# Brewery Automation: Process and Packaging Control > Brewing combines biology and engineering: a live fermentation that must be controlled, not commanded; a process where the quality is decided by temperature… - Canonical URL: https://wiki.aspotomasyon.com/article/brewery-automation - Publisher: ASP OTOMASYON A.Ş. (ASP OTOMASYON Wiki) - Category: Process Industries Solutions - Published: 2026-08-11 · Updated: 2026-09-13 - Reading time: 4 min · Language: English Brewing combines biology and engineering: a live fermentation that must be controlled, not commanded; a process where the quality is decided by temperature, time, and hygiene; and a packaging hall running at hundreds of containers per minute. Brewery automation spans the classic ISA-88 batch world (recipes, phases, electronic batch records) for the process side and high-speed machine automation for packaging — a combination that makes breweries a rich automation domain, from craft scale to industrial scale. ![A conceptual process-control feedback chain. Independent protection functions are outside this simplified diagram and must be assessed separately.](https://wiki.aspotomasyon.com/assets/diagrams/process-industries-solutions-context.svg) *A conceptual process-control feedback chain. Independent protection functions are outside this simplified diagram and must be assessed separately.* ## The Process Side: Brewhouse and Cellar The brewhouse is batch automation in its purest form: - **Milling and mashing** — grain handling (silo management, weighing), mash mixing with temperature steps (protein rest, saccharification) per recipe; the mashing profile is the recipe's first act. - **Lautering** — the mash filtration: automated raking sequences and runoff control; wort clarity and extraction efficiency depend on the sequence discipline. - **Boiling and whirlpool** — kettle boiling with hop additions at timed steps (the addition sequence is recipe-controlled), evaporation control, and the whirlpool rest. - **Cooling and fermentation** — wort cooling (plate heat exchanger with exact temperature control to the pitching temperature), yeast pitching (dosing, propagation, viability monitoring), and fermentation: temperature profiles per beer style, pressure control (CCTs), and gravity tracking. The fermentation control is the quality center: a few degrees over the profile changes the beer. - **Maturation and filtration** — cold storage, diacetyl rest scheduling, filtration (kieselguhr/membrane) with turbidity monitoring, and carbonation control. The automation is ISA-88 throughout: recipes (per beer), equipment phases (fill, heat, rest, transfer), and complete batch records — the brew log that quality and regulatory reporting need. ## Cellar and Utilities - **CIP (clean-in-place)** — the hygiene backbone: automated CIP skids with recipe-driven sequences (pre-rinse, caustic, acid, sanitizer, final rinse) and proof parameters (temperature, conductivity, flow); a CIP sequence that completes without proof is a contamination risk (see the CIP article). - **Utilities** — steam for the brewhouse, cooling (glycol) for fermentation and cellar, CO₂ recovery and management; the energy systems follow the utility automation patterns (see the utilities article) with brewery specifics (refrigeration is the biggest electricity consumer). - **Liquid transfer** — the tank farm logic: tank allocation, product routing (dedicated lines vs shared), and the transfer validation that prevents mixing different beers. ## Packaging: High-Speed Machine Automation The packaging hall is machine automation at speed: bottle/can filling (the filler is the pacemaker), pasteurization (tunnel pasteurizer with PU (pasteurization unit) control — the process safety of beer), labelling, packing, and palletizing. Characteristics: - **Line integration** — the filler, pasteurizer, labeller, and packer run as one coordinated line: speed matching, buffer control (accumulators), and changeover sequencing (the changeover from one format to another is a choreographed sequence). - **OEE discipline** — packaging lines live by OEE (see the OEE article): the line's stop reasons, speeds, and quality losses are recorded automatically (filler stops, labeller jams, format changes) and reviewed daily. - **Vision and inspection** — empty-bottle inspection, fill level, cap/closure verification, label inspection, and foreign-object detection (see the machine vision article). - **Tracking and traceability** — batch/date coding, and the lot traceability connecting packaging to the cellar batch (see the traceability discussion in the supply chain article). ## Automation Architecture A modern brewery runs: DCS/PLC for process (batch-enabled), PLCs with motion for packaging, SCADA/MES at the supervision layer (batch records, OEE, reporting), and the ERP for planning. The integration follows ISA-95: recipes and orders down, batch records and performance up. The historian is the brewery's memory — every batch's temperature profile is retrievable years later (a quality complaint investigation is a historian query, not a memory). ## Summary Brewery automation is two disciplines in one plant: ISA-88 batch automation for brewhouse and cellar (recipes, phases, CIP, batch records — the quality is in the profile), and high-speed integrated machine automation for packaging (filler-paced lines, OEE, vision inspection). The connecting tissue is hygiene, traceability, and the historian. Brewing is biology under control — and control is what automation provides, from grain silo to palletizer. ## Apply this to your project - Record process boundaries, required operating states, and interactions with independent protective systems. - Check instrument quality, control authority, permissives, and operator responsibilities during state changes. - Agree how tests, deviations, and configuration changes will be recorded within the facility's engineering procedures. [Follow an ASP project guide](https://wiki.aspotomasyon.com/guides) to connect the fundamentals with implementation and acceptance. ![Engineering review sequence: Define → Coordinate → Validate → Maintain. Keep the recorded evidence with the accepted configuration.](https://wiki.aspotomasyon.com/assets/diagrams/process-industries-solutions-review.svg) *Engineering review sequence: Define → Coordinate → Validate → Maintain. Keep the recorded evidence with the accepted configuration.* ## Primary references and further reading Use the original specifications and product documentation for implementation details. The examples in this guide are illustrative engineering scenarios, not published project results. - [ISA — ISA-88 batch control](https://www.isa.org/standards-and-publications/isa-standards/isa-88-standards) - [ABB — Process control systems](https://new.abb.com/control-systems) --- Cite the canonical article: https://wiki.aspotomasyon.com/article/brewery-automation (Brewery Automation: Process and Packaging Control, ASP OTOMASYON, updated 2026-09-13).