brewpi-spark-3

A modern brewery controller

The BrewPi Spark 3 is a temperature controller that can control your beer or wine fermentation with 0.1°C precision. It sends data to a Raspberry Pi to show a control panel with graphs in your browser. And all our software is open source!

How BrewPi works

system_overview-fridge2

Hacked Fridge

To control the temperature of your fermenting beer, you need a way to cool and heat it. This is usually done by hacking a fridge to install a heater inside and to give BrewPi control over the compressor.

Solid state relays (SSRs) are used to control 110V or 230V AC power to the heater and cooler with a small control signal from the BrewPi Spark.

 

system_overview-spark

BrewPi Spark

The BrewPi Spark will read the temperature sensors in the beer and fridge and will turn the heater and cooler ON and OFF when needed.

All the temperature control algorithms runs locally on the Spark, so that it is fully autonomous to control your brew.

You can see how your beer is doing on the color display.

system_overview-raspberry

Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi communicates with the BrewPi Spark over USB and logs brewing data. It also runs the web interface so you can monitor and control your brew via your browser.

The Raspberry Pi connects to your home network and it is the central web server for BrewPi.

system_overview-interface

Computer, phone or tablet

From any other device on your network, you can access the web page served by the Raspberry Pi.

On your BrewPi webpage, you can start and stop a brew, change your temperature profile, view charts and change settings.

Build your brewery

We think a big part of what makes brewing fun, is designing and building your awesome brewery.

Finding the right building blocks can be hard, but we got you covered. 
We put a lot of effort in finding high quality parts and if we cannot find them, we design them ourselves.

Our brewing setups are 'bring your own kettle'. You pick the kettles, we have the rest.
Combine as you like, it's your party.
Start small and expand later or go all out and automate everything right away. BrewPi will adapt to your needs.

What's next for our brewing software?

We're still adding new features to BrewPi. In fact, we're doing a completely redesign of our software to make it more flexible and user friendly.
All software updates will come for free, to new and existing users.

 

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Mash temperature control

The PID algorithms in the BrewPi Spark can already be used for mashing, but the user interface is still heavily fermentation oriented.

We're working on a new interface that's easier to use on brew day, so you can directly set your HLT temperature, mash temperature, boil intensity and even control your pumps and valves.

BrewPi HERMS Valve Control

Valve control

When brewing, you'll have to either swap a lot of hoses or open and close a lot of valves. If you brew often, automating this process will save you a lot work.

We're building a new tool in which you can drag and drop parts to create a layout for your brewing setup, set up your brewing steps and apply them with one click. This will toggle your motorized valves, set temperatures and control pumps.

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Multiple processes

BrewPi currently controls just one beer in one fridge, because it wasn't designed with more in mind when it started. We are now rewriting our firmware, web server and user interface to control multiple processes.

When this is ready, there will be no limit on the number of sensors, outputs and PIDs. You can control multiple fermentations, kegs, mash, etc.

 

Latest blog posts:

BrewPi Case!

February 5, 2013 | 6 Comments

Hi everyone! We are ‘Van Alles Wat Ontwerp’, a small design agency, founded by three DIY enthusiasts. Elco asked us to design a case for the Brewing controller as he had his hands full working on the software and electronics. Apart from beer, we like 3D printers, laser cutters, brewing beer, White Castle, tasting beer,…

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Here are some pics of assembled shields

January 7, 2013 | 11 Comments

Hi guys, The first BrewPi shields are ready for testing. I will try to update the code for the new shields this week and in the meantime I am also looking for the best place to buy the parts. Unfortunately I can already tell you that connectors are expensive, especially when you want high quality…

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Check out these BrewPi Arduino shield PCBs 🙂

December 21, 2012 | 9 Comments

I just want to quickly share some photos of the boards for the BrewPi Arduino shield. I ordered them in yellow with white silk screen, how’s that for a beer board?

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BrewPi shield ready for approval..

December 5, 2012 | 0 Comments

I have finally finished routing a PCB for a BrewPi Arduino shield! It took a bit longer than expected. I posted it on the forum, so head over to the forum and please check my work for errors, so I can go to manufacturing as soon as possible. You soon will be able to buy…

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About BrewPi

We're a small company from the Netherlands developing innovative brewing hardware and software since 2012. Our goal is to help small brewers to build awesome breweries. We do that by developing open source brewery control software, temperature controllers and many other building blocks for small scale breweries.
We ship worldwide with FedEx. If you enter your postal code in the shopping cart on store.brewpi.com you get an instant quote for the shipping costs.

If you have a question or need advice, you can post on our community forum or create a support ticket with the form on the right.

BrewPi B.V.
Torenallee 32-42
5617BD Eindhoven
The Netherlands

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