Brewery Controller

A project to build a new brewery controller on the latest .Net framework and Raspberry PI, looking to replace my existing CraftBeerPi software.

This controller is initially going to be built to meet my specific requirements in my home brewery, but it will be built in a way that it can be extended, and changed to allow different brewery setups in the future.

Roadmap  

• Basic Recipe Step Management
• Batch creation
• Send Recipe steps to Controller
• Pull Recipe from BrewFather
• Create Batch on Recipe in BrewFather once Brew started.
• Controller of 3V Herms can run through recipe steps
• TILTS connect to controller to supply fermentation readings
• Controller adds TILT readings to Batch (fed back to BrewFather)
• Controller monitors fermentation temperature and adjusts (heating and cooling)

Why build my own?  

There are a few options available for controlling a brewery using a Raspberry Pi as the brains of the controller, for example CraftBeerPi. I am currently using CBPI V4 and love it but I do have a few issues with it:

• Find the UI is very buggy and slow
• Built to support many different equipment setups
• Built in Python, so I struggle to customise it with plugins to fit my needs.
• Do find that the Raspberry Pi seems to struggle with performance.

High-level makeup  

The initial build will have the following features:

• 3 vessel system
• HERMS control
• 2 pumps
• 240V components (UK)
• TILT integration
• BrewFather App integration
• Recipe/Batch creation
• Controller Management

The system will be split into two main components:

• Controller
• Administration

Controller  

The controller will be built to run on a raspberry Pi (V3 or later). It will use the existing hardware features of the Pi, such as I2C, One-Wire, GPIO, and HDMI output, to create the required system. A UI will also be packaged to allow for the controller to be standalone and the user to have a visual flow of the brew day.

Administration  

The Administration portal will allow me to manage the recipe steps that are needed for the brew day, batches and the associated fermentation. I will be able to track how Fermentation is going and be able to make a decision on the next steps such as cold crashing, or raising the fermentation temperature as per the recipe.

I currently use BrewFather for recipe design, so this will not a be recipe design platform but will rather connect to BrewFather and pull the recipe steps from their API and add data from the Brew Day and any fermentation data, to the recipe and batch in BrewFather.

Techie stuff  

This will be built using the latest .Net framework, currently 8. The Administration portal and controller will use SQLite as its data store and will provide access via a backend API so the controller can connect and pull recipe steps, or save data like a TILT reading.

My test bench will be a Raspberry Pi V3, but I am in the process of upgrading my current controller to a Raspberry Pi V5, so V3 will be the oldest Pi to be supported.dev.

The plan is for the Administration side to be seperate from the controller, and will be possible to deploy it to a Raspberry Pi, or even to Azure.