Software Tuning of Recipes for Beer Brewing System

Abstract

A beer making system may modify a beer ingredient/process recipe to adjust sensory characteristics of a desired beer. With a given ingredient list and starting recipe, a performance model of a brewing system may be used to generate an updated recipe when given a set of desired sensory characteristics of a desired beer. A user interface may permit a user to adjust characteristics such as thin/thick mouthfeel, dryness/maltiness, hops bitterness, hops flavor, hops aroma, and other characteristics. An updated recipe may change mashing schedules, boiling schedules, or other programmatically controlled aspects of a brewing system. The performance model may include heuristics as well as performance metrics derived from observing previous brewing sessions on one or multiple devices.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A system comprising:
 a hardware platform comprising a computer processor;   a control system executing on said hardware platform configured to:
 receive a performance model of a computer controlled brewing system, said computer controlled brewing system having a recirculating boiling flow path having a plurality of hops addition flow paths; 
 determine a first recipe, said first recipe having a first set of ingredients and a first mashing schedule; 
 determine a first set of beer characteristics for said first recipe, said first set of beer characteristics being based on a first boiling schedule; 
 receiving a first user input to adjust a first flavor characteristic; 
 changing said first boiling schedule to a second boiling schedule and determining a second set of beer characteristics for said second boiling schedule; 
 storing said second boiling schedule as a second recipe for said computer controlled brewing system. 
   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , said first flavor characteristic being hoppiness. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 2 , when said first user input indicates increasing hoppiness, increasing a circulation time for hops as part of said second boiling schedule. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 2 , when said first user input indicates decreasing hoppiness, decreasing a circulation time for hops as part of said second boiling schedule. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 1 , said first flavor characteristic being hops bitterness. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 5 , when said first user input indicates increasing hops bitterness, increasing a circulation time for an initial hops addition as part of said second boiling schedule. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 5 , when said first user input indicates decreasing hops bitterness, decreasing a circulation time for an initial hops addition as part of said second boiling schedule. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 1 , said first flavor characteristic being hops flavor. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 8 , when said first user input indicates increasing hops flavor, increasing a circulation time for a midpoint hops addition as part of said second boiling schedule. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 8 , when said first user input indicates decreasing hops flavor, decreasing a circulation time for a midpoint hops addition as part of said second boiling schedule. 
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 1 , said first flavor characteristic being hops aroma. 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 11 , when said first user input indicates increasing hops aroma, increasing a circulation time for an ending hops addition as part of said second boiling schedule. 
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 11 , when said first user input indicates decreasing hops flavor, decreasing a circulation time for an ending hops addition as part of said second boiling schedule.