AxHTherm Fermentation and Mashing

[Carmine Moleti]

Hi everyone,

My name's Carmine and I'm an hobbyst homebrewer from Italy.

Among my interests (brewing aside), there's electronics and software development, and that's
what has pushed me and a couple of home brewer friends to build AxHTherm.

AxHTherm is a fermentation and mashing control system

Fermentation and mash can be controlled by means of a temperature profile.

Up to three temperature sensors (DS18B20) can be attached to the system, of which one

will be the active probe and the remaining 2 will be used for monitoring (i.e. chamber and environment temperature monitors)

A temperature profile consists of up to 5 control steps, and each one can be of either one of

the following kinds:

• Fixed temperature point
  • Holds temperature at given set point (within probe's tolerance)
• Time and temperature controlled ramp
  • Ramps (up or down) the temperature changing the set point at computed intervals given the duration.
• Time and temperature controlled ramp with max velocity settings
  • Ramps (up or down) the temperature changing the set point of given amount (degrees/hour)
• Gravity controlled (interfaces with iSpindel and Tilt hydrometers)
  • The system holds the temperature like the fixed point but considers a step completed once the gravity reaches the desired value.
• PID controller (for mashing)
  • The system holds the desired temperature for the given time using PID control algorithm

The system is remotely controllable by means of a web application, and supports OTA updates.

Another interesting (IMHO) feature is the capability to connect to external services such as:

• ThingSpeak for logging and graphing
• IFTTT to receive step change notifications

In its latest version, AxHTherm, can talk to digital hydrometers (iSpindel and Tilt) and upload data to Brew Father application.

AxHTherm is comprises two parts a PCB which hosts all required hardware and a GUI.
As of today the GUI is build for Android devices (and it is available on Google's play sotore), but
a web version will be available as soon as we have finished polishing the Android version.

Doc..ehm..entation wise, we've just started writing something, and getting a blog ready. So, for now,
the most reliable source for documentation is our telegram channel.

Hoping to have whet your appetite, I look forward to hear from you and exchange thoughts.

Cheers

 

[Carmine Moleti]

Here some images of the system



[GUI] Step list


[GUI] Home page showing selected device


[GUI] Running status with enabled steps and other details

 

[JohnSand]

Welcome Carmine. Your system should be very interesting to our many members who use advanced brewing controls. I also want to let you know that while discussing ideas of products in development is a healthy part of our forum, actual sales or advertisements require approval from an administrator. If and when you are ready to sell your product, please contact TxBrew before listing items, or placing links to commercial pages. Good luck with it, keep us posted on your brewing.

 

[Carmine Moleti]

Hello Mr. Sand,

First and foremost, I'd like to apologise if I broke any of the forum's rules, I didn't mean to.
I took the liberty to write such a post after I saw a similar introductory one about iSpindel.

Anyway, I'd like to clarify a few points about this project.

It is not a commercial product, it's a DIY project, the schematics are free for anyone to
peruse and you can build it yourself and use to your likings. The people behind this are
just a bunch of passionate homebrewers.

The only thing that has a (small) price tag is the GUI. That was a necessary move in
order to try to cover part of the hidden costs such an adventure has (R&D, domain and hosting space ...).
So, once again, sorry if my post gave the wrong impression.

That said, I thank you for your time.

 

[JohnSand]

I don't think you broke any rules Carmine, and we welcome your input here