A friend/brewing buddy and I have recently been toying with some ideas for a self-monitoring fermenter, and I would very much like to hear what you all have to say about these ideas, or any ideas you have had for similar builds, successful designs, etc. The two ideas that we have come down to are illustrated below. BEHOLD my mighty MS paint masterpieces.
The idea here is basically to be able to watch the SG very carefully throughout the entire process, without disturbing the wort or allowing O2 to be introduced into the headspace by taking overly frequent samples. And no, neither of these is necessary but I am a curious dude and would like to be able to watch the process more precisely.
Idea 1: Attach a clear tube to the side of the fermenter with ports above and below the water level, sealed on the top, and leave a floating hydrometer in there throughout fermentation.
Idea 2: Insert a digital pressure sensor near the bottom of the liquid, high enough to not get into trubble
and attach it to an arduino microcontroller and, using the formula p=rho*g*h where p is pressure, rho is density (i.e. SG), and h is the height from the top of the liquid, solve for rho.
Images to come once I figure this technology stuff out