Mike's Brew Shop Fermentation System Project

h1. Mike's Brew Shop Fermentation System

{{>toc}}

The goal of this project is to create a beer fermentation system that is temperature controlled using off the shelf hardware and open source software and by trying to keep the cost down.  The following picture gives the *"Big Picture"* of the project.

h2. Big Picture Of The Project

!{width:70%}http://173.177.31.197:10084/attachments/download/18/Big_Picture.jpg!

A *beer fermentation system* is composed of:

* *1 aruino uno board* (and all the required hardware is described in the Wiki tab)

* *1 pump* 

* *3 thermocouples*

* *1 50' cooling coil*

* *1 big bucket*

* *1 6.5 gal carboy*

* *1 thermowell*

* *1 fermentation chamber*

* *1 cooled liquid source* (in my case it's a keezer)

There is one thermocouple inside the beer wort, one in the surrounding water that cools the wort and one in the fermentation chamber to get the ambiant temperature.

The pump control is base upon these 3 temperature. The controller receives a setpoint and try to maintain it reliably and accuratly. In version 0.0.1 only the temperature inside the thermowell that measures the beer wort temperature will be used to control the pump.

Communitcation with the server (*raspberry pi*) is done using *nRF24l01* board and it's corresponding libraries. More information is available in the Wiki.

There is also a *cost* section in the Wiki for those who are willing to put a system like this together.