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.
Success! After reading this and other threads upside and down I was able to get Fuscus running on two instances. I'm in the testing phase now with water heating and cooling. It's not so simple, as the fuscus instructions on GitHub appear to be pre-Fermentrack and threw me off track. I have 3 SS Brewtech Fermenters (so I need to add a 3rd instance) with heat wraps and glycol coming from a chiller. I use Tilt hydrometers to monitor fermentation. I have had two SSBT power supplies die and now I'm able to move heat and cool over to the Raspberry Pi (3B+ with Stretch) and bypass the SSBT controls, which are manual for temperature settings. I did write a rudimentary python program to control temperatures on them from the RPI, but there was no integration with the fermentation. Thanks to AME and Thorrak I can now monitor and control my fermentations with one system from anywhere in the world.
 
Here is my latest glycol test. This uses ONLY a fridge sensor which is inserted into the fermenter. Unfortunately all I can do is use fridge constant mode...which I can manually ramp via the control mode. Until glycol support exists...
My glycol reservoir was set to 57 deg via my inkbird.
The room temp sensor was put in a glass of water to smooth out temp swings.

I tried to take the snapshot with a data point at one of the largest differentials. This looks WAY better.

1592946059942.png


Unfortunately I didn't get to see how heating came into play but I am really happy with this.
 
Granite03 said:
Success! After reading this and other threads upside and down I was able to get Fuscus running on two instances. I'm in the testing phase now with water heating and cooling. It's not so simple, as the fuscus instructions on GitHub appear to be pre-Fermentrack and threw me off track. I have 3 SS Brewtech Fermenters (so I need to add a 3rd instance) with heat wraps and glycol coming from a chiller. I use Tilt hydrometers to monitor fermentation. I have had two SSBT power supplies die and now I'm able to move heat and cool over to the Raspberry Pi (3B+ with Stretch) and bypass the SSBT controls, which are manual for temperature settings. I did write a rudimentary python program to control temperatures on them from the RPI, but there was no integration with the fermentation. Thanks to AME and Thorrak I can now monitor and control my fermentations with one system from anywhere in the world.
Click to expand...
What weird timing. I am setting mine up for glycol too. You can see my latest test.

How do you have your sensors set up. How is your data looking in comparison to mine? How are you managing your reservoir? Maybe we take this offline to a conversation but we will see..
 
Archy88 said:
What weird timing. I am setting mine up for glycol too. You can see my latest test.

How do you have your sensors set up. How is your data looking in comparison to mine? How are you managing your reservoir? Maybe we take this offline to a conversation but we will see..
Click to expand...
I’ve played around with a lot of things to make this work... and it appears to be working though I’m still testing. I changed the sensor in the thermowell to be the fridge sensor and that helped on the cooling side. When I tested heating I had the thermowell as the beer sensor so I should have that tested when I get home later this week. One odd thing I noticed is that fuscus appears to use the physical RPI pin number instead of the GPIO number. I had to play around to figure that out. I haven’t put a sensor in the reservoir yet and won’t if I don’t need to. I leave it on 24F as it also chills my draft serving lines. Let’s leave the conversation here so as to help others that won’t have to struggle through this process.
 
Granite03 said:
I changed the sensor in the thermowell to be the fridge sensor and that helped on the cooling side. When I tested heating I had the thermowell as the beer sensor so I should have that tested when I get home later this week.
Click to expand...
Per Thorrak's guidance I have the thermowell as the fridge sensor as well. You can see my test a few pages back when I had the thermowell as the beer sensor. Considering this test that I just posted didn't have any calls for heats, I am considering a third test today. I will either cool the fermenter off first or use a temp a few degrees above ambient...thinking the latter makes sense.

I am also going to take a look at the code to see if I can't hack something together for better glycol support. I spoke with Thorrak about this too and he gave me some pointers. It is rather intimidating to jump in so we will see if I actually accomplish anything.


EDIT:
Here are the results of the latest test. I cycled the fridge constant value in the upper 70's (above room temp) to force heating. I know my heating pads struggle and now I have the data to visualize it. Again, the glycol reservoir was held at about 57deg thus the quick cooling sections.
1593126541449.png
 
Last edited:
Archy88 said:
Per Thorrak's guidance I have the thermowell as the fridge sensor as well. You can see my test a few pages back when I had the thermowell as the beer sensor. Considering this test that I just posted didn't have any calls for heats, I am considering a third test today. I will either cool the fermenter off first or use a temp a few degrees above ambient...thinking the latter makes sense.

I am also going to take a look at the code to see if I can't hack something together for better glycol support. I spoke with Thorrak about this too and he gave me some pointers. It is rather intimidating to jump in so we will see if I actually accomplish anything.


EDIT:
Here are the results of the latest test. I cycled the fridge constant value in the upper 70's (above room temp) to force heating. I know my heating pads struggle and now I have the data to visualize it. Again, the glycol reservoir was held at about 57deg thus the quick cooling sections.
View attachment 686631
Click to expand...
Yes, with the thermowell sensor set as the fridge sensor I was able to run a cool and heat cycle. Next up is testing a beer integrated with the Tilts. One feature I'd like to see is basing the fermentation profile on SG instead of time, or with time as set point triggers.
 
Hi guys,

After trying to update my fermentrack it stopped working (I am getting 504 gateway time-out). If I reinstall it through terminal will I lose my data? Is there any way to backup my data without access to the fermentrack GUI?
 
g_wood said:
Hi guys,

After trying to update my fermentrack it stopped working (I am getting 504 gateway time-out). If I reinstall it through terminal will I lose my data? Is there any way to backup my data without access to the fermentrack GUI?
Click to expand...
Are you able to SSH into the host? I'm not sure what the exact path is but I'm sure you can secure copy logs off of the host.
I'll let someone else answer about reinstalling and further details đź‘Ť
 
Archy88 said:
Are you able to SSH into the host? I'm not sure what the exact path is but I'm sure you can secure copy logs off of the host.
I'll let someone else answer about reinstalling and further details đź‘Ť
Click to expand...

Yes, I can still SSH into the host. Do you know the paths to the log files?
 
Update: I followed the instructions for updating Python and it worked! Thank you.
 
Hi guys,
I am looking for an advice / commentary on my setup with Fermentrack + 2X BrewPi on ESP8266.
The questions are:
---> can I get it running on 1 ESP board in any way? (mods? other fermenter firmware?)
---> any other ideas how to optimise the setup?
---> can Fermentrack add any Bubble logger in any way? (I run custom code, and it is another ESP8266)

The setup & some observations (look at the pic):
* 2 chamber fridge with freezer at the bottom and fridge at top. You cant control them separately.
* bottom chamber (Zone 2) is all fine as it gets the proper cooling work.
* to use upper chamber (Zone 1) I made some holes in the separator floor + added a 12v DC fan for forced air circulation.
* for obvious reasons bottom chamber gets 20* cooler than top, so for zone 1 controller I have DC fan circulating the air as cooler.
- it works reasonably well. I might make the holes bigger
- sometimes the top confuses the bottom to run more frequently than needed :( It would benefit from an option to have a larger temperature variation before cooling cycle kicks in.
fridge_1.jpg

P.S. Thanks for all the effort @Thorrak
 
l30ns said:
The questions are:
---> can I get it running on 1 ESP board in any way? (mods? other fermenter firmware?)
Click to expand...

Not with any of the BrewPi firmware I'm familiar with, unfortunately.

l30ns said:
The setup & some observations (look at the pic):
* 2 chamber fridge with freezer at the bottom and fridge at top. You cant control them separately.
* bottom chamber (Zone 2) is all fine as it gets the proper cooling work.
* to use upper chamber (Zone 1) I made some holes in the separator floor + added a 12v DC fan for forced air circulation.
* for obvious reasons bottom chamber gets 20* cooler than top, so for zone 1 controller I have DC fan circulating the air as cooler.
- it works reasonably well. I might make the holes bigger
---> any other ideas how to optimise the setup?
Click to expand...

Oh man - that's an interesting way of doing things. Is your fridge still capable of running the compressor for both the fridge & freezer portions separately? Do they have separate thermostats? I know you mentioned that you can't control them separately, but there has to be a way to do it through hacking the existing thermostat.

That's the only way I can think of optimizing the setup, unfortunately.

l30ns said:
---> can Fermentrack add any Bubble logger in any way? (I run custom code, and it is another ESP8266)
Click to expand...

Like Brew Bubbles? I started on the code for it, but got distracted by other things. It is coming -- soon-ish -- but I don't have a date yet as other projects are taking precedence at the moment.

l30ns said:
- sometimes the top confuses the bottom to run more frequently than needed :( It would benefit from an option to have a larger temperature variation before cooling cycle kicks in.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that exists in one of the tuning parameters, but I can't recall which one off the top of my head, unfortunately. Hopefully someone with a setup that required adjusting it can comment.
 
I feel like it's mentioned elsewhere in this thread (and in other different BrewPi threads), but if your cooling and heating relays aren't engaging, try switching their settings from inverted to not inverted. Mine weren't cooperating and it was driving me crazy because my wiring looked okay. After flipping that setting, they popped right on.
 
I've have Fermentrack running for over a year hooked up to my Tilt. I get very nice graphs but I've always used an external STC-1000 temp controller. I want to switch to a Brewpi/Fermentrack-based controller. I bought an Arduino Uno with my Pi at the beginning and would like to use it. I was able to connect the Uno to Fermentrack and flash it successfully.
Where can I look for instructions to interface the Arduino to the outside world?
 
There's not much to it:
  • The three ds18b20 temperature sensors go on A4, draw 5V power and ground from the Uno, and requires a 4.7K pull-up resistor to Uno 5V.
  • Cold relay goes on GPIO 5 set to "inverted"
  • Heat relay goes on GPIO 6 set to "inverted"
  • Most folks use a dual relay module ala Sainsmart or cloney equivalent running on 5V and ground supplied by the Uno.

Cheers!
 
uSlackr said:
I've have Fermentrack running for over a year hooked up to my Tilt. I get very nice graphs but I've always used an external STC-1000 temp controller. I want to switch to a Brewpi/Fermentrack-based controller. I bought an Arduino Uno with my Pi at the beginning and would like to use it. I was able to connect the Uno to Fermentrack and flash it successfully.
Where can I look for instructions to interface the Arduino to the outside world?
Click to expand...
http://docs.fermentrack.com/en/master/hardware.html
 
day_trippr said:
There's not much to it:
  • The three ds18b20 temperature sensors go on A4, draw 5V power and ground from the Uno, and requires a 4.7K pull-up resistor to Uno 5V.
  • Cold relay goes on GPIO 5 set to "inverted"
  • Heat relay goes on GPIO 6 set to "inverted"
  • Most folks use a dual relay module ala Sainsmart or cloney equivalent running on 5V and ground supplied by the Uno.

Cheers!
Click to expand...
Thanks. I forgot I have the relay module too. Have to order the temp probes.
do folks use a circuit board for making the connections?

Adding the Temp Probe schematic
And a picture
 
Last edited:
Typically, not at that level. One can make all those connections using Augat wire jumpers or equivalent. Might have to finesse the pull-up resistor but that's not enough to justify a PCB.

Where a PCB comes in handy is if you want to connect an LCD (4x20), a rotary encoder switch, and perhaps a Serial/Bluetooth bridge module (ala HC-05) for remoting the controller. If you're interested, drop @CadiBrewer a PM, he might be able to hook you up :)

Cheers!
 
Hi, I am setting up a fermentation chamber with fermentrack running on a raspberry pi. I have also setup ddclient with a dynamic dns so I can reach, monitor and change my fermentations while away. My question is, what port to open up in my firewall to be able to communicate with the webserver remotely? Thanks in advance!
 
G33K Brewing said:
Hi, I am setting up a fermentation chamber with fermentrack running on a raspberry pi. I have also setup ddclient with a dynamic dns so I can reach, monitor and change my fermentations while away. My question is, what port to open up in my firewall to be able to communicate with the webserver remotely? Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Port forward port 80 (HTTP) to the fermentrack IP unless you added an SSL cert (in which case, its port 443).
PSA: this is not recommended. Fermentrack says software is not designed to be secure enough for the interweb kiddies who have nothing better to do. .
 
Last edited:
PSA: this is not recommended. Fermentrack says software is not designed to be secure enough for the interweb kiddies who have nothing better to do. .
Click to expand...

Yeppers! would highly recommend remote.it if you wish access away from the home network.
 
Not for nothing, but if you are already that far, set up a VPN through your router or Pi and connect to your home network with Wireguard or OpenVPN. From there you can access Fermentrack through the IP as if you were home, without any worries of someone taking over your Pi and everything else on your network.
 
Hello all,
I just got my first Tilt (v3) to use in my very first kettle sour next weekend. I am running fermentrack on a server virtual machine and *not* a raspberry PI. The fermentrack wizard says to activate the tilt near a PI (which I don't have)...but it did "complete" the process.
I tried setting up a logging session and I receive no data which is obviously not surprising.

The tilt is paired to my iphone. I understand that it pairs via bluetooth so I will likely toss an old phone in the garage until I can get a TiltBridge set up.

I'm not sure if I should be using some type of cloud logging option to suit my needs? As of right now all data will be stuck on whatever smart device it is paired to since that device isn't a PI with fermentrack installed. Or is TiltBridge absolutely required to get this working with my setup?

Thanks!
 
Hey everyone:

I am a little late to the party building this, but using @garzlok great tutorial, I am getting close to a working system.

I have Fermentrack running with two esp8266 on @Thorrak boards. I am also using the temp sensor breakout boards.

My problem is that I can't seem to get any readings from the temp sensors. Nothing shows up on the LCD's. I am getting 5v at the power and ground pins on the breakout board so that seems fine. I tried sensors that I recently bought from Amazon and also a sensor from my craftbeerpi build that I know is working.

Is there something I'm missing to find the temp sensor in the software and assign it? Or should it just show up when I plug it into the board?

Thanks for any help.

Paul
 
pdavidc said:
Hey everyone:

I am a little late to the party building this, but using @garzlok great tutorial, I am getting close to a working system.

I have Fermentrack running with two esp8266 on @Thorrak boards. I am also using the temp sensor breakout boards.

My problem is that I can't seem to get any readings from the temp sensors. Nothing shows up on the LCD's. I am getting 5v at the power and ground pins on the breakout board so that seems fine. I tried sensors that I recently bought from Amazon and also a sensor from my craftbeerpi build that I know is working.

Is there something I'm missing to find the temp sensor in the software and assign it? Or should it just show up when I plug it into the board?

Thanks for any help.

Paul
Click to expand...

You do need to configure those sensors for specific roles. It is in the controller settings. Worth mentioning in case you didn't do that yet
 
pdavidc said:
My problem is that I can't seem to get any readings from the temp sensors. Nothing shows up on the LCD's. I am getting 5v at the power and ground pins on the breakout board so that seems fine. I tried sensors that I recently bought from Amazon and also a sensor from my craftbeerpi build that I know is working.

Is there something I'm missing to find the temp sensor in the software and assign it? Or should it just show up when I plug it into the board?
Click to expand...

Were you able to get this figured out? As @Archy88 said, you have to configure the sensors. Go into Fermentrack, navigate to the controller, and configure sensors and relays. I’m attaching a picture of mine to hopefully help out if needed:

CCC76E3F-C95A-47DB-A839-1D180E603D33.jpeg
 
So....I decided to test the outlets out in Fermentrack to make sure that heating and cooling worked. This is a two controller build. The first controller worked just fine to heat or cool.

The second one seems to work ok if I set it to Fridge Constant, but when I set it to Beer constant, I also get a value then in the Fridge Constant and the relays do not work.

fermentrack.jpg


Has anyone experienced this?

Thanks
 
Yes, it counted down that changed to "Cooling" and tripped the relay. However the 47 deg in Fridge Constant stayed there.

I turned off "Temperature control" and then set the Beer constant to 80 deg (11 deg higher temp probe reading) and it started counting down to heating, then started heating, although it didn't trip the relay:

fermentrack 2.jpg
 
what are the heating and cooling pins set to? inverted
4.3.1. Heating/Cooling/Door Sensor Pin
Heating/cooling are configured by pin number. In most cases the correct pin will be prescribed, with the function listed out in the name. (On ESP8266 devices, for example, you will see a header similar to “Pin 16 ( D0 (Heat))”. This is generally the “heat” pin.)

To configure, simply choose the device function from the drop down menu (Heating Relay, Cooling Relay, etc.), set whether or not your relay requires the pin to be inverted (for most mechanical relays, you want Invert Pin to be “Inverted”) and click “Assign”
 
Yes....thank you for the documentation link...I have gone through it a number of times. I have not, however, been able to find a mention of my current issue. Ia m not concerned about the relay. If it is truly not triggering, I will figure that out.

What I do not understand is why I have temperature readings on the right in both the Fridge and Beer. Unless I am completely misunderstanding how the interface works, the values on the right (circled in red below) are user entered (Control Mode) and should not ever have values in both of them at the same time.

fermentrack.jpg


So in essence, in the pic above, I would be telling fermentrack to keep the beer at 66 deg while keeping the fridge at 48??
 
In Beer Constant mode, what you see is normal. The fridge value you see, is what Fermentrack is saying the fridge value needs to be to get your beer value where you want it.

in Fridge Constant mode, the fridge value is what you set it as and Fermentrack doesn’t care about your beer value so it displays as null.

in Beer Profile mode, the beer value will be what you program it to be and the fridge value will fluctuate to make certain it hits the targeted beer value.

Make sense? (I haven’t had enough coffee today)

EDIT: FWIW, between ferments I normally keep my system in Fridge Constant.
 

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
BrewSwag 300

Latest posts

Back
Top