Fermenters Needed - Automatic Fermentation System

[JasonOCFermentation]

Hello everyone,


I'm a third year electronic engineering student, nutrition, fitness and for a year or so, fermentation enthusiast. I'm currently developing a home-scale, automatic fermentation system for my dissertation to which I hope will optimize and network the development of fermented food and beverages and their benefits. The system will provide optimal environments for a range of goods such as ginger beer and kimchi.

As this project is in it's very early stages of development, I'm looking for people who may have an interest in such a system and who are willing to input any ideas or possible adaptations that they may find beneficial to them and the fermentation community as a whole.

I'm also interested to see the setup of home and professional fermenters and the difficulties they find in fermenting in their environment.

I hope this was an interesting proposition to those who read it, and I'd be very happy if anyone of any background were to reply, it would benefit me and potentially you, so much.

Also, attached is a illustration of a prototype, it's not a practical one but it gives *just* enough an an idea.


Thank you,
Jason Clifton

 

[BrunDog]

First - good luck on your dissertation - looks like a decent project. Separate vessel in the water jacket is a nice idea and to the best of my knowledge... is not currently represented in the market (there are 1-piece jacketed systems of course).

The permanent hydrometer will likely not be that easy to implement, and I'm not sure the purpose of the stirrer - active fermentation stirs itself.

 

[JasonOCFermentation]

Does active fermentation stir itself completely? In a few recipes I'd been instructed to properly stir the sediment, for example ginger beer. Also yeah, the hydrometer will be awkward, I'm open to options if you have any, but alcohol sensing seems like a very rudimentary topic. I did see someone recently measure gas release of an airlock to identify alcohol production. I also didn't know the proper term for the "water jacket", that's nice to know, I'd been referring to suos vide techniques to explain it, thanks for that.

Edit: The hydrometer will be replaceable still. The top can pop off and the inside of the thinner tube enclosure is hollow for obvious reasons. I planned to make it modular, so that the electronics could all be encapsulated within the top half.

 

[bracconiere]

lol, looks cool...But as someone else in another thread, "I Just came here for LODO ideas"...but that being the case, what about pulling a vacuum on it? i know fermentation UNDER pressure is a thing, why not a vacuum?

i also agree that i don't see the need for stirring....and as far as the hydrometer, what about an electrical current? like a refractometer measuers how light passes, why not electricity? just tossing things out....

 

[JasonOCFermentation]

I *think*, you've given me ideas now but, to carbonate something, you need the pressure so I don't think that would work. Not seen anything about electricity, though it sounds potentially power consuming, but damn cool that's for sure.

 

[HarkinBanks]

For beer, check out these two links:

https://wlabsinnovations.com/pages/vessi

https://tilthydrometer.com/

I have both and they work well together. The Vessi heats, cools, pressurizes, dumps yeast, transfers to kegs under pressure and even serves out of a tap. It's the only product I have seen that does all of that - and they don't make it anymore. It was a limited time project backed by Whirlpool.