The word has spread among the friends of hops and malt that the oldest brewery in the world is in Weihenstephan. That students from every corner of the world are taught the science of brewing here is also sufficiently familiar. What is unknown, however, is that they are, of late, doing this with the aid of INTERBUS.

In the "Faculty for Brewing Technology" in Weihenstephan, part of the Technical University of Munich, the students study the fundamentals of their subject in experiments and practical exercises. As a consequence, the technical equipment necessary must always be of the latest state of technology. Good connections between the professors and business and industry made it possible to build a so-called propogator plant for testing fermenting processes.

Under the control of ICS GmbH from the neighboring town of Kranzberg, the Bioreactor was developed jointly with PHOENIX CONTACT following the latest findings of "Batch Processing". The user interface of the "Batch-Guide" control system is designed in such a way that the students can alter the influence of temperature, oxygen content, mixture ratios, etc. on the yeast culture in the reactor container. The results of the experiments, such as course of ph value during fermentation or the cloudiness of the sample, are recorded and can be printed out for the students' papers.

The control center of the system is an industrial PC in which the control tasks are taken on by the integrated processor, and an ISA-FC card links INTERBUS to the computer. All the necessary switching and control elements are accommodated in a high-grade steel housing of a mere 600x700 mm. The benefits of the components from the INTERBUS Inline series can be exploited to the full. I/O modules, both digital and analog, perfectly tailored to suit the task, reduce costs, space required and wiring. The customary comfort of INTERBUS as far as diagnostics is concerned is available. Further components, such as frequency inverters and valve nodes are connected to the computer via INTERBUS.

Start-up was a matter of no time, since all INTERBUS segments are diagnosed individually incorrect wiring or other errors can be localized immediately using the CMD diagnostics tool. The first series of experiments are just starting and will bring transparency to fermentation processes for the budding brewing experts. The quality of the training received at Weihenstephan continues to be of a very high standard not least thanks to INTERBUS.