Fermentrack: Fermentation monitoring & BrewPi-www Replacement for Raspberry Pi

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
T

Thorrak

Supporting Member
HBT Supporter
Joined
Feb 7, 2016
Messages
4,012
Reaction score
2,740
Location
New York, NY
​

I am proud to announce the release of Fermentrack - a web interface for fermentation monitoring and control.

Fermentrack is a free, open source replacement web interface for BrewPi and enables the control of one or multiple BrewPi fermentation temperature controllers from a single web portal. It also integrates support for popular specific gravity sensors such as the iSpindel and Tilt Hydrometer, allowing you to track all elements of fermentation from a single interface. Installation is fast and easy (one command!) and is supported on the latest versions of Raspbian and the Raspberry Pi.


Key Features:
  • Complete replacement for BrewPi-www
  • Simultaneous support of multiple controllers ("Multi-Chamber" support)
  • Native WiFi connection support
  • Integrated controller flashing
  • One-command installation
  • Specific gravity sensor support (including Tilt Hydrometer and iSpindel)
  • Free, Open Source, and Python-based (no PHP 5 required!)


Screenshots

Fermentrack "Multiple Chamber" Dashboard


Chamber Dashboard /w Log


Installation:
Fermentrack can be installed with a single command. To install, simply type:
Code: 
curl -L install.fermentrack.com | sudo bash
into the terminal when connected to your Raspberry Pi.

For additional information on the installation process, review the installation script contained within the fermentrack-tools repo.


Documentation:
Written documentation is available at: http://docs.fermentrack.com/ as well as on the Fermentrack website.

Additionally, the installation/usage of Fermentrack is documented via a series of videos on YouTube:
YouTube Playlist


Key Thanks
I am immensely thankful for the contributions of @rocket4x4 who has been a key contributor/collaborator in this project. Additional thanks go to Elco & the BrewPi team for designing the original web interface as well as the BrewPi controller. Separately, thanks goes to all the participants in the brewpi-esp8266 thread for providing feedback and ideas as Fermentrack was being developed.
 
Looks like a nice project and will really help us with the first gen BrewPi controllers to update our setup if needed. I know the last time I had to rebuild the brewpi-www setup it was kind of a pain to find the right information.
 
I followed the directions from here: https://lukasholenweg.com/2015/03/03/brewpi-i2c-version/ and got it working. The LCD backlight switches off after a few minutes. I then need to momentarily ground D7 to re-enable it. I guess I might as well grab a rotary encoder.

I'm going to look at what this guy did. He claims it's a better way of doing i2c:
https://github.com/herrfrost/firmware/tree/feature/SoftwareI2C

The only problem is that he uses Atmel Studo v6.2 which requires Windows or MacOS. Unfortunately I only have Linux.

Thanks again,

Chris
 
Last edited:
chrisp said:
Deleted
Click to expand...
I managed to get the software I2C to compile, but needed it to run on the ports of the other implementation. I’ll get an I2C implementation running at some point soon with Arduino. Most of my builds use an ESP8266 though (which already supports the I2C LCDs!)
 
If anyone has Fermentrack installed that is still using Python 2, I strongly recommend that you upgrade now. In the next release I will be removing the last bits of Python 2 support which means that things will not exactly continue to work.

Not sure if you're running on Python 2?
If you are, you'll see a message on the main Fermentrack page (the one listing all controllers) stating as such and encouraging you to upgrade. All new installations since mid-March are already on Python 3 and do not need to be remediated.

Instructions for upgrading can be found on the Fermentrack website here:
http://www.fermentrack.com/help/python3/
 
@Thorrak If I have a brewpi setup now with a Audrino uno flashed for brewpi do I need to flash with your software if I reimage my spare pi with fermentrack.

Can you still change fermentation control and constant settings like you can in brewpi. Such as the heating and cooling thresholds found in maintance panel settings. Will this work with the new pi 3 b+
 
Last edited:
thyirishmen said:
@Thorrak If I have a brewpi setup now with a Audrino uno flashed for brewpi do I need to flash with your software if I reimage my spare pi with fermentrack.
Click to expand...

You're good! Fermentrack works with Arduino-based BrewPis. No need to reflash.

thyirishmen said:
Can you still change fermentation control and constant settings like you can in brewpi. Such as the heating and cooling thresholds found in maintance panel settings. Will this work with the new pi 3 b+
Click to expand...

Yep. You should be able to manage all the same settings as existed in BrewPi, using Fermentrack.

My two (test & production) Pis are both 3 B+. Fermentrack is designed to work with the latest Raspbian & the latest Raspberry Pis.
 
One of the issues with Brewpi was that it is not secure if you want to provide a link to the internet. Has that been addressed or do we still keep it inside our home networks?

I just ordered an iSpindle - I'm going to set up a test pi and play with it first, but this is a great idea!
 
atoughram said:
One of the issues with Brewpi was that it is not secure if you want to provide a link to the internet. Has that been addressed or do we still keep it inside our home networks?

I just ordered an iSpindle - I'm going to set up a test pi and play with it first, but this is a great idea!
Click to expand...
It’s secure in the sense that logins are required for most functions you would want secured, but it isn’t yet multi-user with full permissions if that’s what you want.

iSpindels should work great - as should Tilts. ;)
 
Running 48hr without a hiccup. (my chamber is set to 75f, I'm conditioning..)

Untitled.jpg
 
Can this run on a raspberry pi that is also running craftbeerPi at the same time? How does it connect and read data from a tilt?

EDIT: Just confirmed they are both running in parallel on different ports, awesome, now time to see if it can read the tilt.
 
Last edited:
marjen said:
Can this run on a raspberry pi that is also running craftbeerPi at the same time? How does it connect and read data from a tilt?
Click to expand...

Yep. You may need to tweak the installation a bit for CBP, however, as both Fermentrack and CBP want to run on port 80.

As far as tilt support is concerned, the Raspberry Pi 3 and Zero W both have integrated WiFi and Bluetooth, so it just leverages the internal Bluetooth radio to read the Tilt.
 
Thanks for the info. CraftbeerPi is running on port 5000, so I guess it won't be an issue. That is the default port it installed on. Going to try installing this. I guess the RPi needs to be really close to the fermenter then to read the tilt?
 
Two devices connected - my original Uno and a Webmos D1 which will control my Refrigerator - currently being controlled by an STC-1000+

Waiting for the iSpindle to arrive.
 

Attachments

  • twodevices.png
    twodevices.png
    38.1 KB · Views: 410
Got the iSpindle today - I've double checked my configuration but the iSpindle Log reports 404 error when trying to connect to Fermentrack. Any ideas?
 
Here is posting part of the iSpindle log

a: 1638 16206 -732 absTilt: 83.89 T: 27.84 V: 3.63 owT: 26.50 Gravity: 30.49

After waiting 100ms, result 3

IP: 192.168.1.38


calling HTTP

{"name":"iSpindel000","ID":11757158,"token":"fermentrack","angle":83.88778,"temperature":26.5,"battery":3.62878,"gravity":30.48997,"interval":30,"RSSI":-70}HTTPAPI: posting

code: 404


Final-sleep: 30s; RT:2098
 
One other thing - the iSpindle server (IIRC) is set to http://<my fermentrack static ip>/ispindle

when I try and pull that address up in a browser, I too get a 404 error.
 
atoughram said:
One other thing - the iSpindle server (IIRC) is set to http://<my fermentrack static ip>/ispindle

when I try and pull that address up in a browser, I too get a 404 error.
Click to expand...

Ah - that’s your problem. It’s ispindel, not ispindle. Try swapping the spelling and see if that works.

As a side note, I should just make both spellings work. I’ll get that in the next release.
 
Thorrak said:
Ah - that’s your problem. It’s ispindel, not ispindle. Try swapping the spelling and see if that works.

As a side note, I should just make both spellings work. I’ll get that in the next release.
Click to expand...
I spelled it iSpindle and ispindle - same same

Still get the 404
 
I just added URL patterns for /iSpindel, /ispindle, and /iSpindle - all four options (including /ispindel) should work now. Less opportunity for confusion = better.

That said...

Updates on Dev branch:
  • The iSpindel URL update mentioned above
  • Added a button that resets the WiFi configuration settings to the device management page. Eliminates the need to flash the wifi_reset firmware to ESP-based controllers when you want to change networks

This release doesn't yet include the changes to allow for adding configuration offsets to temp sensors - that will come in the next "major" feature release (which again - hoping to get out within the next two weeks)
 
I wish I could help. My only programming help is with C and that was 25 years ago. Python/Java/etc is a bit of training beyond for me.
 
Really interested if anyone is able to share how to run Fermentrack in docker. Someone has been working on it (https://hub.docker.com/r/scooch/fermentrack/) but there's no docs, and I can't find out how to contact that person.

I've got a linux server at home running ubuntu but apache is doing other stuff... being able to run it in docker would be very useful.
 
gjanz said:
Really interested if anyone is able to share how to run Fermentrack in docker. Someone has been working on it (https://hub.docker.com/r/scooch/fermentrack/) but there's no docs, and I can't find out how to contact that person.

I've got a linux server at home running ubuntu but apache is doing other stuff... being able to run it in docker would be very useful.
Click to expand...
Cool! I run mine using vagrant on an osx server (hackintosh ), which was very easy to set up.
 
I know there's an open issue about a feature that'd allow for brewfather integration. I just started using this app and just wanted to add my interest to that, would be pretty cool to get that working!

As a further stretch, you can describe fermentation profiles in brewfather - it would be pretty nifty to be able to send those to fermentrack (or vice-versa).

I know there was some talk of OTA esp8266 updates - this project here has those kind of features. I'm somewhat interested in playing around with this to see if I could recreate some brewpi-like firmware and get it talking to fermentrack.

Other than that, just wanted to add that Fermentrack and the esp8266 brewpi have both been incredibly stable for me. Top notch, seriously!
 
This is not the place to get into a discussion of US trade policy. Any further posts related to trade policy in this thread are off topic and will be deleted. If you wish to discuss trade policy, or anything else of a political nature, start a thread in the "Debate" forum.

doug293cz
HBT Moderator
 

Similar threads

duncan.brown
Brewery Dashboard
Replies
18
Views
2K
suprchunk
suprchunk
T
Homebrew interface built in Qt for Raspberry Pi
Replies
9
Views
3K
nordork
N
M
Replacement firmware for iSpindel (GravityMon)
10 11 12
Replies
446
Views
28K
Diyhomebrewers
D
LBussy
BrewPi Remix – What’s Old is New Again
22 23 24
Replies
920
Views
59K
day_trippr
day_trippr
S
My fermentrack/brewpi-esp8266 Build
Replies
24
Views
5K
bcowmoo
bcowmoo
Brewer's Friend 300

Latest posts

Back
Top