Brewery Cuts Significant Time and Costs With New Control System

The 7th Settlement Brew Pub is the first of its kind in Dover, NH. As the first community supported brewery (CSB) of the area, it proudly supports its local economy by bringing to the public a unique of delicious, socially and environmentally responsible beer. This, of course, has all been made possible with the help of the Unitronics Vision1210, and remotely accessed Vision120 PLC with onboard HMI.

THEIR NEED? Owner and founder Joshua Henry needed a control system that could support temperature measurement in three, 800 gallon fermenters, record batch data, and automate their circulation pump, transfer pump, and 300,000 btu Boiler.  Josh also needed to remotely monitor the system off site, being alerted of any “hiccups” by email if necessary. The Vision1210 and Vision120 were able to cater to all of Josh’s requirements and more. From one central location, the Vision series controllers allowed Josh to control I/O, monitor current temperature and history, and store data during the entire brew process. In addition, the controller’s RS485 communications greatly reduced wiring across the brewery to remote PID control of the glycol chilled fermenters.

WHY THE VISION1210 & VISION120? Each brewing cycle has multiple functions to manage the two pumps, and boiler, along with a large section devoted to the trend image and time in the recipe step. The Vision1210’s 12” color-touch display was able to accommodate this versatile operation well, to “visually” control the necessary local I/O. The Vision120 was primarily used as a Modbus RTU slave across the brewery to control a bank of solid state relay’s powering the chiller valves to open and close.

THE RESULT? A substantial simplification of the brewing process which lead to reduced brewing time, and kept records, and ultimately lower production costs. Josh Henry has attributed the Unitronics Vision1210 as having, “Greatly increased our capabilities and consistency in our brewery! Not only has it simplified our brewing process, it has legitimised our brewery to our customers in our pub!”