Solution for Wireless Temperature Monitoring Online System in Winery Cellars

Automated Brewing Environment Detection

I. Functional Requirements

1. The Importance of Temperature and Air Quality in Brewing

Generally, the production of wine involves the following steps: raw material selection, starter culture preparation (Qu), fermentation, distillation, aging, blending, and bottling. From grain fermentation and distillation to aging and final bottling, temperature control is extremely critical.

Brewing equipment, starter cultures (Jiuqu), and brewing techniques are often regarded as the "favorable climate, geographical advantage, and human unity" (Tian Shi, Di Li, Ren He) in the brewing industry. In this context, "geographical advantage" also refers to the environment—specifically the fermentation temperature and the air quality of the surroundings. Neglecting any of these three aspects will significantly compromise the quality of the final brew.

Throughout the brewing process—from the ripening of raw materials and fermentation to aging and bottling—temperature control remains paramount. Failure to maintain the specific temperatures required to guarantee quality will result in substandard wine, regardless of how premium the raw materials or brewing equipment are; even the best inputs will yield disappointing results if the thermal environment is not properly managed.

Brewing experts list the following reasons:

1.High temperatures promote oxidation, microbial spoilage, and instability.

2.Fermenting and storing under heated conditions causes the desired aromas and spices other than alcohol to evaporate completely.

3.When temperatures exceed 38°C, yeast becomes inactivated and fermentation may be hindered by residual sugar.

It is essential to strictly control the temperature required at every stage of the brewing process; a single oversight compromising wine quality would deprive the world of fine wine.

Simultaneously, monitoring and managing oxygen and carbon dioxide levels during brewing can further enhance wine quality.

1.Traditional Detection Methods

Currently, China widely adopts relatively traditional methods for measuring fermented grain temperature, involving manual insertion of glass thermometers into grain blocks for measurement and recording. This operational model suffers from the following shortcomings:

1.Glass thermometers are fragile, and leaked mercury contaminates starter culture blocks. Additionally, the thermometers are short and cannot fully reflect temperatures at different locations.

2.The workload is heavy, recording is untimely, and efficiency is low. For larger fermentation chambers with dozens or even hundreds of monitoring points per room and multiple chambers, assigning one worker to complete a full temperature measurement cycle takes a long time. The daily workload exhausts data collectors, becoming unsustainable over time. Meanwhile, recorded data lacks synchronization and comparability, collected data has little practical significance, and work efficiency is very low. Increasing the number of workers will inevitably raise production costs.

3.Data lacks continuity, making it difficult to observe temperature trends during fermentation. This hinders systematic analysis and judgment of the fermentation process and impedes improvements in fermentation techniques.

4.Errors or omissions in manual data entry occur frequently, making it difficult to guarantee the accuracy and completeness of data records.

Outdated data monitoring and recording methods are incompatible with the modern, informatized, and automated development concepts and directions of enterprises, inevitably causing adverse impacts on corporate development. Keeping pace with the times, improving temperature monitoring methods in the starter-making process, and adopting modern, automated, and intelligent monitoring and management systems are top priorities that every enterprise must emphasize and develop urgently. This yields twice the result with half the effort and holds immense significance!

The intelligent starter culture temperature measurement system ideally resolves all the aforementioned issues and is the temperature monitoring solution actively adopted by major wineries.

Solution for Automated Brewing Environment Detection

Our company has developed a smart environmental detection system tailored to every technological process of liquor production. This system is capable of monitoring temperature and carbon dioxide levels in real-time throughout the entire brewing cycle, with all data uploaded instantly to a cloud platform.

System Architecture

The system consists of four core components: Front-end Sensors, Wireless Transmission Modules, Alarm Terminals, and a Cloud Platform.

Sensors & Connectivity

The sensors include insertion temperature probes, temperature/humidity sensors, and CO2 sensors. Notably, the insertion probes and T/H sensors utilize LoRa/LoRaWAN wireless transmission. Operating in a low-power mode and powered by batteries, these sensors require no wiring, offering true plug-and-play simplicity.

Data Flow & Alarming

The sensors transmit data via LoRa/LoRaWAN to a gateway. The gateway forwards this data to a local alarm terminal, which stores the information locally. Should any data anomaly occur, the terminal triggers an automatic alert to notify relevant personnel for immediate intervention. Concurrently, the LoRa/LoRaWAN gateway uploads the data to a cloud server via RJ45 (Local Ethernet) or mobile networks (4G/5G) using the MQTT protocol.

The framework is illustrated below:

Jiuqu, generally written as starter culture. In strongly steamed white rice, the conidia of Aspergillus are transferred and kept warm, and mycelium grows luxuriantly on the rice grains; this is the starter culture.

The amylase produced by Aspergillus saccharifies the starch in the rice; therefore, since ancient times, it has been used alongside malt as raw material sugar for manufacturing wine, sweet wine, soybean paste, etc.

Using wheat instead of rice is called wheat starter. During the starter-making process, environmental temperature is mainly monitored, and several starter blocks are selected for internal temperature detection.

Below is a typical starter-making process:

1.Soak the rice: Soak the rice in water for 3~6 hours for later use.

2.Crush: Crush the soaked rice into rice flour and sift it through a 180-mesh fine sieve.

3.Mixing and inoculation: Use 3/4 of the rice flour to make the blank, and the remaining 1/4 as coating powder. The amount of aromatic herb powder is 3% of the wine blank powder, aged starter powder is 2%, and water is 60%; mix well.

4.Making blanks: After mixing well, make wine cakes, cut them into 2 cm sized granules, and round them into wine starter blanks using a bamboo sieve.

5.Coating with powder: Roll the starter blanks in a layer of fine rice flour and control the moisture content of the wine blanks at 46%.

6.Cultivating the starter: Control the room temperature at 28~31°C, send the wine blanks into the starter chamber. After 20 hours of cultivation, mold hyphae grow vigorously; control the product temperature at 33~34°C, not exceeding 37°C. After 24 hours,

To promote yeast reproduction in the starter blanks, control the room temperature at 28~30°C, keep the product temperature below 35°C, and maintain for 24 hours. After 48 hours in the chamber, the product temperature drops, and the starter matures.

7.Taking out the starter: Take out the mature starter and dry it in a drying room or in the sun, then store it for later use.

Finished Starter Culture

During the starter-making process, our company's wireless temperature and humidity sensors are used to detect the environment of the production process, and wireless insertion temperature sensors are used to insert the temperature probe into the starter to detect the internal temperature of the starter. An alarm host is installed at the entrance of the starter production plant area or in the duty room to monitor the temperature, humidity, and temperature data in real time during the starter production process.

Whether brewing raw materials undergo complete and thorough fermentation is directly related to time and temperature. In other words, a long fermentation time ensures complete fermentation; a short fermentation time may lead to incomplete fermentation. The relationship between temperature and fermentation period is: high temperature results in a short fermentation period; low temperature results in a long fermentation period. Specifically, when the temperature is between 20~25°C, the fermentation period is generally 15~20 days; when the temperature is between 25~30°C, the fermentation period is generally about 10~12 days. When the temperature is between 30~40°C, the fermentation period is generally about 8 days. Practice has proven that the fermentation temperature for raw material brewing should be controlled above 20°C and below 40°C. Temperatures above 40°C are prone to producing acid, and yeast may even die; below 20°C, raw materials are difficult to ferment. The optimal fermentation temperature is between 25-35°C, while appropriately extending the fermentation time slightly to ensure complete fermentation of the raw materials. Therefore, when the room temperature is below 20°C, insulation and heating measures must be taken; when the temperature exceeds 42°C, cooling measures must be implemented.

During the brewing fermentation process, our company's developed wireless temperature and humidity sensors and wireless CO2 sensors are used to detect the environment of the production process. Wireless insertion temperature sensors are used to insert the temperature probe into the brewing raw materials to detect the internal temperature of the brewing raw materials. An alarm host is installed at the entrance of the winery or in the duty room to monitor the temperature, humidity, and temperature data in real time during the starter production process.

陈Newly produced raw liquor possesses a spicy and harsh taste and lacks mellowness; it can only be considered a semi-finished product. Generally, it requires storage for a certain period to allow natural aging. This process reduces the irritation and spiciness of the new liquor, making the body soft and palatable, rich and aromatic, and harmonizing the flavor profile. This phenomenon is referred to as "aging" or "cellaring" within the brewing industry.

The method of cellaring involves placing this liquor in containers made of pottery, porcelain, or wooden vats that possess slight breathability and permeability. The liquor is allowed to change naturally with ambient temperature fluctuations without artificial adjustment.

The cellar must maintain specific levels of temperature, humidity, and oxygen content. It is necessary to monitor the internal temperature, humidity, and CO2 in real time. During the aging process, our company's developed wireless temperature and humidity sensors and wireless CO2 sensors are used to detect the environment of the production process. Wireless insertion temperature sensors are used to insert the temperature probe into the wine jars to detect the internal temperature of the liquor. An alarm host is installed at the entrance of the winery or in the duty room to monitor the temperature, humidity, and temperature data in real time during the aging process.

Features of the Solution

By deploying Easy Connect sensors in fermentation pits, starter culture rooms, and cellars, real-time environmental monitoring is conducted throughout the entire Baijiu production process, establishing standardized operations for each environment. Through remote environmental monitoring, management personnel can conveniently conduct remote online monitoring of fermentation pit conditions; quality supervision and inspection departments, along with higher authorities, can effectively supervise and intervene in the production process in a timely manner; and IT management personnel can acquire, back up, analyze, and process on-site data and image information. The system supports local viewing via large screens connected to temperature and humidity sensors, as well as remote viewing and monitoring of data via computer PC clients and mobile APP terminals logging into the cloud platform.

This system solution package includes front-end sensors, gateways, local alarm terminals, and cloud platforms (mobile APP, PC management software, data logging platform, etc.). Within this system, we can connect to third-party cloud platforms via the gateway. The product list comprising the system is as follows: