# BrewMonitor project



## megabyte (25/11/15)

Hi Guys,

Just a quick intro to a project I've been working on-and-off (mostly off ) for far too long.

It's called BrewMonitor and the idea is pretty simple - to hook up a recording device to your fermenter and record temperature and airlock activity. That way you can easily answer questions like "what was my lag time?", "what was my peak temperature?" and "how well is my fridge controlling the temperature?".

Obviously it's not a replacement for taking specific gravity readings so it won't tell you when to bottle or keg, but it could help to determine _when_ you should start taking those final gravity readings.

The project incorporates an electronic circuit (the BrewMonitor) and some software that communicates over USB allowing you to explore the data it records.








The airlock sensor uses an infrared light gate and a 3D printed mould to hold it in place on a standard gooseneck type of airlock. I have also been playing around with serial CCD cameras that could be an option in the future for all you glad-wrappers! :lol:





The simplest mode of operation is to run the BrewMonitor stand alone (without a computer attached) by powering it from a spare USB charger or battery bank, this way it just records the data internally and you can download it from the device later over USB. Alternatively, you can leave it connected to a computer (a spare laptop perhaps?) throughout fermentation and the software can send notifications to your phone when certain conditions are met.

I'm currently coding integration with Pushover API to send notifications to your phone like:

"You've reached 17C, it's time to pitch your yeast!"
"Your temperature has crept up to 25C. You might wanna ice-bath that baby"
"Your bubble rate has slowed to 50% of its peak, now might be a good time for a diacetyl rest"
"Your airlock is slowing down. Time to take some S.G. readings and free up a keg"
Here's an example notification: 


I'm also working on live data uploads to thingspeak.com for those that like to watch their yeast reproducing over the internet. h34r:

The source code, 3D models and PCB designs are all going up on GitHub over here along with some more information about the project. Let me know if you'd like to help contribute and I can help out with some PCBs to get you started!


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## goatus (25/11/15)

Very cool.

Have you attempted converting the airlock flow rate sensor into an estimated gravity based on the amount of CO2 estimated to have left the chamber? If you can work out some kind of algorithm to do that even remotely accurately given the starting gravity and the amount of flow that would be an amazing tool. You would have to feed it your starting gravity, wort volume, fermenter volume, and somehow estimate what an average "bubble" volume is, and then you could get a somewhat accurate volume of CO2 produced, which could be converted to a current gravity estimate? I'm not sure if different (or even the same yeast) would consistently produce the same amount of CO2 in the same wort, but well worth a crack at testing the data. 

I'm currently using the BrewPi for ferment control / logging. The creator keeps teasing of a way to log gravity readings along with temp (I believe with some kind of weight on a line that dangles into the wort). There was also a kickstarter bluetooth hydrometer that sits in your wort and tilts as the gravity changes and takes readings via a tilt-sensor and feeds it back via bluetooth. Loving that there is also another approach (and your way nothing has to touch the beer).


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## megabyte (25/11/15)

goatus said:


> Have you attempted converting the airlock flow rate sensor into an estimated gravity based on the amount of CO2 estimated to have left the chamber? If you can work out some kind of algorithm to do that even remotely accurately given the starting gravity and the amount of flow that would be an amazing tool. You would have to feed it your starting gravity, wort volume, fermenter volume, and somehow estimate what an average "bubble" volume is, and then you could get a somewhat accurate volume of CO2 produced, which could be converted to a current gravity estimate? I'm not sure if different (or even the same yeast) would consistently produce the same amount of CO2 in the same wort, but well worth a crack at testing the data.
> 
> I'm currently using the BrewPi for ferment control / logging. The creator keeps teasing of a way to log gravity readings along with temp (I believe with some kind of weight on a line that dangles into the wort). There was also a kickstarter bluetooth hydrometer that sits in your wort and tilts as the gravity changes and takes readings via a tilt-sensor and feeds it back via bluetooth. Loving that there is also another approach (and your way nothing has to touch the beer).


You're spot on, and regretfully the answer is no I'm not planning to make it measure S.G at the moment. Currently there's the BrewNanny and BeerBug projects that try to accomplish this, but I'm still yet to be convinced that either are reliable or convenient enough to substitute manual S.G. measurements. There's a fantastic thread over on HBT where a number of people are throwing alternative ideas around but we're yet to come up with a robust solution.

Regarding that kickstarter, are you referring to the Brewometer that fell short of funding? I thought that was an elegant solution except that as soon as it touches the side of your fermenter it will read the wrong gravity. I was working on a similar setup with a linear ccd array inside a clear floating tube, but avoiding the krausen and holding it away from the walls are the pitfalls. I still have hopes for a self-resonant piezoelectric sensor and I've run some correlation experiments between wort reflectivity throughout fermentation detailed over here that are very promising alternatives for the future.

Alas, the BrewMonitor is much less ambitious, it just watches the airlock and temperature and it does this pretty well. We can still gain a lot of insight from these parameters and augment them with a couple of manual S.G tests IMO.


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## professional_drunk (25/11/15)

Have you thought about modifying brewpi to support your airlock bubbler? It already does graphing functions and displays them via a webserver on raspberry pi. Instead of a custom pcb, how about a spark photon?


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## klangers (25/11/15)

goatus said:


> Very cool.
> 
> Have you attempted converting the airlock flow rate sensor into an estimated gravity based on the amount of CO2 estimated to have left the chamber? If you can work out some kind of algorithm to do that even remotely accurately given the starting gravity and the amount of flow that would be an amazing tool. You would have to feed it your starting gravity, wort volume, fermenter volume, and somehow estimate what an average "bubble" volume is, and then you could get a somewhat accurate volume of CO2 produced, which could be converted to a current gravity estimate? I'm not sure if different (or even the same yeast) would consistently produce the same amount of CO2 in the same wort, but well worth a crack at testing the data.
> 
> I'm currently using the BrewPi for ferment control / logging. The creator keeps teasing of a way to log gravity readings along with temp (I believe with some kind of weight on a line that dangles into the wort). There was also a kickstarter bluetooth hydrometer that sits in your wort and tilts as the gravity changes and takes readings via a tilt-sensor and feeds it back via bluetooth. Loving that there is also another approach (and your way nothing has to touch the beer).


A million times easier to just put the fermenter on load cells. This will give you an accurate reading of how much CO2 has escaped as the mass will gradually reduce.


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## TheBlackAdder (25/11/15)

klangers said:


> A million times easier to just put the fermenter on load cells. This will give you an accurate reading of how much CO2 has escaped as the mass will gradually reduce.


Skeptical on measuring the weight of air with a load cell...I would think the mass difference would be less than the uncertainty of measurement


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## klangers (25/11/15)

Fair comment, let's do some calcs.

Let's say we have a 20L wort at 1.060. This will weigh 1.060 x 998 x 0.02 (SG x density of water in kg/m3 x 20L in m3) = 21.158 kg. After dropping to 1.02, this would weigh 20.3592 kg. This is well within the accuracy of load cells. Granted, they would need to be decent quality but they can typically resolve down to 0.001 kg (1 gram).


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## TheBlackAdder (25/11/15)

Point taken
I was too lazy to do the maths 

This would be a good method to trail, adjusting for solids that fall out of suspension, which may be negligible


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## Drick (25/11/15)

Love the idea. 
Even if it only monitors the airlock and temperature, it'll should still sell at the right price.


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## megabyte (25/11/15)

professional_drunk said:


> Have you thought about modifying brewpi to support your airlock bubbler? It already does graphing functions and displays them via a webserver on raspberry pi. Instead of a custom pcb, how about a spark photon?


Yep I think the BrewPi inputs would support the airlock sensor but I fear the BrewPi code might need some tricky changes since you have to sample the ADC at a high frequency and do some calculations to monitor the bubbles.

The particle photon is a great candidate for adding WiFi to the BrewMonitor but I'm also considering adding an ESP8266 module to the existing design and porting the code to Arduino. Honestly the biggest deciding factor is what the community prefers the most out of the two options.




klangers said:


> A million times easier to just put the fermenter on load cells. This will give you an accurate reading of how much CO2 has escaped as the mass will gradually reduce.


You'd also have to factor in yeast production but I've heard it being done over on the HBT forums with good results. What does a gram-accurate load cell that can handle 25kg cost?


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## sponge (25/11/15)

Now to modify for the glad-wrappers


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## Mardoo (25/11/15)

We'll need a kitten recognition system to start...


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## megabyte (25/11/15)

Aww snap.. and here I was thinking we might get through the first page without being struck my dem lolcatz :lol:

Mardoo! (I'm saying that in in a Colonel Klink "Hoogan" voice)


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## professional_drunk (25/11/15)

I think the end game really needs to be a temperature controller. The thing we are missing is a smart temp controller that is also legal in Australia. STC1000 and Brewpi's with SSR's aren't legal. Fully assembled 240v power tail switches don't exist either.

I've recently put together a temp controller for a cheese fridge using arduino and a rf transmitter that can control 3 arlec rf power sockets (fridge, fan, humidifier). That was my solution to getting over the legalities.

So my suggestion is some sort of

open hardware (arduino, particle) 
legal 240v switching such as the rf example above
rasbpi webserver or cloud for graphs and stuff
optional humidity probe for cheese makers.
Add your hardware design skills and that would be a product that would be interesting.


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## megabyte (25/11/15)

Nah, the end game replaces your fridge and heater belt altogether -  

Let's not get confused - temp controllers control temperature, BrewMonitors monitor your brew. Like compare the market, compare the meerkat right? 

(respectfully though, awesome idea with the Arlec switches and great suggestion with the cheesemakers too!)


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## idzy (25/11/15)

All very exciting stuff, well done Michael.


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## klangers (25/11/15)

Michael Burton said:


> You'd also have to factor in yeast production but I've heard it being done over on the HBT forums with good results. What does a gram-accurate load cell that can handle 25kg cost?


Shouldn't have to do that. It's a simple mass balance. Unless you're conducting nuclear reactions inside the fermenter (changing mass to energy or visa versa E=MC^2), net change in mass = mass of escaped matter. In this case, CO2 (and any samples taken or moisture ingress which has then condensed).

The yeast doesn't appear from nothing, it simply grows from molecules which were already present.

I will admit I do not know the cost, and this may be prohibitive.


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## Mardoo (25/11/15)

I was checking out load cells on eBay a few weeks ago. You could probably come in at a reasonable cost.


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## MichaelM (25/11/15)

klangers said:


> A million times easier to just put the fermenter on load cells. This will give you an accurate reading of how much CO2 has escaped as the mass will gradually reduce.


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## MichaelM (25/11/15)

I agree with you Klangers. It's one of the methods some production breweries monitor the gravity.


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## contrarian (25/11/15)

Looking good Michael, the end game is especially interesting. 

But seriously, I have a hard enough time concentrating at work as it is without being able to monitor fermentation from my phone!


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## Logan_01 (25/11/15)

Just thinking on this load cell idea. A loadcell with a +/-1% accuracy would still give you a +/-200g reading on 20kg. To get to +/-1 gram at those weights means +/-0.005% accuracy. Without looking, I would be suprised if loadcells and the amplifiers would be able to achieve this. maybe NASA might have some, don't know.


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## DJ_L3ThAL (25/11/15)

http://gedgesystems.com.au/main/Load_Cell_GK2101S.htm

0.02% accuracy which is about 4-5 grams over a single homebrew batch amount. Thats pretty accurate for this purpose if it suits and isnt $1million


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## Logan_01 (26/11/15)

Maybe you should enquire and get a price, will probably need 4 of them to balance the platform the fermenter sits on. No good getting high accuacy load cells without a high accuracy controller, so best get a price on one of those to. I recon you might get out with $5k, but we will see.
I personally like my $10 hydrometer which can determine 0.001 sg or 1g in 1kg.
To automate I would make something to measure hydrometer level, but would have to deal with bubbles or touching the sides.
Na too hard, just take the reading at the end, and drink the beer.


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## Mr. No-Tip (26/11/15)

professional_drunk said:


> I think the end game really needs to be a temperature controller. The thing we are missing is a smart temp controller that is also legal in Australia. STC1000 and Brewpi's with SSR's aren't legal.


What is the legal issue?


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## MastersBrewery (26/11/15)

Or do what one of the HBT'ers (malffet or something like that) did and use a mass flow controller and measure Co2, also means your under pressure though, but accurate to .ooo5 (the new and improved WW?!!)


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## goatus (26/11/15)

Mr. No-Tip said:


> What is the legal issue?


I think he means illegal to wire up the 240 side without a sparky licence.


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## Spiesy (26/11/15)

goatus said:


> I think he means illegal to wire up the 240 side without a sparky licence.


Any many are sold already wired up, illegally. They don't have Australian compliance - look in any HB shop and you'll find them.
Doesn't mean they aren't safe, the manufacturer just hasn't been able to justify the $10k to get compliance.


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## megabyte (26/11/15)

klangers said:


> Unless you're conducting nuclear reactions inside the fermenter (changing mass to energy or visa versa E=MC^2), net change in mass = mass of escaped matter. In this case, CO2 (and any samples taken or moisture ingress which has then condensed).
> 
> The yeast doesn't appear from nothing, it simply grows from molecules which were already present.


I thought the same at first but the idea is that we want to measure the change in weight of the wort, exclusive of the yeast. So if some of that wort mass is turning into yeast instead of alcohol then we need to account for that. This has also been covered on HBT forum but the good news is it's purely Newtonian physics and predictable enough to model with a simple equation. 

1 g glucose => 0.46285 g CO2 + 0.48391 g ethanol + 0.053 g yeast




contrarian said:


> Looking good Michael, the end game is especially interesting.
> 
> But seriously, I have a hard enough time concentrating at work as it is without being able to monitor fermentation from my phone!


But that's why it only notifies you when important conditions are met, that way you can give your work your full attention without worrying how your yeasties are tracking back at home. Admittedly, I too would still be inclined to check up on progress during work hours though. We'll know we've made it when IT admins start blocking BrewMonitor traffic along with facebook!


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## contrarian (26/11/15)

If they really want to increase productivity you'd have to check your smart phone at the door before starting work!


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## kaiserben (26/11/15)

I'm trying to make a Raspberry Pi monitor and control ferment fridge temps (and then also log data and transmit it via wifi to a webpage). 

Every controller I've read about always uses extra boards (arduino etc), so I'm wondering if I'm missing something here, but why can't I just create and run a simple program & webserver for the Pi to switch the relays on/off at certain temps and hold for certain lengths of time?


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## megabyte (26/11/15)

Hey @professional_drunk, I'm still busy coding pushover and thingspeak integration today but I've also been thinking about your rf power sockets as an option for the future. Are these the kinds you used? They are surprisingly cheap at $13 bucks a piece!


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## vortex (8/12/15)

kaiserben said:


> I'm trying to make a Raspberry Pi monitor and control ferment fridge temps (and then also log data and transmit it via wifi to a webpage).
> 
> Every controller I've read about always uses extra boards (arduino etc), so I'm wondering if I'm missing something here, but why can't I just create and run a simple program & webserver for the Pi to switch the relays on/off at certain temps and hold for certain lengths of time?


You can. I am working on a project that does this now with an I2C relay board connected to a RasPi to switch relays. No need for the Arduino, a multi threaded Python script (well, collection of scripts) does it pretty well. Mine controls 2 fridges with ambient, fridge-air and wort temp sensors in each.
I'm happy to start a new thread and point to code (it's not yet ready to control a ferment though it should be said) so I'm not polluting this project thread.


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## professional_drunk (8/12/15)

kaiserben said:


> I'm trying to make a Raspberry Pi monitor and control ferment fridge temps (and then also log data and transmit it via wifi to a webpage).
> 
> Every controller I've read about always uses extra boards (arduino etc), so I'm wondering if I'm missing something here, but why can't I just create and run a simple program & webserver for the Pi to switch the relays on/off at certain temps and hold for certain lengths of time?





Why not use just the Raspberri Pi without an Arduino?
There have been examples of brewing controllers that use the Pi’s GPIO pins intead of having and Arduino slave, but having a slave is a deliberate choice for me. The main reason for this is that the Pi is not very stable. I have had it crash on me multiple times. So what happens to the GPIO pins when it crashes? Will it just keep cooling your beer to 4°C and stop your fermentation?
The Arduino slave simply will not crash. Even if the Pi crashes, the temperature control keeps running. Your beer is safe. The worst thing that will happen is that it will not get a new temperature from the temperature profile and no data will be logged.
A microcontroller is better suited to interface low level hardware. The Pi is better suited to log data and provide an interface. I think it’s a better design this way.


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## vortex (8/12/15)

That has not been my experience with RaspberryPi's.


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## professional_drunk (8/12/15)

Michael Burton said:


> Hey @professional_drunk, I'm still busy coding pushover and thingspeak integration today but I've also been thinking about your rf power sockets as an option for the future. Are these the kinds you used? They are surprisingly cheap at $13 bucks a piece!


That's the one.


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## kaiserben (9/12/15)

professional_drunk said:


> Why not use just the Raspberri Pi without an Arduino?
> There have been examples of brewing controllers that use the Pi’s GPIO pins intead of having and Arduino slave, but having a slave is a deliberate choice for me. The main reason for this is that the Pi is not very stable. I have had it crash on me multiple times. So what happens to the GPIO pins when it crashes? Will it just keep cooling your beer to 4°C and stop your fermentation?
> The Arduino slave simply will not crash. Even if the Pi crashes, the temperature control keeps running. Your beer is safe. The worst thing that will happen is that it will not get a new temperature from the temperature profile and no data will be logged.
> A microcontroller is better suited to interface low level hardware. The Pi is better suited to log data and provide an interface. I think it’s a better design this way.


Interesting. We'd been looking at the BrewPi set-up but hadn't seen that text. My tech guru had been wondering if people had simply copied/improved older controllers and, even as technology developed, just kept using arduino because it's the way it has always been done. He's determined to use the GPIO pins so I guess we'll see how it goes. 

Ultimately we want the Pi to control a brewing system as well as a ferment fridge.


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## professional_drunk (9/12/15)

Please excuse the dodgy video quality. Note that the arduino is 1.5m away without an antenna for the rf transmitter.


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## vortex (9/12/15)

kaiserben said:


> Interesting. We'd been looking at the BrewPi set-up but hadn't seen that text. My tech guru had been wondering if people had simply copied/improved older controllers and, even as technology developed, just kept using arduino because it's the way it has always been done. He's determined to use the GPIO pins so I guess we'll see how it goes.
> 
> Ultimately we want the Pi to control a brewing system as well as a ferment fridge.


Like I said, but was subsequently ignored, it is easy to do and does work without an Arduino. The RasPi is NOT unstable as the BrewPi guy says. It's more likely something was wrong with an individual RasPi, unstable power input (they can be quite sensitive to this), an SD card issue (the OS can block when reading or writing from bad sectors on the SD card) or the software on it at the time. We have 3 RasPi's that get extensive workloads (for Pi's) in our house and they never "crash" or become unresponsive in any way. We have used everything from the very original 256mb RAM Pi up to the latest RasPi 2 and all have been stable and excellent.

Also, Pi's are cheap enough you can have separate ones for ferment control and for the brewery, this is my approach.

Additionally there are other SBC's available such as BeagleBone which do similar things and they have basically the same amount of CPU & RAM (but a shitload MORE GPIOs)

But as I suggested we avoid earlier, we're polluting an unrelated projects thread.


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## mr_wibble (9/12/15)

kaiserben said:


> I'm trying to make a Raspberry Pi monitor and control ferment fridge temps (and then also log data and transmit it via wifi to a webpage).
> 
> Every controller I've read about always uses extra boards (arduino etc), so I'm wondering if I'm missing something here, but why can't I just create and run a simple program & webserver for the Pi to switch the relays on/off at certain temps and hold for certain lengths of time?


I'm not trying to be a dick - but why not just use an Arduino then ?

For ~ $5 you can get a no-name brand Arduino Nano. 
Wire the temperatures sensor(s) and SSR(s) to it, and read log-data and write commmands from Mr Pi over USB/Serial.

I fully understand that you might want to use a Pi for it "just because". It's just that on an Arduino it's cheap & easy.


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## kaiserben (9/12/15)

Originally when I went to my Dad with this project (he's more techy-savvy than I am) it was going to be STC-1000 with photon (instead of arduino). Then it was going to be R-Pi with photon (like latest BrewPi). He bought a photon & is enjoying mucking around with it, but after looking more closely at various ways of doing this he doesn't think arduino/photon is required. He suspects that every time someone built a newer one of these that they used arduino just because that's how they were always built beforehand. 

Also, mine will control and transmit data via wifi rather than over USB/serial.


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## vortex (9/12/15)

For me having worked as a systems administrator in the past and currently as a software developer - having a full, real Linux environment with whatever programming languages I wanted available and actual available CPU and RAM is too much for me to resist.

I've played with Arduino fairly extensively and even coded a whole management sketch for two fridges with a basic web interface (EtherTen Arduino) before the ROM space was running out. It also ran so hot that I couldn't touch it. The price of a Mega was higher than a RasPi at that point so it was a no-brainer to go to rpi.

I'm going to start a thread for my software project as there is likely some interest from others (Written in Python, individual brewery, dual fermentor and kegerator control software, PhoneGap/Cordova Mobile control app etc). All on GitHub, too. Fermentation software is _almost_ at the point of doing basic (i.e. no PID algorithm implemented as yet) ferment temp control. The brewery control software is slightly less mature but is parsing a Beersmith XML export and generating mash steps to control a RIMS tube and pumps etc. I don't expect I'll bother with valve control. I have a RasPi 7" touch screen ready to go and intend to use this as a secondary interface for brewery control along side the mobile app. REST/JSON APIs etc in each. Brewery and Fermentor control are both multi-threaded.


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## megabyte (9/12/15)

I must admit I still don't understand what rPi brings to the table over a photon. I fully understand if that's the technology stack you already know and love but IMO rPi is a little over the top for logging bytes and toggling IO. Hosting a web server locally is novel but old hat with all the cloud platforms available today that photon can push to with a couple of lines of code. Running a fast TFT display is a possible benefit of the rPi, but it certainly comes at a cost and isn't necessary if you've got a good UI in the cloud.

If going down the Linux route I'd strongly consider C.H.I.P over rPi instead. Call it BrewC.H.I.P and attract a whole new community of fanboys like BrewPi did. Ideally the hype of the new hardware platform might overshadow the fact that it's a poor choice of hardware and could be done cheaper with an ESP8266 for example.

Again I totally respect that if you already love the rPi then that's a great reason to go that route though!


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## vortex (9/12/15)

I'd never heard of a Photon until about 30 mins ago  It will be very handy for another project I'm working on that I need a small, light and very simple interface to the CANBUS in a car.

For me I picked RasPi because it runs an OS I'm intimately familiar with, a language I wasn't so much (but wanted to learn) and for me the cost wasn't even a concern. I actually chose it after trying a BeagleBone Black - that is much more overkill  Yes the RPI is still overkill, but what you consider overkill I probably consider flexibility  Can you SSH to a Photon, for example?

I don't want to use 3rd party cloud services. I dislike sending my data, any data, to any external service. I want it locally in a database I control on hardware I control, then I can do as I wish with the data rather than being at the mercy of a 3rd party which may disappear overnight (an extreme example, granted). Then again I am a software developer who likes to do everything himself (again, overkill).

At the end of the day just about everything (even photon) could be considered overkill - all you _really_ need is an STC1000 to maintain a stable ferment temp and plenty of others could successfully argue you don't even need that level of control to make great homebrew.

Anyway, apologies again for polluting your thread - I really like your project and I'd love to have a closer look at the code on Github. I'll put up a thread for mine in the next few days.


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## megabyte (9/12/15)

Hey vortex. Don't worry about "polluting" the thread, I feel your discussion is very relevant and we're all aiming for the same outcome. In fact I've learned so much from the feedback in this thread I'm very glad that I posted it up even if it's not all positive for the BrewMonitor project in its current guise.

Also, sorry if my last post sounds like it was rebuking yours. Actually I was typing it up on my phone and didn't see your post until after I posted mine. I mentioned TFT displays and working with platforms you already know because I think they're the strongest points in favour of the Rpi, the fact that you also mentioned them is a testament that you're using the Rpi for valid reasons IMO. Do check out CHIP though (linky); it has Linux, WiFi, Bluetooth and HDMI and costs only 9 bucks.

Anyhow, I do endorse setting up your own thread about your project and garnering some feedback from the community if only because there are so many smart cookies on AHB (like yourself) that freely offer great feedback, but feel free to keep making suggestions here too!


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## GibboQLD (10/12/15)

Michael Burton said:


> If going down the Linux route I'd strongly consider C.H.I.P over rPi instead. Call it BrewC.H.I.P and attract a whole new community of fanboys like BrewPi did.





Michael Burton said:


> Do check out CHIP though (linky); it has Linux, WiFi, Bluetooth and HDMI and costs only 9 bucks.


For the RPi loyalists, the RPi foundation recently released the Zero, which apparently retails for $5, but lacks the baked-in wifi / BT that the C.H.I.P. offers.


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## kaiserben (10/12/15)

Yep - will definitely check out the CHIP and the Pi Zero.


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## timmi9191 (10/12/15)

ok.. so i know the obvious answer to the question why? is coz!! But why??


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## megabyte (10/12/15)

"coz" is reason enough for some of us :blush: but the basic rationale is:

Fermentation is super important. Like if you only do one thing right in your brew make sure you... sanitise. But if you get two things right, make sure your fermentation is good also.

Yeast is sensitive to many factors and we can't control them all. Fermentation doesn't always follow an exact timeline and sometimes surprises happen so it pays to keep tabs on progress.

Unlike brew day, fermentation takes a loong time. Personally, I'm too impatient to sit around and time my lag phase and I tend to miss the right moment for a diacetyl rest too. Having a system that can record this stuff and push notifications to my phone when it's time to get off my arse and take an S.G. reading or bump the thermostat just makes sense to me.

I used BrewMonitor to record my most recent brew and discovered a number of minor faults in my process that I didn't expect. I'll put up a vid to explain it all as soon as I get the chance but flat out working on Yeast Forge for the next few days.

EDIT: I forgot to mention distance. I brew in a laundry in a completely separate building from my house which makes checkups a pain, especially if it's raining. I'm probably an extreme case but many brewers operate out of their garages and basements so I doubt I'm alone.


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## MattSR (14/6/17)

Hi megabyte, has there been any progress on this project at all? I had a peek at Github and it doesn't look like much has progressed since it was released?

Cheers,
Matt


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## megabyte (14/6/17)

Hey Matt, I haven't gone further with the BrewMonitor project. Tech has advanced so fast over the past 2 years it's something I'd love to get back to some day!


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