News on Thorrak's Brewing Projects

Connecting TiltBridge 2 to Fermentrack

Author's Note I'm drafting these instructions mostly as a placeholder from memory in order to generate an evergreen URL I can then link to from within Fermentrack. My hope is to prep TiltBridge support within Fermentrack 2 for release, edit these instructions, and only then release

This AI-generated beer label was created by the tool mentioned below

AI Translations (and a bonus)

Although I am but a humble monoglot, there are brewers around the world, and I'd prefer my tools be available to them even if they don't speak English. To that end, I've spent the past few years trying to translate my projects into the

April(ish) Updates

Over the past several weeks I've been hard at work trying to get a handful of projects I've had in flight for awhile now to the point I can release them. As all of them (other than the case designs!) are still technically either "alpha&

Fermentrack 2 Arduino (Serial) Support

Fermentrack began life as a replacement for the Raspberry Pi-hosted web interface for BrewPi. Over time it evolved—adding new features, supporting ESP-based controllers, and outgrowing its humble Pi roots. Today, the latest iteration - Fermentrack 2 - is fully cloud-native, so you can host it anywhere: on a virtual

BrewPi-ESP Controller Comparison

With the release of Fermentrack 2 and the new All-in-One ESP32 PCB, I’ve been getting more questions from folks trying to decide which controller to use for their build—or whether it’s worth upgrading from an older Arduino- or ESP8266-based setup. To help clear things up, here’s

Tilt Accuracy Testing - Part 2 (now of 3)

Unfortunately, the Lalvin 71B didn’t end up coming to the rescue as I had hoped, and fermentation remained stubbornly stalled. Lack of nutrients? Probably. Perhaps yeast, like humans, can’t survive on white sugar alone. Regardless—nothing ventured, nothing gained. Time to move on to Plan C. Before we

Tilt Accuracy Testing - Interlude

Sometimes things don't work according to plan. Sometimes these also become learning opportunities! Unfortunately, I've had a number of these as part of my Tilt Hydrometer accuracy experiment. Apparently yes, yeast expires So I started "Phase 2" last weekend, but - as of Tuesday

Tilt Hydrometer Accuracy Testing (Part 1)

Ever since I began brewing, I’ve been fascinated by electronic specific gravity sensors. Early in my brewing journey, I tried building my own using various technologies, but eventually I discovered the Tilt Hydrometer. The Tilt provided exactly what I was looking for—a real-time window into my beer’s

There's a lot more truth to this marketing image than I realized at first -- even my BBQ runs on an ESP32

Converting to Arduino as an ESP-IDF Component

This post is intended as a response to my recent frustration finding guidance on how to convert Arduino-framework projects such as BrewPi-ESP and TiltBridge to use Arduino as an ESP-IDF component instead. If you're interested in why this change needed to be made for my projects, keep reading.

Assembling a D1 Mini/S2 Mini PCB

One of my original PCB designs for the BrewPi-ESP project was intended to connect a Lolin D1 Mini to all the hardware necessary to make BrewPi-ESP work. Although I now recommend using this board design with the Lolin S2 Mini (or better yet, switching to an ESP32-based board!), the assembly

New All-in-One BrewPi-ESP PCB Design

Throughout the life of the BrewPi-ESP project, the "base" build has required a minimum of four distinct components: * An ESP-8266/ESP-32 controller * A 2-channel relay board * A 5V power supply * A custom PCB to connect everything While these components are relatively easy to source individually, having four separate

Using BrewPi-ESP with Fermentrack 2

Although Fermentrack 2 documentation is coming, its not here quite yet. Here's how you can connect the latest (v16+) versions of the BrewPi-ESP firmware to Fermentrack 2. Step 1: Flash the Controller & Connect to WiFi If you haven't yet done so, start by flashing the

One of these days I'm going to commission someone to make me an actual PFP. Until then...

How to get ahold of me

If you have questions about one of my projects, would like to help fix or maintain any of the translations, or are otherwise interested in something that you've read here, please reach out! The majority of my projects have threads on Homebrewtalk Forums which I monitor regularly. Notable

Fermentrack Featured

Announcing: Fermentrack 2

Coming soon - a complete rebuild of Fermentrack from the ground up bringing cloud support, modern UI, a new REST interface, and more. Register now at fermentrack.net to get first access when it launches.

BrewPi Comparison

A common question that people ask on HomeBrewTalk is how the various BrewPi offshoots differ. At the moment, there are four major variants of BrewPi firmware in common use: OG Legacy BrewPi BrewPi-Remix BrewPi-ESP32* BrewPiLess Microcontroller Arduino Uno Arduino Uno ESP32* ESP8266 Screen Support Parallel LCD2004 I2C LCD2004 TFT ?? Free

Fermentrack Featured

Installing Fermentrack in a Proxmox Container

How to create an LXC Container in Proxmox for use with Fermentrack

Fermentrack

Installing Fermentrack in Proxmox (Virtual Machine)

How to install Fermentrack into a VM on a Proxmox hypervisor

Swedish and Norwegian flags over a cloudy sky

BrewFlasher

Swedish & Norwegian Support for BrewFlasher

Thanks to the efforts of @mp-se on GitHub and bardevjen on HomeBrewTalk, BrewFlasher is now available in both Norwegian and Swedish! These translations are available in the v1.5.2 release now on GitHub.

BrewFlasher

BrewFlasher now speaks your language!

I am proud to announce that BrewFlasher is now multi-lingual! BrewFlasher detects the primary language set for your operating system, and adjusts the user interface accordingly. Available immediately in in Spanish and German! If you are interested in helping translate BrewFlasher, please reach out either on GitHub or on HomeBrewTalk.

Fermentrack

Fermentrack Release - 2023-06-23

This PR introduces a number of substantial changes from the previous release of Fermentrack. I am proud to announce the latest major release of Fermentrack - over a year in the making. Major Changes BrewPi-Script Manager Rewrite Since the early days of Fermentrack, Circus has been used to launch &

TiltBridge

Announcing: TiltBridge Junior!

TiltBridge Junior is a standalone Tilt Hydrometer daemon for Raspberry Pis and Intel-based architecture that uses an attached Bluetooth radio to detect Tilt Hydrometers and send their Bluetooth transmissions to a networked host. TiltBridge Junior can be run either independently or as part of a Docker Compose stack - such