******** I suggest using FermWatch32 rather than this version. ******

Monitoring fermentation with Brewfather®, BrewPiLess and iSpindel or "No phone No worries!"

Have you struggled to see the BPL SSD1306 OLED screen? Don’t have your phone handy? Forgot your glasses? Just want to see where your latest brew is up to?

The video Tutorial has step by step instructions and describes how to make a FermWatch with a D1 Mini and a 2.8" TFT ILI9341 to monitor your fermentation – in the shed, beside the bed, wherever your local network extends!

Link to video: https://youtu.be/AYtplzlXTfo

Important I am a brewer and author, I write books on recreating historic beers - NOT a PROGRAMMER - as will be obvious from inspection of the code.

The FermWatch project was very much inspired by ZeSlammy’s iSpindHub project where the iSpindel readout was displayed on a small tft screen. https://github.com/ZeSlammy/iSpindHub Initially, I just wanted a bigger screen for my BrewPiLess, but interfacing the ILI9341 proved to be too hard for me. Then I developed FermWatch as a standalone unit to show BrewPiLess data and iSpindel data from Brewfather plus some derived functions.

FermWatch works with ONE batch in Brewfather, with its status set to Fermenting If you attach your iSpindel to BrewPiless then forward to Brewfather, rather than forwarding to Brewfather direct you might get interesting results!

Please do not expect any form of support. I am a brewer not a coder/programmer! It has taken me 4 months to reach this stage where I think that it is working and stable enough to release. It works with the hardware, as described.

• D1 Mini 8266 with 2.8" TFT ILI9341 320 * 240 (lots of these out there just don't buy a shield!) NB This project does not work with an ESP32!
• BrewPiLess System [BPL] Software v4.1r4 by Vitotai https://github.com/vitotai/BrewPiLess
• iSpindel [iSp] Software v7.1.0 https://github.com/universam1/iSpindel Cherry Philip board v4.0 Build your own https://youtu.be/4HYzm0psaNw
• Brewfather® v2.8.1 [BF] https://brewfather.app/ Premium Version - so yes you have to pay an annual subscription but it is worth every cent.

Key parts

• iSp set to send data to BF
• FermWatch acts as a MQTT Broker to BPL - and pushes data every 75 - 115 secs
• Getting the current data from the BF API is a 2 step process the first request is a single shot to get the fermenting batch id, recipe name, measured OG and estimated FG
• The second request uses the batch id to get the batch iSpindel last readings set for a 3 minute cycle, primarily to rotate the display given the BF update cycle is 15 minutes
• the display screens then alternate between BPL and iSp
• Displays derived % ABV using the UK Tax Office adjustment factors cl 30.2 and 30.3 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/excise-notice-226-beer-duty/excise-notice-226-beer-duty--2#calculation-strength Note that Brewfather appears to use an adjustment of 131.25

• Select Plato - default SG
• Select Fahrenheit - default Celsius
• Select iSpindel SG 20°C approximate temperature correction - default none. An experimental function that modifies the displayed Present Gravity, Apparent Attenuation and % ABV values

• Base64 Encode https://www.base64encode.org/
• Postman https://www.postman.com/
• Get Fermenting batch from Brewfather https://api.brewfather.app/v2/batches/?include=measuredOg,recipe.fgEstimated&status=Fermenting
• Get the Latest readings for batch https://api.brewfather.app/v2/batches/batch_id/readings/last NB Change batch_id to suit your results
• Flasher https://github.com/marcelstoer/nodemcu-pyflasher/releases

This project would not have been possible without using libraries from Bodmer - TFT_eSPI screen, martin-ger - MQTT Broker, B Blanchon - ArduinoJson, tzapu - WiFiManger, NTPClient and the MultiMap for interpolation and others who are referenced in the code.

1.2 Maintenance update Added hostname, as having to read the chipid or remembering the IP was a pain, fixed pressure display from BPL now Bpressure Minor display formatting issues corrected Display longer brew names up to 36 characters long without wordwrapping messing up the screen display Changed bpl to bpl42 all - Lower case you will need to set in BrewPiLess Mqtt. Change Brewfather from v1 to v2 per API changes Commented out reset settings every time! line 972

1.1 First Release

► I have achieved what I set out to do for the project, some compromises were made along the way, notably failing to get the AA fonts to work but no worries.

• Monitor amount of change of iSp angle/SG to assess the rate of fermentation
• could be to use the touch screen of the ILI9341
  • to select screen display BPL, iSpindel
  • change settings in lieu of the BPL rotary switch?
  • be able to change FermWatch config settings (F/C, SG/P, Temp Correction) on the fly rather than restarting
• use the on board ILI9341 SD card facility to hold fonts etc
• Migrate to ESP32 to get more memory for screen processing and use TrueType fonts for cleaner screen presentation
• A separate BPL only FermWatch

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCRhjjWS5IFHzldBhO2kyVkw/featured Tritun Books Channel
• https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/prsymons Books available Print on demand from Lulu
• https://github.com/Hwerow/FermWatch This
• https://prstemp.wixsite.com/tritun-books Website
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------