Raspberry Pi-powered Automatic Keg Washer
Starting a brewery led to designing a better automatic keg washer that saves time and money.
Owning both a brewery and a home brew store has allowed Greg Kallfa to see both sides of the industry he loves. Over the years, he has experimented with incorporating electronics into a number of projects to improve the brewing experience.
The one that currently has him the most excited is an automatic keg washer. Traditionally, this equipment is too expensive for most smaller breweries, leading them to settling for washing kegs by hand. However, Kallfa wasn't content to settle, and instead set out to create a less expensive design that would fit his needs. After years of tinkering with the design, Kallfa finally settled on a design using a Raspberry Pi Compute and a touchscreen, and is setting off to change the keg washing industry.
Project Submissions:
If you have a project that you want to show off and are interested in writing a post for SparkFun, tweet us @SparkFun, tag us on Instagram @SparkFun, or shoot us an email, but the best way is to submit your project by clicking the link below. We'd love to work with you and share your project!
Sounds like a great company, even though I rarely drink alcohol.
One thought on the keg washer: I strongly suspect that the kegs have serial numbers on them somewhere. (I've never really closely examined a keg, given that one would be several lifetimes' supply for me... but it seems logical that they would have serial numbers.) I'd be inclined to provide for the washer to be able to record said serial number into the database of what was done. That is something you certainly can NOT do with a PLC!