Anyone who loves whiskey immediately has them in mind when they hear the word "barrel store": the romantic and beautiful images of American, Irish and Scotch whiskey barrels in sometimes narrow, rather poorly lit cellars and warehouses in which the barrels are stacked almost under the roof. What for us exudes a great deal of charm and distillery romance turns out, on closer inspection, to be a great, sensitive challenge for every master distiller in the creation of noble drops.

Each barrel "breathes

This is due to the fact that during storage in traditional wooden barrels, environmental factors help shape the maturation process. Depending on the location, time of day and night, but also the season, temperature, air pressure and humidity vary and influence the precious contents. Why? Because every barrel "breathes. As a result, oxidation and evaporation (up to 2% per year) - the so-called "angel's share" - can cause either a greater absorption of water or of alcohol. If there are also different conditions within a barrel store, the distillate can have different percentages by volume after several years of aging in the individual barrels. This means that the quality of one and the same vintage can vary greatly. In order to prevent this and to be able to produce a consistently high quality at all times, Macardo Swiss Distillery and the ZHAW Winterthur have developed the barrel storage system of the future as part of a bachelor's thesis.

"Drum storage 4.0"

It is bright. It is spacious. It's as meticulously clean as a Formula 1 pit. And it has lots of individual steel girders - 450 in number - on each of which a barrel is stored. All in all, the Macardo barrel storage facility has nothing whatsoever to do with the romantic and beautiful picture I mentioned earlier. Nor should it. For here stands an absolute world first. This is where the result of traditional craftsmanship meets "Industry 4.0". This is where the barrel storage facility of the future was built. "The premium quality of our distillates depends 40% on the raw materials and the distilling process and 60% on the barrel and its storage. Barrel aging is the supreme discipline of refinement. The characteristics of the barrel, the microclimate in the barrel store, the temperature, the tuned humidity, but also the time during which the distillate is allowed to mature have an enormous influence on the taste," says Andy Bössow, owner of Macardo Swiss Distillery in Amlikon-Bissegg. And adds, "Since we have very high quality standards by nature and, due to our size, we cannot afford any great experiments in barrel storage, the desire for a forward-looking barrel storage facility was great. Today, we are in the midst of our "Barrel Storage 4.0", with which we are opening a whole new chapter in the history of distilling. It is another major milestone for our Macardo world of enjoyment and experience. We are very proud of this."

Theory in practice

The fact that the world's first "Barrel Storage System 4.0" can now be officially handed over on July 21, 2021, in the presence of around 50 personalities from science, business and industry, is due to the outstanding collaboration between the two engineers Rudolf Bossert, Macardo Swiss Distillery GmbH, and Bruno Schläpfer, Conmetec GmbH, with the two students Ivan Krajinovic and Lars Müggler and their supervisors Prof. Dr. Teddy Loeliger and Roman Gubler from the ZHAW School of Engineering, research focus electronics and high frequency technology, as Andy Bössow and Prof. Dr. Teddy Loeliger emphasized in their speeches. It all started with the idea of Rudolf Bossert and Bruno Schläpfer to store each barrel individually in order to be able to work with the barrels much more easily in the future. And because we live in the age of "Industry 4.0," they took the idea to its logical conclusion and developed a weighing system based on sensory principles. However, since the Macardo barrel warehouse houses over 400 barrels, a simple, safe and reliable way had to be found for processing and transmitting the data. This is where the ZHAW Winterthur came in, which had a great interest in this very complex and not only theoretical task.

With their bachelor thesis "Barrel Storage 4.0: Networked Quality Monitoring of Barrel Storage", Ivan Krajinovic and Lars Müggler, together with Ruedi Bossert and Bruno Schläpfer, were able to develop the innovative sensor-based system that not only enables the permanent measurement of the climatic storage quality, such as temperature and humidity of each individual barrel, but also monitors the barrel weight. This is made possible by a specially designed sensor module. These and other collected parameters are determined daily and converge fully automatically in a MySQL database. The data is visualized on a website and can be retrieved at any time by logging in. On the basis of all data, an optimal maturation of the noble distillates can be guaranteed. This also includes the "Angel's Share" already mentioned. For the first time, this can be determined precisely for each barrel. If too much distillate evaporates and the "Angel's Share" thus becomes too large, the cellar master is immediately informed of the excessively high values. He can then fine-tune the climatic conditions in the barrel storage facility on site or even by remote intervention so that the evaporation values are correct again. The so-called "devil's cut" can also be determined very precisely. This is the amount of distillate that remains in the walls of the wooden barrel after it has been emptied.

Rudolf Bossert and Bruno Schläpfer also see the fact that they were able to realize the "Barrel Store 4.0" in such a short time as being due to the great cooperation with the students and the ZHAW Winterthur. And Bruno Schläpfer adds at the end of their brief insight into the development history that three points are important when two companies or even academia work together with a company: "First, you need a good idea. Second, it takes good developers. And third, it needs a launching carrier, that is, a company - like Macardo Swiss Distillery - that recognizes the vision and then fully stands behind the idea and its realization."

Not only suitable for drum storage

Prof. Dr. Dirk Wilhelm, Director ZHAW Winterthur, also sees the "Fasslager 4.0" as a perfect example of how research and business can be brought together in a promising way. Daniel Wessner, Head of the Office for Economy and Labor of the Canton of Thurgau, is proud of the fact that the "Barrel Storage 4.0" is not a "crazy idea", but a world first from the Canton of Thurgau, which will inspire further "spectacular work from the Canton of Thurgau". The system behind the "Drum Storage 4.0" itself could contribute to this, as it is suitable for further areas of application, as Ivan Krajinovic proudly states: "The exciting thing about this solution is that it is not only interesting for distilleries. There are many other areas of application where temperature, air pressure as well as humidity have a major influence on the end product. For example, in cheese refining." "Or beekeeping." adds Lars Müggler, the second driving force behind the bachelor thesis, explaining, "Bees are very sensitive to environmental influences that create a climate in their hive that goes beyond their comfort zone. While they have their methods of protecting the larvae, it costs them an extreme amount of energy. And if they fail to keep the temperature in the optimal range, the young bees take great damage. That means this generation is very likely to fail as a honey provider." Another advantage for the beekeeper concerns the size of his colony and the productivity of the bees. Based on the permanently determined weight of a hive, the beekeeper can draw conclusions about the number of his bees on the one hand, and on the other hand gets an impression of how honey production is progressing.

Pure pleasure

After the remarks on "Fasslager 4.0", Dr. Jakob Stark, member of the Council of States in the Canton of Thurgau, sounded the same horn as the previous speakers during his brief speech of thanks and praise: "It takes young people who want to do research and companies that want to let research happen. Then great results such as the "Fasslager 4.0" will emerge." Thus, he said, he is "not afraid for the canton of Thurgau" when it comes to the future. What exquisite result the interplay of the terms "data," "barrel," "sensors," "microclimate," and "maturation" will produce in practice can be verified with every single sip of the noble distillates. Scientifically speaking. But one could also simply say: The world innovation "Barrel Storage 4.0" delivers pure enjoyment. This is confirmed not only by all those responsible at Macardo and the ZHAW Winterthur. They also see the excellent cooperation between companies and the ZHAW as a great opportunity to continue creating excellent projects and products in the future. It's great when great theoretical ideas can be put into practice so convincingly with an SME like the Macardo Swiss Distillery and are then in operation day after day.