I was able to get the pH sensor from Atlas Scientific hooked up to my Arduino board. It was quite straightforward, actually. This was a relief, as was the fact that my homemade kimchi is apparently safe to eat. Now I need to set up a fermentation batch and let it run, one of the keys of this project will be capturing the pH data and sonifying it. I don't really know the rate of change of pH, and this will be a challenge for using it to drive sounds. I will begin a batch this week and start monitoring the shift in pH. At the same time, I'll begin working on the connection to Max/MSP to send the values out.
I've hit another snag in the process and that is finding a CO2 monitor. Apparently they are either difficult to use or expensive, or both I suppose. So, I'm trying to locate another measurement. A temperature probe seems to make the most sense as there is a relationship between temperature and fermentation so drawing these out through readings might be interesting. Next blog: fermentation!