What Does a Typical Brewery Install Look Like?

Greg joins Phil and Rohan to share how he built a brewery control system with ESPHome and Home Assistant: Modbus PID retrofits, ESP32-based temperature control with one-wire probes and 24V valves, Bluetooth gravity sensors via proxies, pressure management, and full on-site HA installs with PoE satellites.

Watch this episode on YouTube

https://homeassistant.fm/ha210

Support the Podcast

Get early-access to episodes and an ad-free feed by supporting our Patreon.

Support Rohan and Phil on Patreon

Share your story

We wouldn't be able to do this podcast without community members and home automation enthusiasts sharing their stories. To register your interest to come share your home automation journey, head over to homeassistant.fm and click share your story.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro, sponsors, and Greg’s background

00:05:30 From Modbus PIDs to ESPHome brewery control (gravity, pressure, 1‑Wire)

00:10:45 Turning it into a business: pilot installs, testbeds, and scale

00:15:45 Local-first architecture: on-site Home Assistant, PoE satellites, Bluetooth proxy

00:22:30 Hardware talk: Blue/Yellow/Green, mini PCs, RAM needs, migration plans

00:28:00 Home automations: locks, Reolink presence, candles, sump/dehumidifier monitoring

00:35:00 Water and power: AI-on-the-edge metering, overuse alerts, three-phase pumps & contactors

00:42:00 QoL automations: fish-feeding sensor, night stair lighting, backup ideas

00:49:30 Fun stuff: ESPN team goal lights, polling vs. streaming delays, event triggers

00:55:00 Data + reporting: Utility Meter, History Stats, InfluxDB, AI ideas, alerts, wrap-up

This episode was made possible thanks to our sponsors

Home Assistant Cloud by Nabu Casa

Easily connect to Google and Amazon voice assistants for a small monthly fee that also supports the Home Assistant project. Configuration is via the User Interface so no fiddling with router settings, dynamic DNS, or YAML.

Zooz

If you're looking to upgrade your smart home - you can’t go past Zooz! Zooz offers a range of affordable and innovative devices, including water leak sensors, water valve controllers, smart plugs and scene controllers.

For the best prices on all Zooz products, head over to thesmartesthouse.com

Hosts

Phil Hawthorne

Website

Smart Home Products

Twitter: @philhawthorne

Bluesky: @philhawthorne.com

Buy Phil a Coffee

Rohan Karamandi

Website

Smart Home Products

Twitter: @rohank9

Buy Rohan a Coffee