# Electronic Fermentation Monitor & Recorder



## MrBrew (24/5/14)

Check this out..


Get yourself a USB-camera with a 'motion-detection' option ($30 or so..)
Install the camera near the airlock, and zoom in on that airlock to get the two water levels close-up.
Turn on 'motion detection'
..and just wait to see the camera detecting the first movement in the airlock!

My camera starts a video recording for 10 seconds - the shortest time I can set - for each motion it detects in that airlock. I'm not interested in that video, but I can see the date & time of the first and last movement; start fermentation & end fermentation, see below.

About 6000 recordings for a brew did get my camera (pc) in trouble, cos it wants to show them in a thumb-nail sequence underneath the actual camera image.
I wrote an old fashion DOS batch file to capture a 'dir' of the recording folder, pipe ‘>>’ to a summery, and delete all *.wmv's, every 10 minutes. Of course you have your RemoteDesktop enabled to watch all this happening when you are at work. 

It's dark in my brew-fridge, so a led-light is helping the camere to see the motions

When finished, getting the times in a graph will show a few major 'waves' in activity. A peak, slow down, up again, and finish.

Just a bit of fun as well 



Start....

-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 133052 May 12 05:34 Motion 1420.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 165058 May 12 06:39 Motion 1421.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 109052 May 12 06:41 Motion 1422.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 165058 May 12 06:44 Motion 1423.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 157058 May 12 06:46 Motion 1424.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 141058 May 12 06:47 Motion 1425.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 205070 May 12 06:48 Motion 1426.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 133052 May 12 06:49 Motion 1427.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 141058 May 12 06:50 Motion 1428.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 221070 May 12 06:51 Motion 1429.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 125052 May 12 06:52 Motion 1430.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 76948 May 12 06:53 Motion 1431.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 141058 May 12 06:53 Motion 1431.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 109052 May 12 06:54 Motion 1432.wmv
.
.
. 
.
.

Finish:

-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 93058 May 16 23:32 Motion 7482.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 157052 May 17 05:04 Motion 7483.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 93058 May 17 05:55 Motion 7484.wmv
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 77058 May 17 07:13 Motion 7485.wmv


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## Cervantes (24/5/14)

That's a great idea and cheaper than a BeerBug.

Have you considered installing a level gauge type stand pipe to your fermenter and sticking a hydrometer in it?

Then if you had this in shot as well, not only could you see when bubbling started and finished, you could also get a gravity reading, which would probably be of a lot more value than relying on bubbles in the airlock.


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## sp0rk (24/5/14)

Kittens, airlock, etc...


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## MrBrew (24/5/14)

Gravity reading is a bit harder i think., beerbug thing is a bit expensive yea..

No kittens in my fridge


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