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.

Comments

good

[andjeng]

because we love beer.

Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

Arduino is a better choice. This guy is trying to put a 350 into a Vespa.

Re:Not really

[Rhacman]

Or one of many microcontroller eval boards from Microchip. They have some great library support for doing simple web interfaces too.

Re:Not really

[Hatta]

Does it matter? If it takes less time to hammer out "a series of batch scripts" that work, then Linux is the right choice. What would he get out of buying an arduino and learning wiring when he has a working solution today? And how are you going to provide a web interface and GUI with an arduino?

Re:Not really

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Yep, it's exactly like that. Fun in the doing and pretty awesome when done.

Re:Not really

[ArcadeMan]

Arduino bad, ATmega328 good?

Re:Not really

[Rhacman]

If batch scripts are what you know, then that's a fine solution. I'm not familiar with Arduino but it is actually quite easy to create a system with a pretty web interface with the Microchip microcontroller eval boards and libraries. For me personally I'd probably select a microcontroller for other things as well like watchdog timers so that if my control logic goes off in the weeds I can detect the issue and potentially invoke a safe shutdown routine to turn off pumps, heaters, etc. The other thing I like about microcontrollers is that it becomes very easy to add any sensor or actuator to your project that has a simple serial interface like I2C, SPI, etc.

For more advanced control systems an added advantage of microcontroller based designs is that you can get very tight control over the responsiveness of the system. Obviously for a home-beer making system you probably don't need sub-millisecond control but if you start with a microcontroller and decide to play with more demanding control systems in the future you already have a head start.

Linux/Unix are just good at automating.

[jellomizer]

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.

Re:Linux/Unix are just good at automating.

[iggymanz]

windows designed to run larger programs??!! I can tell you about large projects that have been put on windows servers and what they do. they fail and fall down, is what.

what a joke, a GNU/Linux or BSD or Unix system can stay up for years......a windows server, not so long

Not profitable

[gmuslera]

Using to produce it an operating system that have tatooed "Free as in beer" at the chest?

For most of the mentioned applications

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:For most of the mentioned applications

[unixisc]

Except that they'd have to buy it from QNX/RIM. As opposed to just taking Linux for free. But if one wants a microkernel OS that's free, Minix 3.x would have done this job just as well.

linux ladder logic

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I brewed beer for a couple of years

[fredrated]

and can't for the life of me figure out how a computer would have helped.

Re:I brewed beer for a couple of years

[dkleinsc]

You just aren't creative enough: Why not take that really overheating machine that you're using to mine Bitcoins and have it act as an electric heater for your boiling?

But seriously, I'd think this would matter most for people who are trying to move from homebrewing for friends and family to opening up a small-scale commercial brewery or a small commercial brewery trying to scale up to a larger commercial brewery. In those kind of cases, the right computer-controlled equipment could reduce the workload.

Re:I brewed beer for a couple of years

[nblender]

Consistancy is really the hard part of brewing beer. It's pretty easy to brew a great beer. It's hard to brew the same great beer a second time and have it wind up the same as the first time.

over 10 years ago, I was doing full-grain brewing using NetBSD (because it's what I had, along with a re-purposed ISA gpio card)... Controlling temperature during the mash and sparge was critical... If you keep your temperatures constant, you can stay within the optimal range for whatever amylase you're going for... I've always been able to brew a good beer... It wasn't until I was able to brew the same good beer a second time that I felt I had achieved my goal...

When you go to a brew pub and order the bitter, you expect it to taste the same as the last time you ordered a bitter...

there's nothing special about Linux specifically about doing this. It's just process control. The process here is fairly simple you could do just as well with an AVR or a 6502...

Re:I brewed beer for a couple of years

[trout007]

I guess doing the mash in a cooler and sparging with a shower head isn't going to be consistent?

Re:I brewed beer for a couple of years

[nblender]

I was in a beer club at the time. We did tours where you'd bring the club into your brewing setup and brew some beer... One guys' garage we went to, he used a tiger torch to boil the wort... He used styrofoam fish-packaging coolers for the sparge, draining into a bucket and pouring back over top ... Lots of window screen and garden hose... Plus it was february and there was snow on the ground outside... It reminded me of Blade Runner... "I just do eyes!" ... We were after a bitter, but we got to drinking a bit much and during the initial mash, he'd sort of burned the grain with the tiger torch so it was like a bitter with a charcoal after taste... He called it a "RauchBier"... It was damn good but we knew we'd never drink it anything exactly like it ever again...

Re:I brewed beer for a couple of years

[Rhacman]

I went to a homebrew teaching event one time that was held behind a small brewery. A homebrewer was showing off his incredibly advanced brewing system he had built from scavenged parts. It was a thing of beauty; had its own electric and plumbing system, small outrigger-like feet to stabilize it on un-level ground, etc. It even had a timer and thermostat based system where you could start warming up the hot liquor tank before you even woke up so it would be ready by morning. As I was wishing that I'd charged the battery for my camera someone mentioned to someone who worked at the brewery "You guys must have some type of control system like this as well!". The reply was a bit surprising to me. "No, we just have the last guy who leaves the night before turn on the burners. It takes a long time to heat up that much water."

Re:Alcohol is useless

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

You know what else is useless....your post.

Re:Alcohol is useless

[Hatta]

The funny thing about those who don't drink is that they're usually the kind of people you don't want to drink with anyway.

Re:Alcohol is useless

[Tarlus]

There exists a widespread culture of beer lovers (and brewers) who are not alcoholic. I consider myself to be among them. I enjoy a quality-crafted beer with a meal and I find the process of brewing to be an interesting and rewarding hobby. This is far from being useless or wasted time.

Granted, there is an unfortunate number of people who cannot regulate their intake, but they drink for different reasons.

Everything is a file

[dutchwhizzman]

#cat /dev/beer/tap > /dev/mouth

Thank you Roblimo!

[LinuxAutomation.org]

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

Re:microbreweries

[LinuxAutomation.org]

On the contrary, we already have a couple microbreweries interested in our automation and we will be using our automation when we go commercial hopefully this year.