The Public Brewery was established in 2013 in Croydon, Victoria by co-owners Dale and Bek White. With the assistance of Fermecraft and their innovative technology, the brewery has since expanded to two locations including a taphouse and a dedicated brewery.

However, Fermecraft’s latest job with the brewery didn’t come without its challenges. In fact, it presented a problem requiring agile thinking from the team and custom solutions in order to solve.

The job proposed included the relocation of an existing brew kit and tank farm from their Croydon premises to a new location in Kilsyth, Victoria and ability to retrofit a new Fermecraft system to run the brewery and cellar, replacing the factory supplied control system.

On its own, this job wasn’t out of the ordinary, but there was one hitch. According to Fermecraft’s founder and electrical engineer Warren Bradford, the new site didn’t actually have sufficient power to run a brewery operation.

“The brewery only had a power capacity of 80 amps per phase on any given day and 116 amps per phase were needed to run the brewery.

“This posed a real problem for us, so we had to get creative,” said Warren.

Harnessing technology developed and honed by Deacam, Fermecraft’s parent company, the team decided they would supply and install a super sized battery to provide the extra power.

“The battery was the size of a twenty-foot shipping container, so it was huge and the idea was to use the battery to feed in the extra 36 amps per phase to enable brewing on the site.

“This wasn’t something anyone else could do,” said Warren.

Warren said Fermecraft’s system enables brewers to monitor all of its devices, including the third party chiller, and manipulate the immediate power demand of each to ensure no more than 40 amps per phase would be taken from the battery.

“By manipulating the on and off times for the device, we made sure the peak load power never exceeds the 116 amps the battery can support.

“This is really unique to our system and technology,” said Warren.

While the super battery was a stroke of ingenuity by the team, Dale said the installation of the system to automate and control the factory had a huge impact on the brewery’s operations.

“Fermecraft controls all aspects of our system, giving us more confidence in our quality control and reporting.

“A major component of the job was based on tech upgrades with a heavy shift towards environmental sustainability, which came to include Fermecraft’s solution of a large solar plant, battery system and low impact water control management.

“Their system has given me more confidence in our equipment and helps us monitor and manage our water and power usage, essential to the brewery’s long term goals,” said Dale.

Trouble-shooting this very specific requirement and delivering an integrated system which could fully enhance the operations of the brewery is what Fermecraft takes pride in doing for its customers.

Fermecraft is an Australian-owned intelligent automation system for breweries, wineries and distilleries. As proven with The Public Brewery, the Fermecraft team provide hands-on custom solutions specific to each customer. Operating since 2012, the team has assisted countless customers with their revolutionary software and technology.

To find out how the Fermecraft team can assist you click here.