When home brewing, a popular technique is to use 2-stage brewing. This is that the beer is fermented in two parts. The first part or primary fermentation is where over half the fermentation is accomplished. During this process, however, sediment forms at the bottom of the fermentor. This sediment adds a bitter flavor to the final beer. In order to avoid this problem, the beer is transferred to a secondary fermentor leaving the sediment behind. This project accomplishes this task automatically.

For people with a busy life, it can be difficult to find time to brew beer. This is because timing is sometimes critical and the entire process take about 2 weeks. One of the problems is that one must find the time to transfer the beer between fermentors at the correct time. This system eliminates this problem because beer is automatically transferred when it is ready.

The system uses a floating hydrometer to know when the beer is ready for transfer. The hydrometer must be set according to original gravity, final gravity, and fluid height. The hydrometer is floated in the beer to calculate original gravity. A fishing line is then attached to the hydrometer so that the switch on tank 1 is tripped, and the line is connected to the hydrometer a given difference above the O.G reading. This difference in height is the amount of fermentation before the beer will be transfered.