Advantage of Distributed Winery Electronic System with Standard interface

[reuven1214]

Let me introduce myself. My profession is SW engineering and my hobby is wine making. I would like to use my professional knowledge to build a system that can satisfy the winemaker’s needs (professional as well as the hobbyist).
Wine (from grapes, honey, fruits) making processes require the winemaker to monitor and to control the winery’s environment and the content of the wine as following:
1. Monitoring of the temperature & the humidity of the winery during fermentation and aging.
2. Controlling of the temperature and humidity of the winery during fermentation and aging.
3. Controlling of the temperature of the wine during fermentation and aging.
4. Brix measuring before yeast fermentation.
5. Monitoring the PH level of the wine before/during yeast fermentation & malolactic fermentation.
6. Monitoring the alcohol level during the yeast fermentation.
7. Monitoring & controlling the sulfite level
8. Monitoring the light conditions (UV can degrade the wine quality.
9. Monitoring vibrations in areas with frequent earthquakes or other vibrations.
Please add any additional monitoring and controlling requirements during the wine making process.
There are devices on the market that provide one or two solutions to the above requirements, but there is no “system” that integrates the various solutions. With the SW & HW designers and wine makers (professionals as well as hobbyists) - it will be possible to construct such a system. The following are the objectives of such a system:
1. Simplified design & Cost reduction – By developing Standard Winery Communication Protocol (SWCP) between the various devices and the system controller. The various devices might need the following SWCP capabilities:
a. Real Time Measuring data
b. History log of the data for X hours.
c. Alarms to warn the Wine Maker of outside of threshold data.
d. Guidance regarding the next step(s).
2. Reduction of design efforts - allow ideas of winery devices to be developed independently. Using the interface above (SWCP), any HW/SW designer or company will be able to create a device without the need to develop proprietary interface.
3. Shorter development schedule - testing of such system will be easy, by using any standard or proprietary system that uses the SWCP.
4. Better marketability - the manufacturer will have a better chance to sell a product with SWCP.
5. Simplified design - System Controller can be made by building an HW based element that communicates with all devices over SWCP, or simply by creating another mobile phone application.
Winemaker or/and SW & HW designer, what are your thoughts?
Currently we have completed (my son & I) a system that monitors the external temperature and internal temperature & humidity. This system controls the internal temperature during the cold session by pulling in cold air from outside, and activates the A/C during the hot session. We have built humidifier that is automatically activated when the internal humidity is reduced below a configurable threshold value. We let you how good the system is after this winter.

 

[Johnd]

Well if you're going all out on your equipment, monitoring the TA during alcoholic fermentation would be nice, as well as monitoring malic and lactic acid levels during malolactic fermentation.

 

[NorCal]

I see the power of using household wifi, an app and IFTTT simplicity. You can then tap into a whole universe of devices and external information.

 

[salcoco]

monitoring the turbidity after first racking would help detect clearing

some way of detecting co2 levels in the wine.

 

[reuven1214]

Well if you're going all out on your equipment, monitoring the TA during alcoholic fermentation would be nice, as well as monitoring malic and lactic acid levels during malolactic fermentation.

Thanks for your reply. PH can be measured today by inserting probe into the primary fermenter. The problem is the high cost for a good probe. Regarding level of different acid types during the malolactic fermentation, it is more complex and needs detector to distinguish between the different acid types. a kit to measure wine samples is $75.

 

[reuven1214]

I see the power of using household wifi, an app and IFTTT simplicity. You can then tap into a whole universe of devices and external information.

Yes you are right, using a standard protocol it will be possible to connect many devices from multiple manufacturers to any controlling entity.

 

[reuven1214]

monitoring the turbidity after first racking would help detect clearing

some way of detecting co2 levels in the wine.

Turbidity & CO2 sensors are expensive. They will be added to the cost reduction list. Thanks