My android tablet controlled micro (Nano) Brewery

[ellams]

Just thought I'd post a little information and a few photo's about the micro brewery I've been building in my garage, Well I say a micro brewery but it only brews 1 Gallon at a time so I guess it's a nano brewery.

Brewing so small was intentional as I wanted to brew more often so I could play with different brews and things.

Anyway the brewery at the moment consists mainly four items, An Electric heated Hot Liquor Tank, Mashtun , An electric heated copper and a wort cooler. Oh and other bits like the rotating sparge arm, and fermentation enclosure.

The whole thing is controlled via an Android tablet and the plan is to make it as automatic as possible, I've only done a few brews so far as I only got it in a position for brewing a few weeks ago.

Anyway Here are a few photo's of it as it currently is, It's got it's own blog called http://brew.ellams.com/ if you want a more detailed look at it's construction and how it works.

 

[Brewberoza]

Nice :clap:

 

[Dads_Ale]

Really nice set up

 

[hulmea]

This is awesome. I love that sparge arm I have have to steal that :-)

 

[kaferboy]

Thats great thanks for sharing!

 

[dolby147]

Spot on. Looks great :drink:

 

[clibit]

You clever b******. :hat:

 

[Manxnorton]

Blummin 'eck that's awesome m8....well smart

 

[thear25]

Very very clever, something I am hopefully going to set up to. Love the graphics of the mimics, very professional. Been through your blog but couldnt find any comments about your level probes/transmitters. Mind sharing how you control that?

 

[ellams]

I've actually currently only got two level switches/sensors. A high level switch and a level sensor, Both in the Hot Liquor Tank. As I'm metering from the Hot Liquor Tank to the other vessels this gives me enough information to brew.
Although I could probably do with a level switch in the copper to ensure that I always cover the heating element before boiling, But currently the tablet app just prompts me to confirm when it's covered.

The picture below shows the lid of the hot liquor tank with temperature probe at the bottom, Analog level sensor above it and then the high level switch above that.

The high level switch is similar to this one on ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-Stai...971?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3f3639f29b

And the level sensor is actually a fuel level indicator, But basically consists of lot's of reed switches all the way up the shaft to give an analog resistance on the wires. It's called a KUS S5 Fuel Level Indicator Tank, If you do a search for that on ebay or amazon I think it's on there.

I was going to try and use other methods like infrared or ultrasonic but all had problems so just decided to keep it simple.