PorkPi - Latest batch

I'm lost on this one.. in English please!!!

Ok, sorry, maybe our tech geek sides are starting to win out, but it is all in quest for fantastic, dry-cured meats!  In sum, hjbct has developed a really cool system for automatiing the dry-curing process using a Raspberry Pi (RPi) single-board, full computer (a tiny, $35 device).  As you have seen from the preceding discussion, the system controls everything about the curing process (temperature, humidity, airflow, etc.), and even automates weighing via load cells (the weighing mechanism used in digital scales).  Furthermore, it pipes all the data out over the Internet to Google Sheets, and takes control instructions from there, too!  So hjbct can literally just sit back and watch/control everything from his "console" on Google Sheets--awesome!

This is light years ahead of other systems that many of us are using.  For example, if you ended up buying a commercial Johnson Controls temperature/humidity controller, well, they are dependable for what they do, but otherwise, they are not very flexible, and have no logging capability.  By the way, this is not meant to be critical of such a solution!!!  It is perfectly suitable and effective, and has rendered tons of beautifully dry-cured products as attested to in this and other forums!!!  But if you want more control over the process, especially logging capability, a computerized solution is necessary.  

Many of us have turned to Arduino microcontrollers.  These are essentially tiny, 8-bit CPUs that you put on a single task, and have them manage it continuously 24/7.  For example, you can use them to monitor temperature and humidity (and a zillion other things), and write program code that will toggle relays to turn on/off larger devices like a fridge/humidifier/fan/heater, etc. in order to continuously adjust environmental parameters.  These are more like basic rules, for example, if temperature rises to 14°C (~57°F), turn on the fridge till the temperature drops to 10°C (~52°F), and then turn it off.  You can do the same with humidity, air flow, etc., and also at whatever frequency you desire (1 minute, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, etc.) so you can very tightly control environmental parameters.  You can also have these things log all the data to SD memory cards to closely track the process.  But there are some limitations for microcontrollers, too, in that since they don't have lots of memory, you have to program them in a lower level language, and connectivity to the Internet was sort of limited in the past though that is not so much a problem any more.  But also programming wise, they are not so convenient as you have to physically plug them into another computer to flash a new "program" is you make any changes.  This means that you have to unplug the microcontroller from your dry-curing setup, plug it into a computer for programming, and then replug it all back into the dry-curing setup.  Uggh, this is sort of a headache as you can imagine.  Yes, there are ways to work around these limitations, but in the long run, microcontrollers are simply not as flexible as full computers.

But the Raspberry Pi that hjbct has used, yes, it's a full computer that can do everything a microcontroller can do and more.  For example, if you want to change the controlling program, you just log into the RPi remotely (it runs Linux), change the code, and restart it all from your keyboard.  No need to physically plug the device into another computer to flash a new program like is needed for a microcontroller.  Also, instead of having to physically grab an SD card to download the logging data from a microcontroller setup, you can either directly download it from the RPi, or have the RPi send it elsewhere like to Google Sheets.  In fact, this is the real value-added part that hjbct has provided--the computer code so you can monitor and control the whole thing via a simple web browser using Google Sheets.  He has also built in a lot of features for resilience--for example, if there is a power failure, loss of Internet connectivity, or whatever, the system is designed to generally recover, and pick up where it left off.  And the built-in load cells for weighing are really slick because it means the whole system can be entirely hands-off!  For example, because I currently use a simple microcontroller setup, when I travel, I conscript my wife to weigh out product every few days to keep track of weight loss.  By the way, while she protested lots at the beginning, after sampling the end product she is now a willing participant!  But with a system like hjbct has designed, one can easily do both monitoring and control it when away so there is no need to hassle anyone else.

The downside with either a microcontroller or full computer approach is that both involve some level of technical skill--it's not simply a matter of just plugging it in, and everything just works.  But eventually it will get to that stage I think.  If you look at the beer brewing community, for example, they already have a much more developed effort for plug-and-play brewing controllers called the BrewPi.  I think that if people start getting interested in hjbct's PorkPi system, something similar could eventually develop around it.  There needs to be lots more documentation to start, and certainly some more refactoring and modularization of the code would make things easier to follow, but he has made a fantastic first cut, and showed what is possible with such a setup.

A final note, using a setup like this is surely not for everyone!!!  For some, it is probably too much information, heck, people have been dry-curing products for thousands of years.  But the slick part about it is that they now allow us to basically do good dry-curing anywhere in the world.  I'd love to live in an idyllic, old world Mediterranean paradise where the natural environment is ideal for dry curing, but I live in a hot, semi-arid region so a curing chamber is needed.

Lemans, I know you didn't ask for all of this, but I am writing for somebody who may stop by to read this in the future...