HomeBrewerDude
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looks like this priest has a bit too much time on his hands! oh well, at least he isn't stalking alterboys.
from his website
looks like this priest has a bit too much time on his hands! oh well, at least he isn't stalking alterboys.
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Feb 4, 2003 - A German priest has found a way to brew beer in his washing machine. Michael Fey, of Duisburg, built a computer interface into the machine to let it run an automatic brewing program.
The process includes turning and heating, but not spinning, according to a report in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
"A priest without alcohol, that's the wrong combination," he said. "Jesus didn't say, take this healthy camomile tea, he offered wine."
Fey brews 30 liter every six weeks, the legal limit for homebrewing in Germany. He has pictures (like the one below) on his website.
He said he was inspired by the tradition of monks who brewed beer in a cauldron over a fire. To imitate the technique, he opted for a toploader washing machine. Before he started brewing, he ran it about 20 times to remove any soap residue.
The priest brews in accordance with the Reinheitsgebot, the German beer purity law that dictates only water, malt, hops (and now yeast) shall be used in making beer.
from his website
(translated by altavista)Beer-brew with PC and washing machine - an empiric report
For beer brewing one needs a large, heatable container with an agitator, which to clean be besides easy must. All this combines the old Toplader, which I converted to the beer brewing machine, in itself: a large high-grade steel container with heating staffs, wasseranschluss and expiration pump as well as water level and temperature measurement. The drum remains during brewing in the machine, because the malz is merged in a bag sewn from diaper material, a kind large teebeutel, and moved in the drum. Only to the Laeutern and following cooking the drum is removed from the machine. Those are also the times, where I change over from " fully automatic " beer brewing program " to " hand enterprise.
After I had tried out whether the brewing procedure functions in principle in a washing machine, I decided to remove and replace by (up to the relays) electronic a circuit the existing mechanical control. Considerations to let the expiration of brewing run off as far as possible fully automatic to have but nevertheless the possibility it to correct again and again, led the control a PC to the idea, too to leave and into the machine only the relays with the appropriate treibertransistoren to insert. On the basis the 8 data lines of of the parallel interface, which normally pass the information on about it, which is to be printed ASCII character straight, were the practical conversion with only 6 needed relays relatively simply: Each relay got its own line assigned. The reverse way was more difficult to read i.e. information in about water pressure and temperature than digital information into the PC because most elements supply with only one to the temperature or the pressure appropriate tension, which thus cannot be processed however by the computer.
In a electronics catalog I found an element (SMT 160-30), which supplies broad a square wave signal with a frequency of 1-4 kHz. The palpation relationship is proportional to the temperature.
Attempts to convert simply only the frequency measurement into the temperature failed, because with over 80 degrees water temperature sank the frequency again. During the measurement of the pulse width I arrived at the borders of my laptop (386er with 16 MHz). I helped myself in each case to make within the program a whole set of measurements in order to form from it a relatively exact average value. Even if this procedure does not satisfy technically seen, the accuracy is sufficient however in practice.
During the measurement of the water level I decided in addition to convert the tension supplied from the pressure measuring sensor (MPX 2010 DP) into an appropriate frequency by a frequency generator. This part of electronics functioned on the desk, but not in the washing machine, because it is too temperature sensitive. A change is planned, but it showed up in practice that the automatic water level measurement with such an high accuracy is not at all necessary: It is not worthwhile itself to brew many less than 20 litres beer and with 20 litres the machine is full. There is probably enough the mechanical push button switch, which was built by the manufacturer into the machine.
It would have been also possible to transfer the measurements with the help of an analogue-digital converter to the PC. The disadvantage with this solution is that then for relatively few measurements many data lines would be blocked.
I programmed the control in C, in order to be able to merge Assebler routines. These are necessarily, where in fractions of a second large data sets are to be processed, like that for example during the temperature measurement. Even if the program in its expiration were sketched and programmed by me, me as computer laymen with the accesses to the interface apart from the appropriate literature my brother Markus was a large assistance, who as a programmer works. Many hours of mine and our spare time flowed into the program and the control. For instance 1½ years, after I saw the washing machine for the first time, could be brewed the first beer. However I must also say that I had little time due to my activity as Jugendseelsorger and Kaplan only in the week to actually continue working on the project begun.
The simple possibility of steering and of regulating with the help of the parallel interface, can be transferred probably also to other things in the household like control of light and rollos, central heater control etc.. I mean that it is worth itself for each to some extent experienced electronics engineer to regard this interface once more near. And not only for bierbrauer.
Literature: Wolfgang left, fairs, taxes, rules over the parallel interface PC, Munich 1994
