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PorkPi - Latest batch

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hjbct

hjbct

Newbie
Original poster
Jan 5, 2016
15
10
Connecticut
My Raspberry Pi managed curing chamber is working a treat now.

Just loaded my latest batch of experiments:

From L to R:

1. Lonzino (plus a small one hiding behind)

2. Picnic Procuitto

3. Goat Leg Violin

4. Lonzo

All simple cure : salt, pepper (lots of), Cure #2.  I'm trying Texel DCM for the 1st time and

also using Bactoferm 600.

All cased in collagen casings - still wet in the photo but will shrink to fit.

20161001_115507.jpeg

20161001_115507.jpeg

 
Ha ha. Never thought I would see Raspberry Pi mentioned on this forum.

Can you describe the build a little (humi/temp sensors, humidifiers)?

Whats the difference between lonzino and lonzo?

I assume goat violin is a prosciutto-like meat?

Awesome collection. Cant wait to hear your opinion on DCM...
 
LOL - yes, I may have geeked out a bit on this one!

The R Pi measures temp and RH and controls fridge (cooling dehumidifies), heat (2x 40 watt seed pads), circulation fans, a USB humidifier, an air injection pump (fresh air) and 4 load cells to monitor weight loss.  It reads control parameters and writes results out to Google sheets.  About 1k lines of Python code.  I intend to write this up one of these days.  This batch will be about the 5th batch - seems to work very well.  Some fine tuning along the way, but pretty stable and predictable cures now.  The goat violin and picnic prosciutto are my first long term experiments.  I've mainly done Capocollo  and lonzo.  For lonzo, I use pork loin - the lonzino are pork tenderloin (not sure if that is to correct name).  The goat violin should be similar to prosciutto - just goatier!  It is called a violin because when passed around with a knife, the action of slicing is reminiscent of playing the violin.

This the Google Sheet.  Saves all the data and parameters.  I also have a drying schedule so I can drop the RH over the course of a number few days - hopefully minimizing case hardening.  Oh, and of course - it has its own Gmail account!  It emails me if anything crashes (I have a watchdog so if anything crashes, it reboots).  I can also send it an email to reboot, or shutdown - pretty handy when travelling!!

The top line is RH.

  
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That is really cool meat tech. I love it! 
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hjbct said:
 
LOL - yes, I may have geeked out a bit on this one!

The R Pi measures temp and RH and controls fridge (cooling dehumidifies), heat (2x 40 watt seed pads), circulation fans, a USB humidifier, an air injection pump (fresh air) and 4 load cells to monitor weight loss.  It reads control parameters and writes results out to Google sheets.  About 1k lines of Python code.  I intend to write this up one of these days.  This batch will be about the 5th batch - seems to work very well.  Some fine tuning along the way, but pretty stable and predictable cures now.  The goat violin and picnic prosciutto are my first long term experiments.  I've mainly done Capocollo  and lonzo.  For lonzo, I use pork loin - the lonzino are pork tenderloin (not sure if that is to correct name).  The goat violin should be similar to prosciutto - just goatier!  It is called a violin because when passed around with a knife, the action of slicing is reminiscent of playing the violin.

This the Google Sheet.  Saves all the data and parameters.  I also have a drying schedule so I can drop the RH over the course of a number few days - hopefully minimizing case hardening.  Oh, and of course - it has its own Gmail account!  It emails me if anything crashes (I have a watchdog so if anything crashes, it reboots).  I can also send it an email to reboot, or shutdown - pretty handy when travelling!!

The top line is RH - it is flat here at the start because I just started the batch and the fridge won't cycle until the temperature reaches a minimum.

  
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Click to expand...
Love seeing the Pi starting to make its way here. I use a B+ in my HeaterMeter and I have a couple of Pi2s lying around in need of projects.
 
WOW.   I really want to see pics of this build.    I like the spreadsheet and options.
 
Here's the parameters page.  This allows me to manage hysteresis.  Circ fan is inside the fridge.  Air pump is aquarium pump which injects air.

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This is the drying schedule - allows a daily change in Temp and RH.

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hjbct, I'd also be very interested in this! I'm currently using an Arduino microcontroller setup, and the results are great, but I recently ordered a Raspberry Pi for some more flexibility.
 
Hi again hjbct, just wondering if you are still planning on pulling together your code and build details, and posting it all on github?  My rpi3 finally came in the other day--haven't done much yet except get the OS up and running.  But I'm definitely looking forward to the flexibility of being able to change things on the fly via remote access instead of having to physically pull and flash a new program like for an Arduino!
 
Awesome post!

Last week I got my HeaterMeter dialed in for my electric smoker (MES40).  I found very little info for tuning when it comes to the electric smoker so I will be making a post about that in the future.  I LOVE how it is working so far.   Great looking work on what you have done to this point :)
 
I've posted the code on Github.

I'm afraid it is not very well documented but happy to help.  I have not put up a wiring diagram, so this is certainly not a recipe for how to build the system, but may be a jump start for someone.

I don't know how to put up the google sheets on Github, but the python code shows which cells are being read and written to so should be straight forward to replicate the sheets to get something working.

https://github.com/hjbct44/PorkPi
 
Oh man, I just thought of how neat this would all be as a Docker container.  I've just gotten into messing around with Docker but it would seem like a real neat fit with the Raspberry Pi hardware.  It is almost like a micro hardware plus micro service architecture 
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Woo-hoo, thanks so much, hjbct!  I will probably work this into shape for my own particular setup--I don't use load cells, nor a circulation fan or air pump (my first few attempts when using a fan had a slight bit of case hardening, but new attempts were perfect without it).  Also, I've been using a DHT11 sensor for my Arduino setup, but I'm swapping to a BME280 for this new build.  If you want to geek out, and have a really good read about these temp/humidity sensors, check out this webpage--http://www.kandrsmith.org/RJS/Misc/hygrometers.html.

I don't think you can directly share a Google Sheets document on Github--whatever native format they use is not really downloadable, and instead you get a PC-based format for anything you try to download.  But you could, for example, make a copy of your sheet, delete all the data in the copy so it is essentially just a template, and then share the template with the whole world with read-only permission.  If folks browse to the link, they can then copy the sheet directly into their own Google Drive account with everything intact.

Thanks for the generosity with sharing your efforts!
 
I may look at that sensor - I see Adafruit has Pi library for it.  I think my DHT22 has been unreliable for humidity - I bought a second but never got around to replacing it.  

You should be able to change the python code to use that sensor pretty easily.

BTW, there are better algorithms for controlling the Humidity and Temp levels- i was messing with some PID code, but resorted to my simpler method which works well.  To minimize wear on the fridge compressor, I read that there should be a minimum 15 min delay between cycles, so I was not sure if a PID algorithm would be effective.

You should take a look at load cells - quite inexpensive when coupled with HX711 A-D converter.  Fun to be able to watch the weight loss!
 
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So I spent the better part of today trying to grok the PorkPi files, and simplify them for my own use.  It didn't help that this was also my first experience with Python, but I had enough background with some other types of scripting that it was pretty easy to pick up.  Also a bunch of temporary hurdles popped up, for example, with getting a service account set up and with using the oauth2 SignedJwtAssertionCredentials method because it is no longer supported in the current oauth2client package, which is what is installed by default unless you specify an older version.  So I burnt some time figuring out that I had to update the code with the newer ServiceAccountCredentials method.

In the long run, trying to simplify PorkPi for my own use was taking quite a bit of time because I was trying to both debug and learn on-the-fly.  So to get basic functionality up and running, I ended up putting PorkPi aside, and just writing my own basic ~20 line script.  All it does for the moment is simply logs temperature and humidity values directly to Google Sheets.  But I'll continue adding to it to start controlling the relays that turn the fridge and humidifier on and off.  Also, there's a bunch of neat stuff like all the watchdogs and error/exception checking in the PorkPi package--I will eventually add some of that in to my own version for polish and resilience.

Thanks again, hjbct, for your generosity in posting this!  I'm taking your suggestion about load cells, and just ordered five load cell+HX711 modules on Aliexpress.  They are super cheap like just US$3.13!!!  If you are interested in the BME280 sensors, you can get them on Aliexpress for < US$3 so they are supercheap, too.
 
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