Good morning, dear friends!
It's been a long time since my last post, I know and I'm sorry.
Mainly because I was busy but also because of some weird problems I had with
my machine.
Some devices in it make crash my USB when I switch them on and off, which
makes the whole system unreliable, or better unstable. And I was not sure
whether it was dangerous, for man or material and didn't dare to make a whole
test run for long time. I stood in contact with a lot of different people, whom
I wish to thank here, but nobody could explain what happens there. I pulled
apart everything, again, to find the source of the problem, which I was pretty
sure to find in my wiring or my software, but no.
I than decided to give it a try,just with water, heating to and holding the
different temperatures,spinning, pumping, everything.
And guess what...
It worked like a charm! Well, almost at least... :) I still had some crashes
when I filled the barrel or used the pump, but once the brewing started I had
no issue at all!
So the time for a first try had come, and like one picture says more than
thousand words, I'll let them speak:
Even when I had pulled everything apart again, my USB crashed. I stood even
in contact with one of the developers of the relay board who tried everything
to help me:
Thanks again, Terry King! I found that the following helped a bit:
I isolated the metallic outer part of the USB plug. (compare the upper and
the lower)
One of the first runs in my bathroom, the barrel is full, hot and spinning.
I found that the rubber hose which brought the detergent and softener into the
barrel was not that ideal to be left in its place, it always filled with water,
tipped and lost some water. But I could not just remove it, there's a big hole
behind:
So I had to find something to jam it. Thinking about it, eating some
spaghetti and voilà:
One of the funnier parts... :D
I even had a friend of mine, a real electronics engineer, examining my
machine. Didn't really help. But had some beers and a nice day, thanks David!
So this is the final setup, in my kitchen and here we go:
My brewing assistant Ingemar and me brewing the first batch! The first time
we had to drink foreign beer, I hope that changes the next time... ;)
At 45°C we brought in the malt, in the bag you see here floating. At the
next step we had some problems, the thermal bi-metal fuse of the heating
suddenly reacted at 53°C and by the time we had a workaround, bridging a
security, always a good idea ;) , the liquid lost temperature and stood to long
in the wrong phase and I've absolutely no idea if and how this influences the
beer. We'll see, if it's not drinkable I know what to blame... ;)
Once the final temperature was reached and hold long enough, the time for
the iodine test had come:
And it was good:
Then, after boiling it with the hop, the liquid came in the keg and the
following day I measured the sugar and added the yeast.
Eight days later, I
filtered it:
And filled it in bottles:
And there it is, the first
ArduinoBeer!
It now has to wait some days, I'll then put it in the
fridge and in some weeks I'll share the drinking experience!
See you guys!
