Give Your Bar the Respect It Deserves with a Raspberry Pi and Arduino Kegerator

The craft beer and homebrew scene has exploded over the past couple of decades, and there are a few reasons for this: Americans finally…

Cameron Coward
6 years ago

The craft beer and homebrew scene has exploded over the past couple of decades, and there are a few reasons for this: Americans finally figured out what good beer tastes like, homebrew supplies have become readily available, and the internet has made it easy to find information and tutorials. One cool way we’ve seen technology being integrated into the millennia-old tradition of brewing beer is with automated brewing systems. These do things like maintain temperatures, dispense ingredients, and pump the beer between vessels.

But, great beer deserves more than just a smart brewing system, it should have a smart dispensing system too. Imgur user PENNST8alum built a beautiful one, and has kindly posted detailed instructions so you can build your own. The basis of the project was something most beer aficionados are familiar with: a kegerator. In this case, it’s big enough to store 3 Sixtel kegs, which are 1/6 of a barrel each.

An Arduino Micro is used for handling two functions: keeping the kegerator (a chest freezer) at the correct temperature, and monitoring Adafruit liquid flow sensors connected to the kegs. This information is a sent to a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ which maintains a MySQL server to store this data, and in turn uses PHP to display an interface on a 21” monitor mounted to the front of the bar. By keeping track of the flow from the kegs, it’s easy to always have a good idea of how much beer has been dispensed, and how much is remaining in each keg.

All of this is stored in an attractive stained wood bar, with a standard tap for each keg on top. The monitor rotates through screens showing useful information, such as the beers on tap, the temperature of the kegerator, and how much of each is left. While PENNST8alum saved money from getting a lot of parts from his employer (a brewery), this should be a fairly reasonable weekend project for most people.

You can check out all 80-plus photos from the build on Imgur.

Cameron Coward
Writer for Hackster News. Proud husband and dog dad. Maker and serial hobbyist.
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