AutoBrew – a machine in the making

It has been a long time since I last blogged on this site, but my mind rarely stops dreaming, inventing, creating. The last post entry 18 months ago was about the importance of a good user interface. I begin this next phase of creative journey at the same starting point, albeit from a more formed place.

Like before, I believe that a well designed UI is critical to elegant machine design, regardless of what is being created. My project continues to focus on simplifying the beer brewing process, so to build an automated beer making machine, most work is needed on the UI. Algorithms to control pumps or heating cycles are pretty elementary. The process of getting intelligible information into those algorithms to brew beer is more complex.

A learning cycle

I’m not good at taking a backward step to learn the scope of a craft – I’d rather play iteratively and learn what I need to make something work. This may give some instant satisfaction and feel like progress is being made, but it also causes great episodes of frustration when I don’t know where to look for solutions to a particular problem. Much of the last 18 months has been about learning and scoping a broader knowledge base in order to make informed design choices for the next brewing machine.

Learning has covered many new hardware devices that are available. For quite some time I’ve been aware of newer devices like the Spark Core. I’ve owned a Core for long enough to get very frustrated with its idiosyncratic connectivity (wifi to the internet of things), and well enough to catch a vision of what it is capable of. I have been keenly following the evolution of Spark to be rebranded as Particle, and for the release of Core’s sibling, Photon. I now have a couple of Photons to play with and feel ready to step into the next machine build.

I’ve also been scoping programming languages and improving web page skills. One of the pleasing aspects of taking time to learn is that I see fewer ‘smoke and mirror’ tricks because I understand how the various building blocks come together, or where to look for missing components. I love the Open Source movement and communal sharing of knowledge.

In addition to learning html, javascript, jquery, bootstrap, css, and improving my knowledge of C++, I’ve been impressed with the growth of useful online services for hackers and makers. Without issuing a complete list, I get inspiration from hackster; upverter is a great online design and production resource; and services like codebender make updating and maintaining arduino code quite simple.

AutoBrew

So that brings me to a point where I’m ready to build the next thing – AutoBrew.

In brief, it is a small and easy to use benchtop brewing machine. In some ways it shares space with the PicoBrew except that it will be capable of being completely home built. It will be smaller than any brewing machine I’ve ever built before, for a few reasons. I don’t want to manage heavy loads (like wet grain). I don’t want to be exiled to the shed or outdoors when I can brew in the kitchen. Small worts are easier to cool. Small machines are easier to clean and store. It will be automated from start to finish. It will simple and elegant to use so that brewing will not be a chore.

Some key choices

A long time ago I devised an automated hop dropper. It never made it beyond prototype but was a good enough idea to inspire others. The hop dropper will be integral, not an afterthought.

A Particle Photon will be the programming core of the machine. There are many possible contenders here. The machine does not need to be connected to the Internet of Things via wifi. Doing so means this machine will not be the design choice for others. But given that it will be online, it allows for a key component to bring it to life – the user interface.

The UI will be via a web page interface. Primarily designed for a mobile phone, it means that the display and interaction with the machine is all via a smartphone or similar device. There will be no ugly box with LCD and buttons on the outside of this machine. It will be understated and elegant. An odd status LED will be all that is needed, and the power of interface is via html, css and javascript.

This means that it becomes simple to design a recipe via BeerSmith, and then load the recipe XML file into the machine. No fuss, no bother, easy.