hi guys.
Hope you can give me some advice about wich path to follow. Brewtroller or this.
I have a gas fired RIMS, that i',m about to rebuild to electrical. I'm brewing in a basement...
As i'm writing, it's a standard gas fired Sabco Brew Magigm with 15 gal converted us-kegs, with 15 gal kegs as fermenters. The fermenters have their own fridge with external thermostat. I also have a sabco chiller with pump and aereation stone.
In the very near future I'm goring to 100 L (aprox 27 gal) kettles, I've bought som cheap stainless pots, which will be fitted to works as boil kettle, mash-tun and HLT. They will all be equiped with 11 kW electrical heater running 400 Volts.
My present fermenters will be expanded with the retired kettels by removing the top of them, and weling them to the bottom of the presen fermenters, they will be euipped with a cnical bottom, with bottom tri-clamp-outlet, sample valve, and carbonation stone, removable CIP-tank-washer, and put ind the fridge.
The mashtun, will be equipped with rakes for cutting the upper part of the grain-bed. (Found one in Holland, that fits my pots).
On the brewey, I need to control the brewing, very close to "press-a-button" solution, with recipe upload, and temperature logging etc. When transferring the wort i want to control the wort temperature and turn oxygen valve, and the pump on or of.
In the fermentors i need to monitor temperature and maybe pressure, and the possibillity to open/close a valve in the top of the fermenter.
I possible i would be nice if the was a CIP program for the brewhouse as well as the fermentors.
I don't know whic system to rely on, and what i have found until now, both this system and the Brewtroller can do it.
I'm not sure thoug, and i don't want to spend my time programming and messing around with the electronics.
I wan't to brew, and brew consistenly.
So i need all the advice i can get.
Cheers
Lars
Advice needed. Startup a RIMS+ with 3 fermenters + misc
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JonW
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Re: Advice needed. Startup a RIMS+ with 3 fermenters + misc
Your requirements of "press-a-button" brewing and not wanting to spend any time programming are at odds with each other. There isn't any "out of the box" solution that will do what you want. You will need to spend some time developing your brewing processes and "programming" the system to control those processes. I quoted "programming" because with the BCS, you don't need to know a programming language, but you do need to understand the controllers logic and how to configure it and make it work for your processes. Each persons brewery system and brewing process are different, so you need to make some time investment to program any system to work for your specific needs.
If you were brewing the same recipe over and over, then you could approach the "press-a-button" type brewing, but since recipes are so varied with the times, volumes and hop additions, it is inevitable that you will need to tweak things each time you brew. I can tell you that based on how I have my BCS configured, it only takes me a minute to modify my boil and hop timers for each different recipe. Neither the BCS or BT units support "recipe upload", so these changes must be done each time you brew if your recipes are different.
I chose the BCS system over the BT system because I wanted a solution that was as close to an out of the box solution as possible. I often program micro controllers and build my own circuit boards for many projects, but for my brewing system, I wanted to use something that I didn't need to spend any time writing code or creating interfaces.
As for your fermenters, I would get the BCS-462 and use it to run both your brew system and fermenters at the same time. My BCS system runs two kegerators and a fermenter 24x7 and then also does my brew days. I don't need to unhook anything or reassign anything as the system supports 8 temp probes.
If you were brewing the same recipe over and over, then you could approach the "press-a-button" type brewing, but since recipes are so varied with the times, volumes and hop additions, it is inevitable that you will need to tweak things each time you brew. I can tell you that based on how I have my BCS configured, it only takes me a minute to modify my boil and hop timers for each different recipe. Neither the BCS or BT units support "recipe upload", so these changes must be done each time you brew if your recipes are different.
I chose the BCS system over the BT system because I wanted a solution that was as close to an out of the box solution as possible. I often program micro controllers and build my own circuit boards for many projects, but for my brewing system, I wanted to use something that I didn't need to spend any time writing code or creating interfaces.
As for your fermenters, I would get the BCS-462 and use it to run both your brew system and fermenters at the same time. My BCS system runs two kegerators and a fermenter 24x7 and then also does my brew days. I don't need to unhook anything or reassign anything as the system supports 8 temp probes.
Re: Advice needed. Startup a RIMS+ with 3 fermenters + misc
I agree with Jon, push-button and no-programming are not usually said in the same context. Although if you added the phase "paid somebody to do the programming for me" you might be there. In the industrial automation world, the price of hardware (PLC controllers, HMI's) is considered almost irrelevant. This is because the most substantial cost is that of labor involved in making it work for your application, i.e., programming and engineering.
The BCS tries to buck that trend. It is designed around the idea of giving users a rich graphical interface into intuitive programming. It gives anyone, regardless of their background, a way to put their ideas into action without prior experience. You still have to program it, but using the concepts that we've outlined, anyone that's willing to invest some effort will be able to do it. Like Jon said, every system is unique, only you know how you want it to work. The BCS is a tool.
<disclaimer, I don't own a Brewtroller but I believe the following is correct. If anyone sees errors, please PM me and I can edit/remove as appropriate>
The Brewtroller is a more single-use controller, it is designed with a specific system in mind. If your requirements match the base system identically, you're done. From what I gather, this is a 3 vessel HERMS setup, 'coil in the HLT' setup. If you want something different, it might be supported or you might get lucky and find that someone else has already requested the same change. If that's the case you can check out the source code, uncomment a few #define's at the header of the C code, download the Arduino integrated development environment suite and compile the new source, and then upload the newly created binary to the controller. If your tweak doesn't exist, perhaps one of the devs will add it for you, or of course you can add it yourself. Many people claim that the Brewtroller is more flexible. C is undoubtedly a more generic programming language than the BCS state machines and/or ladder logic. But the whole point of the BCS is to allow users to tweak processes on the fly, which requires an interface with a higher level of abstraction.
Reading through your requirements, I see a few things that might lean you one way or another:
Foot note: There is support in the BCS Open Interface API for a full recipe import function, but no one has written the code. It would be a matter of reading the BCS process, parsing the beerXML, updating the appropriate variable and loading the process back on the BCS, which could all be done with a single mouse click. A few have looked into it, but they all found its easier to tweak the temp of a running process than it is go through the conversion process. But we're always looking for volunteers!
The BCS tries to buck that trend. It is designed around the idea of giving users a rich graphical interface into intuitive programming. It gives anyone, regardless of their background, a way to put their ideas into action without prior experience. You still have to program it, but using the concepts that we've outlined, anyone that's willing to invest some effort will be able to do it. Like Jon said, every system is unique, only you know how you want it to work. The BCS is a tool.
<disclaimer, I don't own a Brewtroller but I believe the following is correct. If anyone sees errors, please PM me and I can edit/remove as appropriate>
The Brewtroller is a more single-use controller, it is designed with a specific system in mind. If your requirements match the base system identically, you're done. From what I gather, this is a 3 vessel HERMS setup, 'coil in the HLT' setup. If you want something different, it might be supported or you might get lucky and find that someone else has already requested the same change. If that's the case you can check out the source code, uncomment a few #define's at the header of the C code, download the Arduino integrated development environment suite and compile the new source, and then upload the newly created binary to the controller. If your tweak doesn't exist, perhaps one of the devs will add it for you, or of course you can add it yourself. Many people claim that the Brewtroller is more flexible. C is undoubtedly a more generic programming language than the BCS state machines and/or ladder logic. But the whole point of the BCS is to allow users to tweak processes on the fly, which requires an interface with a higher level of abstraction.
Reading through your requirements, I see a few things that might lean you one way or another:
- monitor pressure of fermentor - Brewtroller has pressure inputs, BCS does not. The only analog inputs the BCS (currently!) supports are temperature sensors.
- Data logging - BCS handles logging natively (stores internally). I think the BT has some support for this if you connect a PC via serial port (the PC polls the BT, and saves it, requires PC connected full time)
- Recipe import/upload - Not sure if BT handles this, I think they were working on it at one time (you can check their forum). The BCS allows you to save your processes as a file, so that you can save/reload different recipes, although they have to be entered into the BCS (not imported from other software).
- Fermentation/Brewing - The BCS supports doing this simultaneously. BT needs separate hardware (Fermtroller). Or you could reflash the binary to make a BT a FT.
Foot note: There is support in the BCS Open Interface API for a full recipe import function, but no one has written the code. It would be a matter of reading the BCS process, parsing the beerXML, updating the appropriate variable and loading the process back on the BCS, which could all be done with a single mouse click. A few have looked into it, but they all found its easier to tweak the temp of a running process than it is go through the conversion process. But we're always looking for volunteers!
Re: Advice needed. Startup a RIMS+ with 3 fermenters + misc
Thank you for your replies.
It's true that you need both a FermTroller and a BrewTroller, so it's interesting that the BSC can do both at the same time.
I like the BSC interface, a lot, and reaaly like not do program.
I actually can program, but in my off-work hours, in wan't to do something else.
Thanks, again for your help. Most apriciated.
lars
It's true that you need both a FermTroller and a BrewTroller, so it's interesting that the BSC can do both at the same time.
I like the BSC interface, a lot, and reaaly like not do program.
I actually can program, but in my off-work hours, in wan't to do something else.
Thanks, again for your help. Most apriciated.
lars