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Linux is an Obvious Choice for Automating the Beer-Brewing Process (Video)
Linus Torvalds, Jon 'maddog' Hall, and many other names closely associated with Linux are also closely associated with beer. (Ed. note: I have personally watched them associate with beer, and may have even joined them.) It comes as no surprise, therefore, when Linux advocate and LinuxAutomation.org founder Kurt Forsberg talks about using Linux to control his beer brewing. Kurt is a strong believer in Linux Automation who talks about home thermostats, sprinklers, and many other application, "anything you can automate..." but, he adds, "we spend all our time brewing beer so we haven't explored many of those yet." He says this with a big smile, of course. And if you want to keep up with Linux Automation on Faceboook, go ahead; like everyone + dog they have a Facebook page.
because we love beer.
The problem Microsoft has with Google, is that they got on this market first.
Yes I really do!
Arduino is a better choice. This guy is trying to put a 350 into a Vespa.
Is this not really a summary, but a plagiarism of an article?
I don't drink any form of alcohol, and I don't understand why that would be necessary. Life is too short to waste on liquid drugs. Do something useful instead! Clear head is your friend.
The traditional Unix approach to computing, having a lot of small programs that do simple thing, combined with "Everything as a file" makes these systems very good at automating stuff. While systems like VMS or Windows was designed to run larger programs, and access libraries.
This makes Linux/Unix very good at automation, as it makes it easy to combine a lot of simple steps and get them scheduled and run in order without having to do a lot of extra programming. To automate using other OS's it usually means you will need to write a program to do the work.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Using to produce it an operating system that have tatooed "Free as in beer" at the chest?
even running Linux is a bit heavy handed. To be honest, a microkernel OS, like QNX or similar, would probably be a better choice. It's a lot more streamlined and lightweight and is more than capable of doing everything required in home brewing.
as a controls engineer, l would love to try some linux automation, is there a IDE for ladder logic?.... I just couldnt bear writing so many case statements.
and can't for the life of me figure out how a computer would have helped.
This got me into brewing, in the first place:
http://www.lemis.com/grog/brewing/
I've seen an indoor garden monitored and controlled by Linux on a Raspberry Pi.
One advantage over microcontrollers is that the system is powerful enough to also visualize the data and even drive a web interface.
With an Arduino you would need a second computer for that anyway.
But how else will they sell off the generated slashvertisement leads to Acxiom?
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
I have to say, I brew beer at home (using convenient methods and frugal recipes) and have been wonderfully surprised at how creative the homebrew + Raspberry Pi beer automation community has become. For example, BrewPi (using Arduino + Raspberry Pi I believe : http://brewpi.com/), an easy dashboard for taps (http://www.wired.com/design/2013/02/raspbeery-pi/).
I should bookmark more...
As valid as the question is, it does not really make so much sense.
Beer brewing is pretty simple. There is no real challange in the programming of a computer to comtrol the process.
However building a brewing device IS. The point is: you need a pot with heater and theromstat, the pot should be hygenic. Stainless steel is likely the choice. You need a way to measure the fill level (to replace evaporing water), you need to stirr the liquid. Finally you want to be able to seperate the waste from the beer.
All this is a mechanical and engineering challange. So first I would look how home beer brewing machines are constructed and how they work. Then I would ask my self how I can use a program running on linux to controll such a thing.
The point is: cleaning that brewing pot is pretty hard and awfull. So you want one which is easy to clean. Easy to clean means: the construction is thought out.
Running a heater for 55 minutes to keep the brew on 65 degrees centigrade is a joke for a programmer.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Arduino is far more restrictive than Linux is in that you're forced to write the automation code in the arduino language but if you don't already know that language you have to take time to learn it. By using off the shelf or even hardware you already have lying around collecting dust you can automate just about anything in virtually any language supported by linux. Arduino is also a lot more expensive by the time you buy all the necessary shields it takes to be able to interface with the hardware like the burners flame detector, solenoid valves and sparker ignition.
Your comment about needing shields to interface to the external world makes no sense, you'll need the same kinds of interfaces for the PC too.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Exactly but we can make those interfaces far less expensive and require far fewer parts on the interface PCB so it makes it a lot easier to build yourself saving time and money.
#cat /dev/beer/tap > /dev/mouth
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
How can you make it far less expensive and fewer parts than an Arduino shield? No additional IO chips are needed, so you only need the actual hardware you want to control plus a few cents worth of male headers. The only way to make it cheaper would be if you were sending them out for free already made.
FTFS
...Linux advocate and LinuxAutomation.org founder Kurt Forsberg...
Working as an engineer in automation, I thought, "Hey, maybe I'll check out this linuxautomation.org site!"
The entire website consists of a few paragraphs about how great it is to use open source for automation, plus it has a few links to linuxfestnorthwest.org, a link to their Facebook page, and an email link.
That's it.
What exactly did he 'found'?
Why use a small PLC with a few IO points
Why does video on Slashdot require Flash? If Wired can achieve HTML5 video with WebM support (http://video.wired.com), why can't Slashdot?
Arduino is also a lot more expensive by the time you buy all the necessary shields it takes to be able to interface with the hardware like the burners flame detector, solenoid valves and sparker ignition.
A couple dollars worth of logic level drivable relays, or some cheaper ones and a transistor? Of course if you don't want to wire it yourself and want something you just plug in, it will be more expensive, about the same price as something similar for a PC...
Because it's free, as in beer?
will obviously use microsoft.
Thank you Roblimo for posting this video! It has shot our facebook likes up a lot today and generated a lot of interest. We have been very slow in writing documentation and building the website because we spend so much time brewing beer in preparation in launching a commercial brewery hopefully this year. We also spent a lot of time brewing batches of beer that were served at after party for LinuxFest Northwest where the interview took place. If we didn't spend so much time brewing and working on starting a commercial brewery we would have far more time to devote to this project. If there is anyone in the Seattle area that would like to help create documentation for this project we would love to have you over and demonstrate the automation system and it's electronics. We can't pay you any money but we do brew a lot of test batches of beer in trying to profect them for our commercial launch and we do often need to offload beer to free up kegs :). Contact us either on Facebook, thebeerdudes@linuxautomation.org or our mailing lists: http://list.zenify.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/softwaredev - or - http://list.zenify.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hardwaredev
If you want to hack together some automation around a linux PC then go nuts..... but to then make a website and video about how awesome it is? Really??
PLC's have a been around for years and many are dirt cheap - $100 CPU's and less than $10 per I/O. You wont hit memory limits in them (not in a brewery anyway) and they will run all day everyday doing one thing only, but doing it really well. The modules are easily replaceable which minimises downtime, and most of them use a standardised language (ladder logic) so that the next guy that comes along can understand it too. Now that is obvious.
If you want to fiddle more than that - and most poeple do - PLC's integrate with PC's just fine via Modbus (serial or ethernet) so that you can read or write data from them. Common packages to integrate with them are supervisory control systems (SCADA) or a data historians. There are plenty of commercial packages out there - Wonderware, Citect, InSQL, PI etc, and even some open source ones - http://openhistorian.codeplex.com/ and http://openscada.org/
Beyond PLC's/SCADA is the world of DCS (Distributed Control Systems), but you'd better have a spare million dollars and tens of thousands of I/O to justify putting one in.
It's great to tell your mates about how Linux is awesome but don't get too carried away.
PLC's have a been around for years and many are dirt cheap - $100 CPU's and less than $10 per I/O.
PLCs are great for at work where $100 is cheap, especially compared to the time it would take to put together something or send someone out to repair something that is broken. But for home use, dirty cheap would be more like a $1-2 microcontroller and some $1-2 relays. At least those seem to all be programemd in C now, and if all you are going to do is some temperature controller, you can probably get all the documentation you need from one of their "hello world"-esque example programs that reads button pushes and lights leds.
Agreed, but the article isn't about "home use", its about a brewery. Even with a microbrewery, just about anything else will cost way more than $100 (stainless vessels and fittings arent cheap), so in context a cheap PLC is quite resonable. If you have a larger brewery, then an expensive PLC is even more justified.
For the record, I'll be using a $12 arduino clone for my home brewery to do temperature/mash control. I struggle to see how you'd do it using a PC - linux or otherwise - without paying as much or more for an I/O interface.
Still struggling to see the "Obvious" part.
Put your back into it and do it by hand you lazy sods. It will taste better knowing you actually worked for something.
We are in the process of starting a microbrewery and we fully intend to use our automation system within the brewery controlling every aspect we control now and much much more. We also have a couple of other microbreweries in the area interested in our automation and that is partially why we are seeking developers to make the interface more user friendly than bash scrips. We will have to substitute some of our current components for switching AC with commercially made solid-state relays but the rest of our automation will easily be adaptable to commercial microbrewery scale. We also intend to build the system so that it is fully redundant in the event any hardware failures happen, there is a secondary system ready to take over until the failure is repaired or replaced.
Just for your information, the Guinness, Carlsberg, Budweiser and a few others (all belong to the same owner) automation is controlled using Windows.
Actually, I am posting this from Guinness factory in Dublin.