

Quickie · Published in 2015-11-23 02:04:53

makama80 replied at 2015-11-20 22:51
Idea is nice, but not realistic (to use Orange Pi) I am afraid... I think I can say this, since I am ...

Hi makama80,

First of all thanks for posting and voting. Unfortunately I see that you've voted "no", and this certainly does not help us in the initial testing/programming process as long as we need at least 70% of positive votes to be able to obtain a OrangePI sample and start the project. I hope that after debating your post and giving some more information we can change the overall vision of it.

I must admit that I don't have the same brewing experience, but I've previously worked with Arduino and I program quite frequently on c# and came across a big challenge:

- A colleague had a traditional brewing system (Based on a HERMS system, with 4kW resistor and 70 liter pots)
- I get across a development board called "OrangePi" that looked nice, but there weren't any interesting projects for it.

After talking with him about the project, he showed interest in the chance of automating some processes of the actual system, that where merely mechanical/electrical, and add some intelligence to the whole process. That's how the idea came.

The initially planned PIDS are solid state relays with it's temperature probe and regulator which will be governed by OrangePI using it's GPIO.
We don't intend to use a gas heater to control the temperature, as you've stated it's expensive and our initial goal is, at least, design something functional with it's limitations.

Thank you for posting!

Kernel87 · Published in 2015-11-23 18:17:20

I want to see more information about the proyect! It seems really interesting the way to automatize the process like the industries. Good luck!!

zgoda · Published in 2015-12-7 23:33:36

I'm a homebrewer for 5 or 6 years now and all my brewhouse can be controlled with much simpler things, eg. to control temperature distribution in mash vessel you need 2 temp sensors and simple arduino to calculate difference - then you may control an agitator with relay. Electric heating of any bigger m/t than 23 ltr is not viable, if you want step mashing - other than that single step mashing does not require any control, just good insulation. All other things are better done manually, perhaps with some support from sensors but that may be controlled by much simpler and cheaper arduinos. Homebrewer's brewhouses are usually optimized for simplicity and ease of maintenance - remember, 90% of brewing is cleaning. You don't want to spend 30 mins disconnecting various things just to flush m/t.

I do see use for OPi - in cellar management, dispense control (if you want to know where your beer did go).

na1pir · Published in 2016-2-28 23:47:17

Count me in... My brother brews a bach of beer every month or so... I only drink and help him with techincal stuff - currently temperature monitoring in fermentation chamber is done using esp8266, thingspeak and temperature probe...
When I move and find some extra time I'll make complete diy all grain system controled and monitored with something... I guess orange pi one with wifi dongle or orange pi lite would be great for monitoring and pid control for all brewing stages.

But first something must be done with software, because my orange pi pc is eating through sd card every 2 months or so...

Quickie · Published in 2016-4-3 03:21:45

Hi all,

Sorry for not posting for a long time, but I'm still waiting a response of the admin of the OrangePi forum regarding to the sample acquisition of an OrangePI.
I wrote twice and gave all the relevant data about the project, the number of votes and so on, but I've never had a reply back.

It's a pity as long as the idea is still there, but without an OrangePi it won't be possible to bring it to life.