Spent all weekend researching my daydream for electric brew. From the BoilCoil to PID controls to the Grainfather. I finally stumbled across the BrewPi http://www.brewpi.com/ . Honestly, it seems like it answers every problem i encountered with the others, in an idiot proof package.
Question is - is it too good to be true or is this my promised land ? Recommendations ?
Ok, found the problem. Despite all of the pieces being ready, the controller firmware only supports fermentation at the moment. Cart - what did you do with the horse !
Brewpi started as fermentation control as a proof of concept a few years back. Since then, the developer has switched platforms and added some features. It can be used for hot side control, but it isn’t supported and would require programming or getting code from someone else.
The lead developer is doing this as an extension of the hobby with assistance from others, that said, it’s very slow going.
Spark is the micro controller. The developer moved away from arduino as he was unable to fit what he wanted within the memory limitations of the arduino. He could have developed his own arduino board with more memory, but instead he opted for the spark.
The spark has had a lot of growing pains. They pre-sold the hell out of them and got hosed by sub-standard components that caused failures. In theory the spark platform should be better than ardunio.
They are developing hot side control, just very slowly.
Thank for the 411 - i guess i just need to bite the bullet and go grain father. i’m not thrilled with the solution, especially since i am going to be limited to 110v, but i would really like to get a solution where i can brew in-doors again. The summer here gets to hot to exist in, much less boiling gallons of water…