Blink!

By following the tutorial, I've got some blinking LED's so far...
Now it's only LED's - but soon there will be beer! :)

Guess what...

It's an Arduino! Here we go! I'll directly start hacking around and tell you about my success (or failure...?).

Intermezzo

While I was waiting for my Arduino to be delivered, I looked for a good way to blog in here. I'like to do that from my iPad. I first tried to do it on bloggers webinterface, but lost written text when I continued after a break. And insertin images was a pain. So I searched the appstore, read som revies and came to blogsy, from which Im texting right now. What better way to test it? :)

I have just been notified from the online tracker that the Arduino is waiting for me at the post office. Only now, I paid 2.- more to have it quicker, bastards... ;)

Well, back to topic, the next post will de about my new electronic beer brewing fellow... :)

The Arduino

Well, after I know what I want to to, I have to think about how. How to tell a brainless machine how to do its job. You may laugh, but that was a hard one. Since I'm a mechanic, I don't know much about electronics. But at least I already did some programming, BASIC in the early days and I even wrote a little iOS application some time ago. But I'm definitively no big programmer, I do more, well, let's invent a new term, bitch code. I know that stuff like that used to be done with the serial and parallel ports of computers. But I'm a convinced mac user and macs don't have those old ports. I need either something wireless, WiFi or Bluetooth, or something that hooks up via Ethernet or USB. I don't feel like being able to mess with DisplayPort or Firewire. I found different things, mostly either industrial stuff, by far to expensive, or windows only.

The first one was the U4x1 from usbmicro.com. But it looked, a little outdated, the mac app was still PPC only and the thing wasn't easy to get in Switzerland.

I then found a Forum and looked at the stuff he used. That looked already pretty cool, but was 1-wire only and not that cheap. I've nothing against 1-wire. But mac support seemed to be pretty limited, there's that OWFS stuff but that didn't convince me, and if I want to use it on other stuff later I'm much more limited.

I than almost went for Velleman's K8055. Even if there's no official mac support, there are some promising hacks around and I thought to be able to do the programming. But to use a temperature sensor with that thing would be difficult. The extension from Velleman is also a little board, and everything but waterproof. Using a DS18S20 is not possible because the K8055 is to slow for 1-wire and to get a PT-100 to work must be a nightmare, since you've to amplify his signal.

After some more research I found the phidgets. I almost ordered them but realized that I would need one for the analog input and another for the relays. Sad, but not sexy enough.
My desperate research my then finally led to the Arduino.

I directly liked their opensource spirit. but hesitated.
An Arduino would be another instance between me and my machine. And I'd have to program that to.
But after I looked at some coding examples I thought to be able to master that. Oh and extensions. Relays, screens, wireless stuff, all you can imagine. And have you seen the price? Even if I fuck up the first, I can get a new one and will still be cheaper than all other solutions.
I think I fell in love. Well, somehow... :)
So I ordered a starter kit from sparkfun:

I directly ordered a eight relay board (not soldered yet, that's gonna be fun) and a DS18B20 temperature sensor with it too. Once I'll have it, you'll hear from me...

The procedure

So I decided to build a beer brewing machine out of a washing machine.
Before I start, I need a maximum of information about the washing machine. I called my dad and he gave me the brand and serial number, it's a V-Zug Adorina 139. I googled it but didn't find much. But at least a picture for you guys:

Then I remembered that I've a cousin working for that enterprise. Unfortunately I didn't hear anything from him for long time but long lives Facebook and I wrote him an e-mail. Positive response some days later: He finds it a good idea, has some schematics and data sheets and is willing to hand them out. But what can I do until than?
Well, think about the procedure. I definitively have to replace the whole electronics, I can't reprogram the integrated washing programs. So what does it need to can? How will the brewing probably look like?

1. I will need a mill to open the malt grains. I can't integrate that in my machine.
2. The machine will be hooked up to my mac via USB and to water. 
3. I will put the milled malt into into a linen bag, throw that into the drum and close it.
4. Once I click on start on my mac the machine opens a valve and fills with water.
5. After it reached a certain level the mashing begins. It automatically reaches and holds the different rest temperatures and slowly spins the drum. 
6. When the mashing is finished, it pumps the wort out into a barrel and spins the drum faster to get everything out of the bag.
7. The machine Alerts me to take out the bag.
8. I then put in a bag with hop and let it pump the wort back in the machine and boil it.
9. During the boiling the machine adds water and alerts me to put in more hop bags if the recipe needs it.
10. Once the boiling is finished, it pumps it trough a car radiator and starts the fan until it reaches the temperature defined in the recipe
11. It than pumps it in a barrel and alerts me when finished.

I'll add the yeasts and do the rest by hand. I also want to integrate a cleaning program where it boils water and pumps it trough everything.

Ok, so far for now, next we'll talk about electronics...

Hi out there, wide and thirsty world!

What is this going to be? Well, hopefully what it says in the description above... :)
I'm about to start brewing beer at home, with my Mac, an Arduino and an old washing machine.
And I want to share my experience with you beer drinkers out there.

First some words on me.
I'm a swiss aircraft mechanic and used to be an engaged hobby musician. And since I stopped making music I needed a new hobby. And as a big beer drinker that one was pretty close... :)

Oh, I already mentioned it, I'm swiss, my mothers language is German, so sorry for my English but I try to keep it international. And it is a good exercise...
If you want to ask me questions, don't hesitate to do it in English, German or even French.

So, long time ago I've read an article about some guy who made beer in a old washing machine.
I'm not sure but maybe it was this guy, a German preacher:
http://www.wambier.de/michael/brauen/index.htm

I also found some clips on youtube, look for yourself.
I always thought that this was an good idea but never went further.

But now everything changed.
My father has to quit his apartment for another, where washing machine and dryer are installed. So he wanted to sell his old washing machine and asked me if I wanted it. After I first denied, there's already one in my house, I remembered the story about beer brewing in those machines. It's a toploader. A frontloader wouldn't work.

So I started investigation on beer brewing.
First on Wikipedia, of course, and I found some forums.
I learned that there are three ways of home brewing:

1. The douche bag way:

You basically take some water, pour some beer-mix powder in it and some weeks later you've kinda beer.
But just because it fermented in your house you didn't really brew beer. And you've no real influence on the taste of your beer.
Well, for your interest:
http://www.beermachine.com/

2. The better way:
You jump the most complicated step, the mashing, by buying some malt extract but you do at least the rest.
Not bad already, you can slightly influence your beer. You can find tons of different equipped kit for doing that in the interwebz.

3. The real way:
You mash, you lauter, you boil, natural ingredients only, malt, hops - the old fashioned way.

It was no question for me, which way I was going to choose.

So I first looked for some information on how to make a beer machine out of a washing machine and didn't find a lot.
Almost desperated, I searched what kind of real beer brewing machines existed and found two cool things:
1. the BrauEule
2. the Braumeister

So far, so good. But way to expensive for an experiment.
I then came back to my old idea with the washing machine.

I decided to build my own beer brewing machine. And I will document everything in here, so if anyone wants to do like me, just check this blog on a regular base.

Cya soon when I describe the Projects goals!