Today we talk again with Aaron Bandler about the new Brewblox brewing system that he has built. Brewblox is the current iteration of BrewPi made by its original founder Elco Jacobs.
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Show Transcript
AI created it will have many errors.
Colter Wilson: On this week’s show, we’re going to discuss with Aaron Bandler he’s back on the show. And we’re going to talk about his new brew block system. Brew blocks is a new system that is based on brew pie and from the makers of brew pipe, but it’s a full brewery controller. So we’re going to dive into that this week on home brewing DIY.
And welcome back to homebrewing DIY the podcast that takes on the do it yourself, aspect of homebrewing, gadgets, contraptions, and parts. This show covers it all.
On today’s show we talk with. Aaron Bandler about his new brew block system. We’re going to dive into how he built his system, what he is trying to achieve with this system. And we’re going to just dive into what he thinks about brew blocks altogether. But first I’d like to thank all of our patrons over a Patrion. If you’d like to support the show monthly head over to patrion.com forward slash homebrewing DIY.
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Well for this week there’s not a lot going on in my brew house i’ve been Quite busy with just spending time with family I was Recently on a vacation and i’m taking another trip this week But that being said i’m about to go into my winter brewing
Season, and I am excited about making some stouts and getting ready for. You know, it’s a little bit more of some Hardy beers. It’s going to be a good time. Well that being said let’s jump into this week’s episode where we’re going to be talking to Erin bandler about brew blocks
I’d like to welcome Aaron Bandler to homebrewing DIY. He’s been on the show a few times. We’re going to talk to him. Today about his new project, which is him building out a brew block system. Welcome to the show. Aaron
Aaron Bandler: Thank you for having me again. It’s good to be back.
Colter Wilson: It’s always good to have you on the show. Yeah, just so everyone knows. Erin is actually my next door neighbor and I’ve been watching him build out this brew block system for the last pretty much all summer. This has been his, his, his project. And I I’ve been chomping at the bit to do a show. And now that he has built the system.
Brewed a couple of batches on it. I am ready to have him on the show and we’re going to talk about it because if anyone has listened to this show for a bit of history, brew blocks is a, is the current iteration of the brew pie running on the spark board versus the Arduino board. So. This is real techie and geeky right now.
But the idea is that it went from just a fermentation chamber to a full brewery system. And Aaron has built this out to his full system. And we’re going to talk about what his process is and, and kind of what it can and can’t do. So Aaron, why don’t you talk, get us started by, you know, why did you want to go electric versus propane burner?
W what were the benefits for you?
Aaron Bandler: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Good question. So, um, couple, couple benefits. The biggest benefit that I could think of, I actually in the spring installed a home solar array on my roof and, um, was watching my solar credits stack up. And I was thinking, um, I should probably put that solar power to work somehow. And so since I was brewing a lot in the spring and I was going through a couple, um, Coupled cylinders of propane every month or so.
Um, it was a priority to figure out a good, it seemed like the right thing to do to, um, put that solar power to work ruined beer, uh, so that I wasn’t having to deal with with doing the propane tanks every other week or so. So that was number reason. Number one. A reason. Number two I’ve I have struggled for a long time with the propane system that I had.
Uh, it’s one of the things that’s always been a moving target for me has been dialing in temperatures, especially in the mash. And so, um, I actually used to brew with a Suvi cooker in my mash to try to. A dial in temperature. So it was already, you could say I was already kind of dabbling in electric brewing, but in the very, very rudimentary way.
So, um, the ability to dial in precise temperatures was sort of the, um, the main, uh, process side reason for why I wanted to switch to electric.
Colter Wilson: And there’s a lot of different electric systems Out there all the way down to analog type controllers you can buy prebuilt controllers You can have a build your own controller which is the road you want Why why did you land on brew blocks versus other controllers
Aaron Bandler: Yeah, that’s a good question. So yeah, I started out by researching, um, a number of different options and the most, I would say the most economical option. For anybody considering going electric is the Blick men engineering controller, which is a pretty flexible device that you can use it on a one 10 outlet.
You could get a two 40 version. You can even get a propane version. It’s a little bit more expensive, but that is kind of the, the entry level in terms of costs to the entry level, um, prebuilt controller. So I first was looking at one of those, um, and those run, I think, around $375 or so that’s basically the cheapest, um, Prebuilt controller you can get.
And it’s actually, you know, I never got, I had a chance to use one, but it seems pretty good. Like it’s computerized, you can program it, you can do step mashing. You can, it’s got a lot of capabilities. It’s actually a really good system for how inexpensive it is. Um, part of, for me, the, um, I guess there’s no better reason other than I just wanted to do the project.
You know, I wanted to source the parts and. Yeah. In the spirit of home brewing and his spirit of DIY, I wanted to figure something out myself and build it. Yeah. Custom. And, um, I thought naively that I would save money in the process, um, that didn’t turn out to be the case. When I, uh, I got about halfway in, did this project and realize that not only could I have bought the, uh, Blakeman, um, controller by that, by the, by the time I was, you know, I had spent as much money as I had to get halfway into the project, but I probably could have gotten.
A nicer one from like a, you know, I think SS brew tech has like a fancy, you know, really beautifully machined, um, system that you can get. And that one runs about $600 for the basic system. And, um, and, uh, so anyhow, I, it anyway, the real reason and is that I just kind of wanted to do it myself. And I was curious about some of the different.
Um, computerized raspberry PI controlled options out there. Uh, so I did some research. I looked into craft beer pie was something I was interested in. Um, I did a bit of research on brew blocks, kind of compare the two, uh, and actually what ended up selling me on brew blocks over craft beer pie was just the fact that it seemed to have a more active community and more active development and more active support, uh, knowing that because I don’t have.
You know, top tier engineering skills, either in hardware or software, I was probably going to be relying on the community for some support here. Um, and I just got a better sense that the roadblocks team is really tuned into their user base and encouraging an active community and, and is actively updating the product.
So that’s why I settled on Roblox.
Colter Wilson: Yeah Was there something feature-wise that kind of drew you to it or really was it the active development Were there any particular kind of things that stood out to you that you were like Hey this is pretty cool I want to kind of go with this
Aaron Bandler: Uh, yeah, actually, and I think that this would be is, is the same for, for, you know, the various different, um, software based options that are out there, but it was just very, it’s very, very flexible and very modular. And so I was planning to bill, I have, I have sort of a non traditional system that I built.
I have a flexible system where I can do a five gallon Bruin, a bag batch. With a single vessel and a single pump. Uh, and I can also do a 10 gallon kettle rim system, which. Uh, is two vessels, you know, it’s one of which only one of which has a heating element, the two vessels and two pumps. Um, and so I wanted to have something that was modular in a way that I could configure it to do more than one type of thing.
I didn’t want to be locked into one specific system. Uh, some of the kits that you can buy. Um, to, you know, build out your own brewery controller are more it’s, it’s kind of specifically designed for one specific setup, and obviously there are different ways that you can use it, but I was just really into the idea of designing something from the ground up that could be totally flexible and that I could modify if I need to.
And then I could, um, sort of control on my side, how I actually wanted to use it.
Colter Wilson: Let’s talk a bit about your system You know you’ve you’ve kind of hit on a bit there but if you were to describe the like let’s say you’re going to make a five gallon batch what it what does that system look like for you to make a five gallon batch And why don’t you walk me through like maybe your mash and boil process and what that looks like
Aaron Bandler: Okay. Sure. So for the five gallon batch, it’s a pretty standard Bruin, a bag type setup. It’s actually very similar to some of the off the shelf. Uh, EBI a B you know, things like the grandfather and the mash and Boyle. And so it’s a similar concept to that. It’s a, I have a 15 gallon SS Butech brew kettle, um, that I installed in the bottom of it, a 5,500 watt heating element.
Um, and that is installed. That has a little, um, Power inlet in a junction box. That’s on the outside of the kettle and that plugs into my controller. Um, and then there’s also a stainless steel. Um, I’d call it a false bottom, but that’s not really, it’s more just like a, like a screen, almost a rigid screen that sits just above the level of the heating element.
And that keeps my grain bag off of the heating element during the, um, mashing stage. So it’s, like I said, a pretty straightforward Bruna bag set up. You’ll have the. Brew bag sitting in the kettle. Um, the heater can be, uh, heating the liquid and the kettle underneath the brew bag. And then I use a pump, just the standard through pump.
Um, mine is an off-brand one. I don’t have a brand name, one got a cheap one on Amazon. It works just fine. And I use that to recirculate. Uh, the grain so that our research relate the war so that I, um, have a consistent temperature throughout. Um, and then I have that all, I had kind of set it up underneath, uh, a deck that I have outside my house, and I use a ratcheting pulley, and I pull the bag out when I’m done mashing.
Usually, let it drain for a few minutes and give it a good squeeze and I’m off to the boil and it’s just like any other boil. So that’s the five gallon system, pretty standard, uh, both the heating element and the pump can be controlled by the brew blocks software. Uh, the heating element can be modulated, you know, between zero and a hundred percent.
So I can do things like dial in a rolling boil. It’s not at full power. Um, and it can, you know, it’s, it’s very, has nice precision when it comes to modulating the heat so that you’re not, um, over or under heating your kettle. Uh, and then for the pump, it’s the, the, uh, I have a toggle switch on my web dashboard.
That’s really just an on, off, um, and I, I modulate the pump with it actually with a manual ball valve. So I don’t there’s no, I’m not using any sort of power modulation. To control flow. I just use a valve for that.
Colter Wilson: And let let’s talk a bit about the brew block setup that you you have Right So why don’t you describe to me how like for example you built a controller where does how what does brew blocks look like and how does it connect to your controller
Aaron Bandler: Okay. Uh, yeah. So I actually, I forgot to mention one other thing, which is that in addition to my. Controlling my hot side processes. I also use the same controller and the, uh, ruble the same brew block system to control my fermentation chamber as well. So that aspect of the original brew pie, all of those, all the development that they did on the cold side is also a part of it, the system.
And I use it to, um, control my fermentation chamber. That was another reason why. I was interested in this system was that it’s it does both sides of the process. Anyhow, to your question. Um, so this is another thing that I’m glad you asked me this, because this was another thing that I wanted is I, I actually brew outdoors.
I brew, um, I have a patio area next to my garage that I like to brew. And I like to brew outside because I tend to make a mess, you know, I’m spraying the hose and, um, you know, kind of making a mess like you do. So, uh, I like to keep it outside for that reason. Um, I did not really want to have my big high voltage electric control panel mounted outside.
Where it could potentially come into contact with the elements, um, and have a, you know, where I had would have a bunch of switches on the outside of it that I have to be. You know, pushing, you know, pushing buttons, pushing switches to make it work. So what I like about the brew block system is that it’s all online.
It’s all on a web based dashboard, which is accessible through my local network, uh, on any, you know, laptop or iPad or whatever. Um, and I can actually, there, there are no physical switches if I don’t want there to be. So I have the control panel mounted on the wall, inside my garage, out of the weather, uh, plugged into a two 40 volt outlet in the garage.
And, um, I actually, in this current iteration, I have. Uh, the cables that for my temperature sensors, my pump, my, um, kettle and my emergency stop button are actually just extended through an open window, out to my little brew area. And, um, that way I can have my brew system yeah. Outside, it’s all plugged in.
Uh, but the actual electronics and circuitry is all indoor. Um, and I don’t have to deal with running back and forth in and out of the garage to flip switches. I can just do it all on the. Web based dashboard. So that’s kind of my, my layout. Uh, eventually once I get everything dialed in, I know exactly where I want to put everything every time I’ll, um, figure out some sort of, uh, Auxiliary box, if you will, that will live outside.
That I can plug my stuff into outside and just that’ll have it permanently running through the wall, into the panels. I don’t have to do it through the window. That’s a detail that I’ll figure out, um, as I work with the system. Um, but then the other benefit about having it. Installed in the garage is that it makes it easier for it to connect to my fermentation chamber, which is a old refrigerator sitting in the garage.
So I have the fridge there and then next to it on the wall is the control panel. And then there’s a window there and the cables run out to the, uh, brew system and it’s all kind of connected, but everything is in its right place.
Colter Wilson: That’s that’s awesome And basically at that point when you’re doing temperature temperature control it’s basically a PID for the mash Is that right Is that what that is That
Aaron Bandler: Yeah. That’s that’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. So it’s um, the, uh, the, um, well, let’s see. Do you want it, do you want to talk about hardware right now? You want to talk about the spark controller or should we we’ll get to
Colter Wilson: let’s let’s talk about that and kind of how the PID runs would be awesome as well
Aaron Bandler: Okay. Yeah. So there, so one of the things about brew blocks, and this is, uh, something that I had to consider sitter because it’s not the case with other platforms, but to run brew blocks, this is an important detail for anybody who’s considering. This is that you have to buy it. The spark three controller, which is, is a physical device that is, um, produced by the brew blocks team in the Netherlands.
And they, they, um, they shipped them out. They sell them on their website, um, and their device is actually what houses there. Um, Not the software, but it’s like, what can it’s like their controller? Right. So it doesn’t actually the, um, the device doesn’t actually directly control the components of your system, but it sends out the signal.
It’s what connects to your relays. And it’s what connects to your temperature sensors. So, um, Couple benefits of that. And a couple of drawbacks, the main drawback being that you have to buy their system from the Netherlands, um, it costs about $150 give or take, you gotta pay for international shipping.
Fortunately, the shipping cost wasn’t super high and they shipped it out right away. I had no issues getting a hold of one of these things, uh, but it is an expense that you have to. No, there’s no that there’s no way around in this system. Um, the benefit of it is that a lot of the white sharing is done for you.
If you’re like me and you’re not really good with circuitry, a lot of the finer points of the wiring are done in the spark controller itself. So yeah. Specifically the temperature sensors, uh, where they connect to the circuit board, that’s all done. It’s it’s plug and play in the sense that you can plug in, uh, the temperature sensor.
It’s a, you know, it takes a specific kind of takes the digital, um, DSA team B 20, um, the digital one wire ones. Uh, that’s the only kind of temperature sensor it’ll work with. Uh, but you can plug any one of those into the spark controller and yo can. Get a temperature reading right away, nothing, nothing to it.
Um, and then it also has ports on it to control your relays. Um, and it’s the, you know, you can control on the dashboard, which you know, which, um, which pin controls, which relay, et cetera. Um, but so that’s that, that just makes it really easy in terms of telling your software. Yeah. Which components of your hardware to control that part is pretty much done for you.
So for me, that was a huge benefit. It was worth the cost of ordering the device. Um, you know, it’s got a nice little, uh, display on it. Um, it’s, it’s a nice little device. And, um, I was, you know, it was actually one of the things I thought was worth the expense, um, for how easy they make it to use. Uh, but so that device plugs into a raspberry PI.
Uh, which, you know, you would supply yourself. And, um, the raspberry PI is that what’s actually running the brew block software. And so it’s, you know, your, from your, from your dashboard, you’re talking to your raspberry PI, your raspberry PI is talking to your spark and your spark is. Collecting temperature, SIG signals and sending out signals to your relay.
So that’s kind of the overview of how the system functions. Um, and then for the individual components, they, it’s a, it’s a PID system. So it’s a, um, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s calculus, which I thought I would be scared of. Uh, and then I learned a little bit about what’s going on. It’s actually like, Pretty straightforward.
If you have any sort of, um, mathematical understanding, it’s actually, you know, the inner workings of how a PID functions is pretty straightforward. Um, and in most cases you don’t really need to bother with the, the super fine details of it. But, um, it, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a algorithm that lets you set a temperature or, you know, you give it a, you set a set point and it will.
Kind of modulating the output of whatever it’s controlling, say a heating element. Um, it’ll, nodulate that output, um, to hit that temperature and minimize the overshoot and the undershoot and, um, sort of hold a steady temperature. Uh, it’s pretty straight forward concept. And so the device is, is kind of pre configured to do that.
And then you can customize the settings as you desire and as you see fit. As you are able to understand them.
Colter Wilson: And that’s the same way on the cold side right When you’re doing fermentation it’s a PID to basically manage and maintain your fermentation temperature within like 0.1 a 10th of a degree Right
Aaron Bandler: Exactly. Um, and so, yeah, exactly. So I actually, my old fermentation chamber chamber right. Had, um, what a lot of people have. It’s, you know, the, uh, plugin play, um, bird temperature controller, you know, the one where you plug in the hot plug and the cold plug and you stick the sensor into the fridge and it, you know, those are that that’s a really great cheap little temperature regulator for a.
A fermentation chamber and it works fine. Um, but that is, that is not a PID. So that one is basically just the thermostat and it says, you know, if the temperature is too cold, turn on the heater, as soon as the temperature gets too hot, turn off the heater. If it gets way too hot, turn on the cooler, you know?
So that’s, that’s all with those systems. You’re constantly fluctuating between either, you know, on, off. Too hot, too cold. Um, it’s never like, it’s not actually modulating to maintain the temperature. It’s only going on or off, depending on what side of the target you’re on. So with the PID, it’s different, it’s actually using, um, you know, a much smarter algorithm to.
Um, sort of calculate how much it needs to turn on the heater or how often it needs to turn on the cooler to, um, hit that temperature right on. So it’s the same exact technology that’s, uh, for, to controls. The cold side is controls the hot side. The differences, of course the hot side is just heater. You don’t have to have a cooling element in there, like the fridge.
And I will say that having set up the, um, A cold side, fermentation chamber. I actually used what they provide in the software. They have a couple of products, configured wizards, you know, common sort of common configurations. The fermentation fridge is one of them where you have a heating element, a cooling element, and then two temperature sensors.
One, one measuring your. Beer temperature and one measuring your air temperature in the fridge. And, um, they basically have done the work for you to figure out exactly what the settings on the PID ought to be, or at least what common settings on the PID are. Um, and you can just use their preconfigured settings if you like.
And I’ll tell you it works pretty well. So I was really pleased with how, um, some of the work that they did on the front end to, um, Get it. So, you know, to kind of help people like me, who just want to turn it on and have it work, you know, to let that be the case. So, and they have a couple, um, a couple of wizards like that for some of the hot side stuff as well.
So, um, so yeah, it’s a, you know, it’s a, I think they did a nice job making it, um, something that really anybody can figure out how to use with, you know, some, some troubleshooting along the way, but, um, A lot of it’s, it’s fairly user friendly for how, for how, for, for the fact that there’s like only a sparse manual, you know, user guide is like really how to set it up.
But like, um, it’s surprisingly, user-friendly.
Colter Wilson: Yeah it’d be a good design When you talk about you know designing a product good design should be intuitive enough enough intuitive enough that you don’t need a very complex user manual Right That that says to me you’ve you’ve designed
Aaron Bandler: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so they have setting it up. It was really, um, pretty straightforward. They have a, they have a good guide on their website for how to install the software. Um, and it’s basically, you know, once you have the system set up the hardware setup, That that’s really the hard part. Um, but like installing the software and, you know, um, connecting the raspberry PI to the spark and sort of configuring the elements in your brewery.
Is that right? Actually quite intuitive. I wouldn’t say maybe intuitive is not the word, the parts of it that are meant to be intuitive are intuitive and the parts of it where you just need to like, know, you know, which commands the type into your. SSH terminal like that part they’ve spelled out. Right.
Very clearly. So, um, yeah, the parts that are intuitive are intuitive and the parts that aren’t intuitive are well-explained,
Colter Wilson: That that yeah that’s good
Aaron Bandler: the, uh, the most difficult part of this system and it’s really the, it’s the part that they don’t really provide much direct support for is everything else. That’s not the software.
Right. So. Bill actually building your system. You know, if you want a step by step guide for how to build a brew block system, you’re not, yeah. Really gonna find one. At least I wasn’t able to find one. Um, you, you have to, you’re sort of on your own to figure out how to, you know, which, which components to get and how to wire everything up and everything like that.
Fortunately, I have a friend that’s a mechanical engineer who was able to help me with that. So if you have a friend who’s a good engineer. You know, offer them some beer to help you.
Colter Wilson: That’s a that’s a fine piece of advice and chances are if you’re into homebrewing and you’re listening to this podcast you might even actually be an engineer I think that that’s one of the
Aaron Bandler: Yeah. Maybe you are. I’m definitely not, but, uh,
Colter Wilson: Yeah There’s it’s like the amount of engineers that Homebrew is is pretty high Uh what well
Aaron Bandler: So, um,
Colter Wilson: yeah so one question I have for you is you know what what kind of support is there Is it got a community Is it a forum If I you know obviously it’s based out of the Netherlands If I if I need help with a brew block system what does that look like
Aaron Bandler: Yeah. So the, um, the there’s a community forum and that’s really the place to get support. Uh, if you need support on things like set up. Um, you know, there are, there is good documentation for getting your system set up so that you’re, you know, read the documents, like really familiarize yourself with the documents.
Cause there is good information in there. Um, and then for more specific, like use case stuff, um, there is a community and I will say that that two guys who sort of run the run the, um, The, you know, the service Elko, uh, who created it. And Bob is the, um, you know, the guy that he works with, who does some of the software support.
I’m sure there’s other people, but those are the two guys that I correspond with most often. Um, they are very, very responsive and very active on the forum. So while they encourage sort of community participation and everything, um, they’re pretty good at answering questions pretty quickly. Um, when they’re scared sort of something related to like your use case or, um, some sort of error or whatever.
So, you know, I’ll give you an example. I was calibrating my P IDs for my, um, 10 gallon system, which is a slightly, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a nontraditional enough setup that they didn’t have any preconfigured wizard for it. So, um, I always trying to basically just do a, uh, water batch to. See if I could maintain a temperature and see how long it takes to change the temperature, et cetera.
Um, and I was finding that using the settings that kind of came baked into the, um, the, uh, software, I was not able to maintain the temperatures and stuff. So I, I re I did a bit of research on how PID algorithms work tried to familiarize myself with the underlying mathematics of it got a general understanding, but, you know, I got to the point where I was like, Hey guys, here’s a screenshot of my PID settings.
Here’s a screenshot of my, um, you know, the data stream of my, my temperature data with time. And you really can see that it’s low or high or whatever. Um, what should I do with my PID settings here? And sure enough, within like an hour. They were responding like, Oh, like, you know, try turning this one up, try turning this one down.
If that doesn’t work, try this, try that. Um, so that’s, that’s the sort of support that you get. You have to, to be willing to kind of, you know, participate in the, um, in the forum and, you know, put your questions out there. But, um, I will say that both Elko and Bob have been really helpful in, um, helping, you know, not just me, but I see them on their, you know, responding to everybody’s questions.
Um, and there are, yeah, they’re good at sort of maintaining that. So, you know, in the absence of any sort of detailed user guide and in the absence of like, you know, tech a true like technical support team, they do a pretty good job. Helping people get the answers that they need.
Colter Wilson: Or you’ve brewed a couple batches on the system Now if you were to say Hey this system is missing something or there’s something you wish it did or are there some things like that that you wish that brew blocks actually supported or did
Aaron Bandler: Yeah, that’s a good, um, that’s a good question. So, you know, there’s all, there’s, there are definitely things in the user interface, and I know that there’s a lot of stuff that are currently under development. Um, and so I’ve sort of given kudos to them where I can for. Uh, some of the development that they’re doing that they’re pushing out, but there’s obviously, there’s always going to be more stuff that people want.
So, you know, there’s, I think there’s a lot of room for development on their user interface side. Uh, they have a really cool looking user interface. You can set up a suite dashboard that shows like a. Sort of, um, visual layout of your system and everything that’s going on. I got graphs. You can have, you know, readouts and all sorts of seven.
It’s really cool. Um, it’s not, it’s not quite fully like modular with the, um, it’s like it, you know, with everything that you could do, it’s, it’s, it’s limited in the sense that, um, it doesn’t quite, uh, interface with like, Every aspect. It’s not fun. It’s not customizable. Really. It’s like, you can customize the layout.
You can customize like what you want to see and what you want to, you know, how you want to control things. But in terms of like, really sort of. Getting below the surface into the inner workings and being able to like truly customize your dashboard. Uh, that’s something that you really can’t do right now.
So it’s still kind of limited to like the stuff that they’ve baked in there. And, um, I know that it’s, you know, sort of with each release, they’re like, Oh, now you can control this. Or like now you can show that, uh, the same goes for things like plugins. They have, um, they have, um, some, um, Yeah, it’s open source quote in the sense that people can develop plugins that work with the software.
Um, and so probably the most widely discussed plugin on the forum at least is that the one somebody, um, somebody made a plugin for the tilt hydrometer and it uses the Bluetooth on the raspberry PI. And, um, you can, you know, get tilt hydrometer data. On your dashboard and your grass. Um, but the only place you can see or, or, you know, the only place you can interact with it, that tilt data is just like in the, uh, graph type of window, you can only see, see what the tilt is reporting.
You can’t really do anything with it. You can’t say when, you know, when the, uh, gravity is steady for 24 hours. You know, drop the temperature on the fridge. That’s something that you can’t really like manipulate the data. You can just see it. So, um, you know, these are things that are kind of, you know, some sort of limitations of the software that, you know, just kind of make it so that it’s, you know, you can, you can see and do the things that you need, but you can’t really.
Control every aspect of it. Um, so that’s, that’s one thing. And then the other thing is like the, um, this is kind of funny. So I, I set up, I perfect. I purposefully set up a system that doesn’t have any buttons or switches on it. Um, and it’s all controlled through the dashboard and that’s, that’s how I interact with it.
Um, say I want to assist them with buttons and switches on it. I’m not sure how to go about doing that necessarily the, um, the spark and the software don’t currently support any sort of manual switching. Uh, so like you can’t, you can’t set it up so that if you flip a switch to turn on your pump, that it’ll show the pump turned on in your software, you can only, you know, you can turn the pump on or off in your software.
And if you want to have a switch, then you have to just turn it on, on your dashboard. And then. You can use, you know, a sort of inline switch on your power there to do it, but it’ll still show it as on. So it doesn’t support any sort of manual interaction like that. Um, And I know that’s something that’s come up in some of the forum discussion and whatnot.
I actually found out after building out a system where I can control the pump from the internet, essentially. Um, what I found was that it’s actually like too much work to like, you know, go to a web page and, you know, my, if my computer’s off or whatever, if I could pull out my phone and I’ve got to like, You know, look at my phone and open it up and unlock it and load the webpage and might have to refresh it all just to like hit a button to turn the pump on or off.
So what I found is that I tend to do, what I tend to, to do is, um, keep the pump turned on all the time in brew blocks. So my little dashboard just always shows my pump running, but then I just use a switch. Know, physical light switch basically to flip it on and off, it’s much easier. It’s much faster.
Certain things I’ve come to realize, you know, don’t need to be automated or don’t need to be digitized, like turning a pump on or off. Um, but the benefit of being able to do that is automation. And that’s something that they’re working on as well is they’re kind of rolling out one feature at a time, a, um, automation service so that you can actually.
If you wanted to, you could like pre-program your whole, you know, your whole brew day essentially. And, um, uh, have the pump go on at certain times and have the temperature go up at certain times and do this and do that. Um, and so in a sense, in a, in a system like that, it would definitely be useful to, you know, have your pump.
Controlled by the internet, but, you know, it’s, it’s all kind of personal preference. So there’s, so there’s little workarounds and things like that, that, but yeah, there’s, there’s, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s still a system that’s actively being developed. And, um, so there’s definitely like, you know, they’re, they’re very much, there’s, they’re sort of open to suggestions and hearing what people want.
And that’s kind of where their focus right now is like, I’m trying to. Deliver the things that most people want. And so that’s sort of been the, the story so far is like, Hey, I’ll, you know, I’ll go into the form and be like, Hey, can I, I want, I’m trying to do this. And they’re like, okay, like, yeah, you can’t really do that yet, but like here’s a work around.
So you can like, kind of do that, you know, and, and w and we’re working on it sort of thing. So, yeah, it’s kind of fun to be a part of that development process here.
Colter Wilson: , I I’d like to thank you for coming on the show and sharing your experience with the brew block system. And of course, as always, we’ll probably have you back again soon because I just love talking to you about beer.
It’s always a good time.
Aaron Bandler: Always a pleasure.
Colter Wilson: I’d like to thank Aaron for taking the time to be on this week show. It’s always pleasure having him and always informative when we talk about beer. If you’d like to find out more information about brew blocks and Erin system, head over to our website, homebrewing, diy.beer, or look in our show notes.
You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Just look for us all one word at home brewing DIY. Well that’s it for this week and we’ll talk to you next week on homebrewing diy
