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Good Day Fellow Brewnosers

I have finally passed the skill testing brewing membership question and I am writing my first introduction (and question to the forum)...

My name is David Wagner and I was in the CAMRA Halifax club back in the early 80's. Back then you would consider yourself lucky if Betty's shop in Fairview had four hop varieties: Brewers Gold, Bullion, Cascade and perhaps Saaz. In those days Cascade was very floral and citrus notes were nowhere in the glass (hops have changed). I brewed Ironmaster kits supplemented with malt syrup for all malt beers. I was brewing a couple of batches monthly with my buddy Larry while in university.

Career ambitions in Ontario sidelined brewing for awhile (the dark years of the late 90's) and the Rotokeg sat idle. I always enjoyed fresh beer and craft beer offered new taste sensations so I knew I would return to the hobby. Invigorated with the variety and availability of good fresh ingredients I restarted with all grain beers and migrated from glass carboys to closed fermentations in stainless SANKE kegs, now served from a kegerator.

I've returned to Nova Scotia in the last year to find the availability of fresh continental beer is limited. I enjoy German style beers, but appreciate a well brewed British ale too. I would choose a brew day with Wolfgang Kunze if he could return from brewer's heaven.

I salute you for reading this far. I'll frame my brewing question with the following context. I ferment in a combo keg (Cornelius lid with SANKE spear) and have just acquired a RAPT pill. During my experiments I find that I cannot get telemetry with the lid sealed, but only with the lid open. I wish to continue brewing in a closed system environment and ask if anyone has had success with either adding a wireless device next to the fermenter to improve the response, or enhanced the signal strength of the antenna. Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks.

David

Hi David, we talked at BrewHQ the other day. I haven't had any issues getting wifi signals to my Pills from inside stainless steel fermenters, but haven't tried a Sanke keg. Are you able to get a signal from Outside the keg in the same area and is it registering on the app.rapt.io page? (In some silly number because it is probably laying flat).

When I get a chance I could test mine out in a Sanke and see what happens.

Cheers and welcome!

James

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

Hi James. Thanks for the reply. I have tried the following:

1. Initially my brew location (about 30 ft from router) ambient level -65 dBm; internal with lid ajar -67 dBm. Once lid sealed the run shuts down.
2. Moved keg to 3 ft away from router and established an internal level with lid ajar of -35 dBm. With lid sealed the level dropped to -65 dBm. Got telemetry of three data points over two hours with a transmit rate every 20 minutes (3/6 success) before run shut down. Last data point was at -64 dBm.
3. This AM I took the pill out and I noted a firmware update when restarting the run. It is running at -59 dBm and transmitting data currently. I haven't had a data run longer than three hours, but will advise with results.

If you are currently running in a Cornelius keg, would you be able to see what the signal level looks like? I am thinking levels better than -60dBm should provide reliable telemetry (85% send and receive success).

I appreciate your help and experience with the RAPT pill.

Cheers

Ongoing trials that vary location and lid sealing provide the following observations.
Router signal strength at 10 ft and in brewing location (about 25 ft through two walls) are respectively -54 and - 51 dBm. With lid sealed -74 dBm is the best telemetry level I can obtain. At -75 dBm the signals are unstable (less than 20 percent are sent and received).
I reckon to achieve an internal fermenter signal that is reliable at -65dBm I would need an external router signal that is boosted by 15 dB!
Is there a wifi extender that can be recommended by the members?

David

Update 1/5/23. I have been unable to get consistent readings from the RAPT pill with the lid closed on the SANKE keg located three feet from the router. When I recieved telemetry the best readings occured at -75 dnm.
I poked at the Bluetooth option instead of WiFi but couldn't pair up my phone to check levels. As much as I wanted to remotely monitor the ferment for transfer to serving keg and spunding, the old school hydrometer sample will have to do.

Still open to other suggestions.
David