Beer Church

Beer Church is a group of beer (and a bit of wine) aficionados at Pumping Station: One. Originally a beer tasting and science discussion group, lately Beer Church has been focusing more and more on brewing. Brewing Station: One is the small work area and storage facility in the shop devoted to brewing.

Events

Semi-biweekly Beer Church gatherings take place some Sundays at noon. They generally follow a format of meet & greet, pot luck beer tasting, and discussion of beer, life, and everything.

Brewing Station: One

Brewing Station: One is a steel shelving unit converted (well, being converted) into a storage unit for keeping clean brewing gear (pots, carboys, bottles, bottling equipment, corks, wort chillers, kegs, etc) and a temperature controlled fermenting chamber. We expect to boil in the alley or by the rear entry.

Equipment

Brewing

• 5 gal boiling kettle (Eric Stein)
• 10 gal boiling kettle (Ryan Pierce)
• 5 gal Gott mash tun (Ryan Pierce)
• Hydrometer (Eric Stein)
• Corker (Evan)
• Wine bottles (Evan)
• Wine Carboy (Evan)
• 2 5 gal glass carboys (Ryan Pierce)
• 3 Keggles (Pumping Station: One equipment)
• Wort Chiller Coil (Ryan Pierce)
• Box of Stuff, inc. metal bottle filler, hydrometer, conditioning chemicals, thermometers (Ryan Pierce)
• Metal racking cane (Ryan Pierce)
• pH meter, calibration and storage solutions (Ryan Pierce)
• Mini Fridge for temperature control (Anthony Barker)
• Air conditioner for temperature control (Ryan Pierce)

Dispensing

• 3 Cornelius kegs, 5 gal, ball lock (Ryan Pierce)
• 5 lbs CO2 tank, regulator, w/ 3 port manifold, 2 gas hoses (Ryan Pierce)
• 2 beverage hoses w/ picnic faucets (Ryan Pierce)

This list is incomplete. Please update this page!

Equipment Needed

• Autosiphon?
• Temperature Control System (to be built by Eric Stein, raspberry pi + gpio temperature monitoring + relay system for chiller)
• Siphon hosing
• Electronically sample-able continuous hydrometry system (Steve has an idea, dun dun dun)
• http://ipb.trainerfamily.net/pagesmith/2 beer sculpture - maybe.
• honeywell "glowfly" + http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-4-Electric-Solenoid-Valve-12-volt-DC-VITON-SEAL-B21V-/300600605047?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45fd313977#ht_2101wt_728 propane burner control for mash tun control

Brewing Projects

2012

• Beer 2012.01 (Locktoberfrest) - Irish Stout, extract recipe beer.
• Beer 2012.02 (Hoary Hedgehog) - Irish oatmeal draft stout, all-grain.
• Beer 2012.03 (???) - Pumpkin Spiced Ale, all-grain.

Potential

• http://m.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/09/01/ale-chief-white-house-beer-recipe

Hardware and Software

Chillmon

• Have Chillmon persist state (temperature set point, PID constants)
• Rebuild Chillmon on Occidentalis
• Configure Chillmon application to use shared account
• Replace temp sensors with DS18B20 for more accuracy
• EPICS integration:
  • Expose Chillmon control variables to EPICS
  • Create EPICS control screens
  • Investigate EPICS web interface
  • Display screen for Chillmon

Brewing Station: One

• Electrical insulation of contactor terminals
• Experiment: When the chiller turns off, does it blow hot air into the fermenting space?
• Experiment: In the winter, will the shop drop below our fermentation temperatures, and will we need a heater?
• Real time monitoring of temperature, specific gravity

Brewing

• Modify Keggles for brewing
• Build RIMS or HERMS
  • Propane solenoid, thermocouple, and igniter under PID control (Arduino)
  • Pump, flow meter run by microcontroller (Arduino)
  • Multiple temperature probes (Arduino)
  • Safety gear:
    • Alarm system (stuck flow, propane flame blew out) (Arduino)
    • Emergency shut off switch
  • Raspberry Pi controlling the above via EPICS

Dispensing

• We have a donated refrigerator; convert to kegerator
  • Determine location of critical components so we can safely make cutouts for beverage lines without destroying anything
  • Build internal structure to hold Cornelius kegs
  • Modify thermostat to keep beer at cellar temperature. (A second Chillmon?)
  • Consider plumbing water line for water dispenser / ice maker.
• Add draft tower to the PS:One bar
  • Build draft tower and faucet system
  • Engineer beverage line and faucet chilling

Resources

• http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Complete_Handbook_of_Home_Brewing.html?id=rbQ4NAAACAAJ - An excellent technical handbook on the subject. Contains quite a bit of detail on mash and fermenting biochemistry, as well as a computational model for sugar extraction. When "Don't worry, relax...." isn't enough.
• http://byo.com/stories/projects-and-equipment/article/indices/29-equipment/84-abcs-of-recirculated-brewing-systems - Excellent article on RIMS and HERMS mashing
• http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to-plans/metalworking/4323694 - Some more elaborate brewing setups.
• http://www.winning-homebrew.com/diy.html - Detailed plans on constructing a single tier RIMS system, including burner control, pumps, and automatic sparging.
• http://www.aps.anl.gov/epics/ - EPICS, an Experimental Physics Industrial Control System used by the APS at Argonne, as well as numerous other labs. If it can control a particle accelerator, it can control beer!

Links

• Photos - http://cons.truct.org/album/beerchurch
• Code for brewing monitoring that's installed - https://github.com/eastein/chillmon
• Chillmon Fermenting Status - http://spacemon.pumpingstationone.org:8008