Once you have installed BrewPi and connected your BrewPi Spark to the BrewPi server, it is time to set up your sensors and actuators.

First of all, make sure the top right of the web interface says 'script running'. If it doesn't, you need to fix that first before you can proceed here. The log files (maintenance panel → logs) will be your biggest help with that. Most likely, you need to either set up the right WiFi IP address for the port setting, or leave the port setting to auto and connect over USB.

When you get your BrewPi Spark, it is in test mode. In test mode, the Spark discovers and shows all sensors that are connected. You can also turn the digital outputs (green terminals) on and off by pressing the bottom buttons.

On the BrewPi Spark 3, the bottom row for the actuators has 5 buttons. Button 1 and 2 are for the bottom actuators, button 3-5 are for the top actuators.

Before you proceed, exit test mode by setting the mode to OFF. In the BrewPi web interface, click the OFF tab under the chart and click 'Apply'. The displays on the Spark will change to show fridge, beer and 3 logging temperatures.

Now go to Maintenance panel → Device Configuration and click Refresh device list. Because you didn't install any devices yet, the 'Installed Devices' list will be empty.

In the detected devices list, you should see all the temperature sensors you have connected. Digital outputs are not actually connected, they are just pre-configured as detected so you can easily install them.

BrewPi currently supports only controlling a single process/chamber. We are working on supporting more, but this is not ready yet. When installing a device, you can pick any free slot. The slot is just a storage location in software. It does not have any relation to the hardware location.

First set up your temperature sensors. For a typical fridge setup, you will set up one sensor as assigned toChamber 1, Beer 1 with function Beer Temp and another sensor as Chamber 1, Chamber device with function Chamber Temp. Additionally, you can configure 3 sensors for logging (Chamber 1, Chamber device, Log 1/2/3 temp.

Next, set up your heater and cooler. Find the actuator you want to assign in the list (Bottom 1/2 or Top 1/2/3), pick a free slot and assign them as Chamber 1, Chamber device, Chamber Heater / Chamber cooler. Leave the pin type to not inverted. Additionally, you can set up devices as manual actuator. You can toggle a manual actuator by pressing the ON/OFF buttons in the device list.

Once you have set up your fridge/chamber sensor, beer sensor, chamber heater and chamber cooler, you are ready to control your brewing temperature.

To uninstall a device, just set it’s function to None, hit Apply and refresh your device list. Do not change the device slot of the device you want to uninstall.

• Actuators are always controlled based on the chamber temperature in the current version of BrewPi. BrewPi manages the chamber temperature by driving the actuators. The chamber temperature in turn affects the beer temperature.
• If you want to run on only a beer sensor, that is possible with a workaround. The PID of the heater and cooler will use the beer sensor as fridge/chamber temperature if a fridge sensor cannot be found. You should set the beer-to-fridge PID Kp, Ti and Td to zero in advanced settings, so the fridge setpoint equals the beer setpoint.