Together with Orm’ s Brewhouse, they decided that the brewery had three main requirements of the automation system:
• Automated temperature control
• Visualisation of the processes
• Harnessing process data to enable continuous improvement and quality control
The WAGO solution combined new hardware with a software system which both controls the process and provides graphs, numeric readouts and other visualisations which can be viewed both on-site and remotely.
A New Open, Scalable Brewery Automation System
At the heart of the upgrade was the replacement of the legacy controller with a WAGO PFC100 programmable logic controller( PLC 750-8112), which handles OPC UA, MQTT, Modbus, Ethernet IP and many other protocols. This broad support for standard industrial control
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technologies provides a foundation for future expansions of the system, as well as improving connectivity and monitoring capability.
To bring real insight into the brewing process, IO-Link smart temperature and other sensors from Endress + Hauser were integrated via a WAGO IO-Link Master module( 750-1657). Together, the PLC and IO-Link Master provide a complete data chain from the temperature and flow sensors all the way to the cloud. This connectivity benefits from VPN firewalls and integrated cybersecurity protection to ensure that process-level components can safely be linked to higher-level systems and to the internet to enable remote access.
Now for the first time, accurate measurements of flow, temperature and viscosity were available in the brewhouse or remotely via the cloud, alongside reliable volume measurements available throughout the process.
This meant that the most important parts of the brewing process were automated:
• Automated Hot Liquor Tank( HLT) temperature control, compensating for ambient conditions
• Precise water dosing using flow sensors
• Safety cut-offs and alarms to protect equipment and prevent unplanned downtime
The control software was engineered from the ground up around Orm’ s actual brewing process, rather than forcing it to fit a generic template. Alongside the automation equipment, a new Web Panel 400 10.1” display provides clear visibility of each brewing stage, giving brewers confidence in what the system is doing at all times.
Chris Stanley was immediately struck by the way automation was going to transform his craft. He says:‘ The first time that I saw the flow meter hit the target and the pump just automatically stop, I realised just how precise we could make the whole brewing process.’