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I have a pretty small ferm chamber (between 4-5 ft^3), and as I said the small space heater on low (~120w) is solid overkill. However, I'm optimistic that Fermentrack will be able to manage it, in spite of @day_trippr's experience with BrewPi, which uses the same (or very similar) control...

I ordered one of these mini space heaters for my mini-fridge fermentation chamber after I had difficulty raising the temperature of my beer using a couple of 40w heating pads. Even on low it appears to be pretty solid overkill--it has no trouble raising the chamber to the max that Fermentrack...

Slightly more on topic, am I safe to presume that periodic apt updates for the raspbian server are ok? I just realized that mine has been sitting there for the last 10 months or so and I haven't bothered updating it once (or turning on automatic updates).

Hopefully this isn't too far offtopic for this thread, but I wanted to share my success hacking my fermentation fridge to run on Fermentrack. This Haier beverage cooler has a simple (read easily bypassed) thermostat in a conveniently-sized plastic enclosure right inside the fridge. With some...

I built several of the DIY floats with parts from the gusius link above. They seem to work well, although I have only just started using them, so I haven't yet run into any of the possible difficulties (foaming, clogging with hops, etc). Including the extra 3/8" ID tubing that I needed to buy in...

So, unfortunately in my brew day yesterday, I had the opportunity to further investigate this question, as my mash was sticking horribly due to an overaggressive crush. I made some interesting (to me, anyway) observations. As predicted by my friend, @RiverCityBrewer, and @BrunDog, once the mash...

I just did this with a lager and was somewhat surprised when the fermentation completely emptied the SK of star-san overnight. I did not observe any suckback, but everything (FV, SK, and star-san blowoff bucket) was pretty much at the same temp. I had the same thought as ttuato regarding...

Yeah, I thought that his logic was pretty sound. I'll try and come up with some flow-meter based logic.

Hey @BrunDog and others--I'm working on refining my brew day script after my first brew, specifically attempting to use my mash kettle volume sensor to detect a grainbed restriction/stuck mash situation and adjusting the proportional valve on the other side of the pump to compensate. BrunDog has...

Ah, the bottom drain. Yeah, my next mashtun should have one of those. BruControl worked great. I had some typos/errors in my script in areas I hadn't fully reached in testing, e.g. I had several errors where "sleep", "wait", and "State" were not properly capitalized, which caused the script to...

First brew is in the bag! Or fermenter, I guess. As expected on any new system, there were many hiccups, but I mostly hit my numbers and there were no show-stopping issues. Here are the only pics I snapped during the whole 6 hours (how can a 6 hour brew day seem so hectic?): the control panel...

Yes. I have run a couple of water tests. Found several bugs and squashed them. I fully expect to find more, but I'm optimistic that I will make sugar water, and the yeast will do the rest!

Hoping to run the inaugural brew tomorrow or Friday! In the meantime, here is a pic of testing the clean/rinse script with both elements firing simultaneously. 45.9 amps, baby!

BrunDog, I can confirm this behavior--earlier I was having difficulty with changing MaxOutput on a PID for which I had set MaxIntegral to 100. If both were 100, no problems, but if I changed MaxOutput to a number lower than 100 with MaxIntegral still set at 100 the PID would set the output to...

0-5v

@CadiBrewer: High-temp sensor for brew kettle, and, if you care, the 150mm rtd sensors I used with the tee. The sensor I'm using for my mash tun appears to be the same sensor as the high-temp one, but in a less robust enclosure. The link from my orders no longer works for that one. With all of...

Just FYI, if you want to do it exactly like I did, you need 150mm long RTD probes. Auber has them, but I got mine for a bit less (plus a lot of waiting) from aliexpress. Re: the plumbing, yes, I have my chiller plumbed to go back into the kettle if I want to chill the whole batch rather than...

@BrunDog: I know, right? I’m getting excited to finally brew on this thing. @CadiBrewer: That’s one of two combo rtd probe/pressure sensors for volume measuring. There’s a closer up pic in post 47 above.

Another incremental update, plumbing completed!* Pro tip: do a better job of planning your plumbing than I did. I ended up making 5 or 6 separate orders for fittings after realizing (5 or 6 times) that I'd ordered too few of something. * Except for the garden hose between the first 3-way...

OK. I actually designed my system to limit the 5500w RIMS power to 25-35% on mash recirculation based on your recommendation to me earlier in this thread. Obviously if I can get the PID dialed in sufficiently that it does not need a cap on the power output that's fine. Speaking of which, with a...