Cross-trade process automation of a microbrewery
MAINSTOCKHEIM BREWERY
MAINSTOCKHEIM, GERMANY
About the customer:
The Mainstockheim Brewery was founded in September 2016 when four friends from Mainstockheim realized their dream of having their own brewery. Initially, they sold their beers on a small scale to friends and acquaintances. But by mid-2017, they had already transformed a garage into a small but excellent brewery. As their passion grew, they created new types of beer and opened their own beer garden in 2018. This quickly became a popular meeting place for beer festivals and social gatherings.
Local restaurants also discovered the regional beers and have been regularly sourcing specialties from Mainstockheim ever since. At the end of 2020, Pascal Gedrat took over the brewery as the sole owner and is continuing the success story with great passion.
The project
The microbrewery received a new brewhouse in 2021. It can now produce three to four hectoliters of wort per brew. Before the introduction of MINGLECONTROL, the brewing plant only used a simple control system via a touch panel. The brewmaster used this to set fixed target values and control drives and valves at the touch of a button. Before each brew, however, Pascal Gedrat had to enter the values of the desired recipe manually, as the system did not offer integrated recipe management.
In addition, the existing control system was unable to correctly process the volume counters for brewing water filling and wort determination. This often led to incorrect quantities being recorded. Due to these limitations, Pascal Gedrat decided to fully automate the system with MINGLECONTROL.
Efficient brewery control with MINGLECONTROL
With MINGLECONTROL, the brewery now enjoys numerous advantages. The entire system appears on the new display with all pipework routes, so that the brewing process and system status can be viewed clearly and at a glance at all times. All brewing and fermentation recipes are stored in the integrated recipe management system and can be started conveniently via the order management system.
And even during the brewing process, Pascal Gedrat no longer has to be constantly at the brewing kettles. MINGLECONTROL sends push messages when interventions are necessary and he can access the system while on the move. For example, he can check the temperature profile of the fermentation tanks without having to travel to the brewery. The system also records important batch data and creates brewing and fermentation logs. This significantly improves documentation and traceability.
What our customers say
"MINGLECONTROL gives me the opportunity to go somewhere else during the brewing process, especially during mashing and lautering, because everything runs automatically. I'm then notified when things are moving on or I need to intervene."
Pascal Gedrat
Managing Director of the Mainstockheim Brewery
