College of Engineering Poster Presentations
Title
Design and Analysis of an Automated Brewing System
Document Type
Student Presentation
Presentation Date
4-16-2012
Faculty Sponsor
Don Plumlee
Abstract
There is currently a rapidly growing market for craft home brewing across America. The brewing process is a delicate science that greatly benefits from automation in commercial breweries. Typical home brewers experience unwanted trial and error due to improper temperature control as well as other human errors. The prototype detailed in this work not only eliminates these variables but provides a safe, ergonomic, compact, and cost-effective design. Several design decisions will be discussed that allowed for the reduction of components and fittings while maintaining project objectives and reducing cost. Overall system feasibility was verified through a detailed analysis of required log mean temperature differences, available flow-rates and piping diameters, accessible heat sources, and heat exchanger sizing. Automation of temperature control and fluid transfer will be demonstrated as a means of drastically reducing the errors that target customer’s experience. The support of this work’s scientific and economical approach presents a strong and attractive alternative to serious home brewers looking to achieve reproducible high quality brew batches.