When brewpi is started (manually or by cron) without specifying a user config file, it loads /home/brewpi/settings/config.cfg
BrewPiProcess checks if a config file is loaded here:
https://github.com/BrewPi/brewpi-script/blob/master/BrewPiProcess.py#L124
The check however depends on the cmdline used to start BrewPi.
When BrewPi is started without specifying a config file, it still loads user settings from config.cfg.
These are not loaded when the config is read in BrewPiProcess:
https://github.com/BrewPi/brewpi-script/blob/master/BrewPiProcess.py#L127
BrewPi process is therefore unaware of the settings in config.cfg