There's a Bug in My Beer

We all know those mixed feelings of disgust and not wanting to waste beer when you find a cold-blooded creature with a segmented body in your solo cup.  Do you pour it out, or fish out the drowned arthropod and pretend it never happened?  Did anyone else notice?  Are your friends saying encouraging things like "he won't drink much" and then smirking, daring you to ignore the bug and finish your drink.  Is there a waiter you can complain to?  Surely, they won't mock you for sending back a glass with an insect in it.  Lucky for you, this is not the type of bug I put in my beer.
In November 2012, I pledged a small amount to the Kickstarter program for The Beer Bug by ParasitX.  This is a wireless, digital hydrometer that stores your hydrometer data and temperature data in the cloud and can be accessed from any network connected device.  There is a BeerBug app for iOS and Android or you can view your data on the web.  The first, prototype units were bluetooth, but I waited until around April 2014 before my pre-ordered WiFi Beer Bug was ready to ship.

I've had a couple of materials engineers look at the thing and they have described The Beer Bug as a "strain gauge load cell" of sorts, probably in a Wheatstone configuration.  The real magic is in the "torpedo".  This is the "weight" that hangs into the beer and must have a constant buoyancy to provide accurate readings.  It's also the one thing you won't find a picture of on their site.  From the user perspective, there's nothing magic about it, but I think there is more to it than meets the eye based on the Kickstarter project updates and how ParasitX protects it.  I'm only going to share the reference drawing they have on their site.   After I wrote this, I found the video above of the early, pre-production Beer Bug.

Torpedo hangs from The Bug

The one thing that I found most interesting is the BlinkUp application that comes with the mobile apps listed above.  Without knowing all the exact details, what it does is translates your WiFi passcode into a series of digital screen flashes that The Beer Bug then intercepts and uses to get on your WiFi network.  No USB software with a clunky interface, just hold your phone screen up to The Beer Bug and it "magically" connect to your network.  See for yourself with this next video.  Brad at Parsitix let me know that they have updated the BlinkUp instructions on their support page.  This has an updated video and a lot of written instructions to accompany the video.

I will confess that I don't always use my Beer Bug mostly because my brewery is in the garage and most of my networked automation is upstairs in my office.  It can be a challenge to "tare" the hydrometer (telling the BeerBug what the Specific Gravity of the wort you stuck it in) when you have to hold a button on the BeerBug and press a button on a web page.  I've used the iOS app to tare my BeerBug but (and I know I'm making excuses) it can be tedious and the app and BeerBug need to communicate both over the WiFi network and ... it's just tedious.  I don't think the web page is any faster, it just gives you more feedback that it's working whereas the iOS app just sits there with the activity indicator spinning.

3 Dog Brew Standard Ale Ferment Profile

When I do use it, I'm always glad I did,  Being able to "know", without constantly having to take samples and test, that you beer is done fermenting is awesome.  It can cut that 14 day "is it done yet" to 5 days and "I know it's done" because the gravity isn't dropping anymore.  Plus, being able to track the gravity over time and overlay it with a fermentation profile can reveal a lot about what is working in your brewhouse and what is not.  I use a an embedded control concepts BCS 460 to manage my fermentation profiles.  Just set what temperature you want to ferment at and for how long, set that as a profile in the BCS and let it handle the chores of that crazy profile, like the one from UK brewery that is famous for London Pride.

This may sound like a commercial for The Beer Bug, but it's not.  I have no relationship with ParasitiX other than being a happy customer and early adopter.  I get nothing out of this other than to introduce folks to something they may have not know about or ever considered using before. Apologies for no pictures of my personal Beer Bug, it's still in the fermentor. :-)

If you want to know more about a specific topic, or want to say hidee ho! leave me a comment below.