Distillery and Brewery Automation with Ignition
10 Torr Distillery and Brewery in Reno NV needed an automation and SCADA system for their new facility. Their process consists of an automated grain dispensing line, 2 Mash systems, 14 fermentation tanks, a canning line, a glycol chilling system, a stripping still, and the highlight of the operation, a 28’ tall Vacuum Still with a gin basket used to produce all of their spirits. In addition to beer and various spirits, they also produce canned cocktails with flavors developed in house, and canned on their fully integrated canning line.
This is all controlled by a PLC and an Ignition SCADA system providing a real-time HMI interface to control the entire process from their control room.
PLC and SCADA Solution
Allen Bradley CompactLogix PLCs for equipment control
Inductive Automation’s Ignition platform, including:
Perspective for mobile device visualization
Built-in Process Historian for data collection and trending
Fully integrated reporting, including TTB form generation
Alarm notifications for critical process alarms
State of the art “Card” system for real-time configuration of SCADA screens allowing operators to run multiple mash operations simultaneously with dynamic screen layouts
Advanced Boiler Management automation system to ensure boiler capacity was used efficiently
Fully integrated Recipe and Schedule management
PLC and SCADA Implementation Summary
Corso Systems worked with 10 Torr’s design engineer to develop a fully automated control system for their brewing and distilling operations. This included simultaneous operation of their distillery and brewing mash systems allowing them to mash in multiple batches each shift. We provided all of the PLC programming and design services for this project with on-site commissioning and ongoing remote support.
The automation system also managed the vacuum for the vacuum still keeping precise vacuum and temperature measurements for each recipe they were producing on any given day.
The flagship opportunity on this project was to develop a “card” based system where each type of equipment was given a card template that could be dragged/dropped on a screen giving 10 Torr’s operators full control over what data they were monitoring on a dynamic screen. This allowed them to set up both mash systems, or the a mash system and the stills, or any combination of fermentation tanks along with the mash tuns on a screen. As they moved throughout the brew day they could adjust the cards once they were moving wort over to the fermentation tanks without having to navigate to another screen.
They also had standard SCADA screens with fixed layouts for day-to-day monitoring.
Inductive Automation’s Ignition platform allowed them to use mobile devices on the brewdeck to control and monitor the process without the additional cost of PCs and networking architecture.
Ignition also provided the backbone of the data analytics, recipe management, and scheduling systems used by 10 Torr to create delicious products. These tools help them dial in their cuts on the still, and as Randy Soule, the founder and owner of 10 Torr said “we couldn’t run this system without Ignition and the PLC, there is simply too much stuff to manage for even a handful of people, and we can run multiple batches with one person using this technology.”
-Updated 11/22/2022
