My first Process

[oakbarn]

FNG Questions:
I have my BCS 462 and have actually accessed it and even hooked up a sensor. I am now ready to start my processes and plan my automation. I will start small and manually do some things such as Pump Control. SSRs will be in my future but not yet.
I have a 45 Gal Stout MLT with two built in thermowells that I have purchased 2 Sensors for.
I have a 30 Gal HLT with built in HERMS although we are using a Chin Chiller for the HERMS as I like the Flow better.
I have 4 Center Inlet Pumps (Mach 809 and Chuggers all with the Chugger Center Inlet heads.)
I have a 20 Gal Blickmann BK and a 40 Gal Stout BK.
Right now I have 3 High Pressure KB4 Banjo Burners that are manually controlled.
I plan to replace the one under the HLT with a low pressure and a Honeywell valve and Pilot.
I also plan to purchase 3 regular ½ x TC “Tees” and 3 x 3” TC sensors.
The normal flow of the wort during Mash is:
MLT Outlet => MLT Butterfly Out => MLT Pump Purge => 90 Elbow => MLT Out Tee (with 3” Sensor) => Green Pump => Trub Filter = Chin Chiller HERMS => MLT In Tee (with 3” Sensor) => MLT In Shutoff Valve (to prevent back flow siphon into HERMS) => MLT Inlet

The normal flow of the hot water during Mash is:
HLT Out => Blue Pump => HERMS Jacket => HLT in Shutoff Valve => HLT Tangential Inlet

The MLT wort will have 4 Sensors. Two in the Tun itself via the Thermowells and One each in the “Tees” on the HERMS flow.
There is a single Sensor in the HLT.

I have manually been doing this with Aubrins PIDS with 3 Sensors (The two Tees and the single in the HLT with analog gauges in the Thermowells.
I am in the process of making a SS rake for the MLT to end some stratification.

My process would be as follows:
Step 1: Heat Strike H20
Heat to preset temp (180 F)
Alarm when temp reached
Step 2: Transfer Strike Water to MLT (Manually)
Step 3: Cross flow Strike Water and HLT Water to desired Strike Temperature.
Manually set valves
Alarm when Temp reached (161 F)
PID Control of Strike Temp for 5 minutes
Step 4: Start Herms Flow and Isolate HLT
Step 5: Pour in Grain
Manually Start Timer
Step 6: Maintain Mash Temperature for set Time (60 Minutes) (154 F)
Alarm at 60 Minutes
Iodine Test
Converted: Step 8
Not Converted: Step 7
Step 7: Not Converted: Mash Additional 10 Minutes
Alarm at 10 Minutes
Iodine Test
Converted: Step 8
Not Converted: Step 7
Step 8: Mash Out
Heat Wort to 165
Alarm at 165
Stop Herms Flow on MLT Green Pump (Manually now: Reason for Alarm)
Step 9: Manually transfer Wort to BK.
Web Button to Start Step 10.
Step: 10 Heat Sparge water in HLT to 170
Maintain at 170
Step 10: Reset Valves and Add Sparge water to MLT
Web Button to Start Timer
Step 11. (10 minutes after web button in Step 10)
Alarm
Manually transfer sparged Wort to BK.
Step 12. Manually Set burner on BK.
Check SG
Step 13. Temp sensor in BK reaches 210
Start Boil Timer
Step 14: Bitter Hop Addition (as per beer) 30 Minutes Boil Time
Alarm
Step 15: Add Water to HLT
Step 16: Heat HLT to 190 and Hold
Step 17: Alarm at 60 Minute Boil time
Check Boil Volume and SG and make adjustments with HLT water.
Step 18: Flow 190 HLT water though HE and HE Outlet hoses.

Step 19: Hop Addition (as per beer) Boil Time 75 Minutes
Step 20: End Boil Alarm (90 minutes)
Remove Hops
Manually Shut off BK Burner

Step 21: Whirlpool Wort for 10 minutes
Step 22: Trub Rest
Step 23: Start Cooling with reflow into BK until desire temp is reached for fermenter
I have a sensor in a Tee on the Out of the HE. In the winter I can almost always immediately start flow to fermenter. In the summer I may have to recycle into the BK for a few minutes:
Reach Fermentation Temp (67F)
Alarm
Step 24: Have a Home Brew!

I will need some initial help with setting this process and any pointers/pitfalls.

What Steps should be PID controlled with Temperature input or should I use a Different method?
Many steps will originally require alarms to let the pump and valve actuators know it is time to go to work and stop sitting around talking.

I want to control the HLT burner and therefore control the Mash Temp with the BCS and have it do some timer functions.
Which probe on the Wort would you use as the Associated Probe for the HLT Burner control?

Any help on any of the suggested Parameters or Methods would be appreciated.

For example: How Many Processes do I need from a normal flow.
I have looked at the demo and have somewhat of an idea on how to program the BCS.

I am going to try to document what I did step by step so I will remember how to do the second program (Fermentation).

[brewstarke]

I'd stick with the hystersis control for your pumps. PID can be used but you'll have to be sure to not cycle the pump on too rapidly or you risk burning it up. I'm sure there's PID coefficients floating in the forum that could work though if you really wanted to go that route.

You're off to a good start. When setting my system up I listed the steps just like you did. I put it in a spreadsheet along with the associated outputs, timers that I'd want running, exit conditions and which state to move on to. After getting it all laid out I grouped the states into processes that were simple and made sense to my system and process. This took me a few tries, mostly because I was "over-engineering" things a bit, I.e. Having a unique state for every little step to automate the whole brewday. I ended up going with just three processes. A mash process, which tells me the hot liquor is ready, times the brewday and mash steps and tells me when to adjust temps (I have a manual gas fired system) the bcs then cycles my wort pump on/off to maintain mash temps via a herms in the hlt. When the mash is ready to go, I turn on the sparge process, which times the sparge and cycles the hot liquor pump on/off via a float switch feeding state changes to the bcs (using a DIN). The I have a boil process which really only runs timers and alarms at hop additions.
There's many ways to skin the cat as they say, that's the beauty of the BCS. Look around the forums for other ideas.

Good luck-

[oakbarn]

Thanks. I simply wrote what I do manually now.
I hope to control the temp of the Mash via a gas valve on the HLT. We have in the past have controlled the Mash by the HLT temp. We will only kill the Mash pump if we have a huge overshoot.

My idea is to have one state is to maintain Mash temp using the Mash Tee In Temp Probe an output to a honeywell valve to fire up if the temp drops. I recycle the HLT water through a pump as well and back into a tangential inlet so it is always mixed well.

[brewstarke]

Sounds similar to my set up- I continuously recirculate the HLT adjusting the flame to try and maintain temps around my mash out ~165-170F. Would like to add control valve to this at some point (or go electric HLT). My wort pump turns on to circulate through the heat exchange coil in the HLT when it needs it. My mash tun is a 10 gal gott cooler though, it holds its temps very well, so if I'm not doing any step mashing I typically don't need to run the wort pump often, only when ramping up for mashout. My probe is on the out side of the mash tun, right at the ball valve in a tee-thermowell so its reading the whats coming out of the mash. My config right now is a 'prep-HLT' state, which gets my strike temp to the target, a 'mash-in' state, where I dough in and hit a button when I'm ready to continue. Then depending on my mash schedule I have a 'protein rest'- 'misc rest'- 'sach rest' state set up with a timer for each state. If I'm only doing a single step (sach rest) mash the timers for the others are set to zero- so the states just jump through them. After mashing I have a 'mash out' state and then a 'complete mash' state which just keeps my a timer running which tracks the length of the brewday. Having the mash steps controlled by the timers allows for some flexibility.