Greetings from KC with a few serious questions!

[goosejkw]

Hi all

I suppose one could call me a "brew baby" or "noob" or what-have-you. I tried my hand at mead while attending DeVry and made quite a few delicious basic meads using orange blossom and wildflower honeys (with the occasional skunk brew....ok it was more than "occasional"). The obsession dropped off after graduation and have been wanting to jump back into the bucket. Anyways, since it's been almost 5 years since my last brew, anyone have any suggestions on what my 1st "resurrection" batch should be?

Oh yeah, while in college, my friend and I built a 3 in 1 automatic brew sensor that we affectionately dubbed "The Brew Buddy"...it took real-time measurements of the batch's pH, alcohol level, and core temp and saved it to onboard memory so the data could be printed or downloaded later. I never did get a chance to "field test" it in a batch and am wanting to tinker with/upgrade it to work in different brews. I suppose my 2nd question is would this device be something that brewers would be interested in acquiring? And the 3rd question is if interested, what functions would people like to see in the device aside from pH, Alc %, and core temp? (for Brew Buddy 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0.....)

 

[jaycount]

I don't know how you're determining ABV but the actual specific gravity would be useful.

 

[goosejkw]

Sorry, I'm not up to speed on the acronyms....ABV?

 

[Kokopuff829]

Sorry, I'm not up to speed on the acronyms....ABV?

It stands for Alcohol by Volume in other words the amount of alcohol in the sampled liquid

 

[goosejkw]

Ah ok thanks! We set the alcohol sensor inside a main tube that suspends down into the batch. Air slits were cut near the top so the ambient air in the headspace can get to the sensor (I don't know of any alcohol sensors that are submersible so...). Now I know what you're thinking, alcohol sensors can only sense alcohol vapor, well with what I've been reading on batch agitation/degassing, there should be plenty of vapor after any given session. Now with degassing 3 or 4 times per day, it's a matter of hitting a button for an instant-read on what exactly is going on in the liquid.

 

[ffmedic]

Welcome! You'll find TONS of good info on here. I see you're from KCMO, I live there myself, well, just east out in Lexington. Your brew buddy idea is very intriguing. For a basic partial mash/extract brewer as myself, pH, specific gravity (not really sure how you'd be able to do that), and core temp would be the main parameters I'd want.

 

[goosejkw]

Thanks! I've already been through a ton of info here and I've barely scratched the surface! I can't wait to get the mats together and start brewing again.

I've been thinking long and hard on how to get an analog reading for SG (like what you get with a standard hydrometer) and turn it into a digital readout, then it hit me. Weight scales used to be either counter-balanced or spring-loaded (analog) and many still are, however, there are now quite a few electronic (digital) scales on the market.

I figure all it'll take is essentially taking a pressure reading from a resistive current and then pushing that signal through a preprogrammed math equation in the CPU. Just gotta fiddle with this new addition and read up on exactly how a digital scale works to hammer out the particulars.

Oh, I'm sorry if my ramblings are more about the Brew Buddy than the art of brewing itself. It's just that I've had this idea (and a partial prototype) since college and if I can finally get it off the ground, I'd be able to help brewers (while turning a tidy profit) take some, if not all, of the guesswork and random factors out of the home brew process. I think this thing would be especially helpful to the non-masters or those that have trouble keeping tabs on thier fermenting brews.