Hello
I am making cheese as hobby and I do not have an under-earth cave to refine them.
Living in France, I built a cheese cave with an old wine cellar and an humidifier, in a country that has a
Relative Hygrometry(%HR) of 30% in summer and 99+% in winter.
Year 1 tests with only temperature control + humidifier leaded to mainly cheese covered with blue moisture as soon as I close the door of the cheese cave, whereas all was clean white before.
I plan to do better for Year 2.
My cheeses need 15°C + 85-90%HR and I think that it need "new air flow" to help good bacteria continue developing.
The new build is :
- Raspberry pi zero
- 2 humidity & temperature senrors (BME280 via I2C) for internal and external temperatures (DHT11/22 are not stable enough at high %HR)
- 4 relays (GPIO) to manage :
* The humidifier (terrarium humidifier)
* The dehumidifier (normal room dehumidifier)
* The fan for new air intake (40mm)
* The fan so that the air inside the cave is not static (40mm)
Note : the wine cellar manages to keep 15°C well, so my problem is mainly humidity + new air.
Note2 : FYI Intake pipe to enter the cheese cave is 30mm diameter, outtake pipes to go out of the cheese cave are 2 x 10mm.
I have everything together, connected and working, and my biggest question is about the "algorithm" (i.e. if humidity < 80% then start humidifier etc...) to maintain the right atmosphere in the cave.
It is sure that all has to be done in "slow times", to avoid continuously humidificate then dehumidificate etc... so I start the humidifier for 20 seconds, then wait 5 minutes to recheck %HR, even more for the dehumidifier in winter.
I wrote a normal algorithm that manages the humidity, it maintains it basically correct ... except when in winter air intake is 99+%HR + some new cheeses are inside, raising the humidity by themselves. If I run the dehumidifier too much, it makes the cheeses as hard as rock because it sucks humidity out of it. I do not know handle to handle this.
However, I have exactly no idea on how to manage the air intake, too much will be as if cheeses were outside of the cave, too little makes the cheeses' bacteria develop very bad and become blue
Poor Diagram :
Do anyone of you have any idea on how to handle this air intake ?Secondary questions : any idea for humidity in winter ? any idea how to place the internal fan to have the air non-static, like in 'no frost' fridge ? (I did not find how to)
Thanks for your help.
Mykeul