Inkbird temperature probe

shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
Shop deals on ebay
The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Even using the aquarium heater / flexi-bucket method there is a few degrees difference between the wort and the surrounding water at the height of fermentation, and water is a far better thermal conductor than air, so having the probe in the air won't be informative at all as to what is going on in the fv. I can understand the overshoot/cycling problem if the probe was in a thermowell or taped onto the side under insulation (sponge, bubble wrap...), but another option would be to just tape it on without insulation, or with very little insulation, so that it feels the temperature of both the air and the brew. This is what I plan to do (fingers crossed I don't get outbid on ebay for a larder fridge).

I'd go with BrewPi if I could justify the cost; one probe in a thermowell, another in the air and a smart algorithm that keeps the wort temp as consistent as a PID or better.
 
I tape the probe to the side of my plastic bucket, underneath a kitchen sponge for insulation. I set my Inkbird for +/- 0.3C and don't have any problems with rapid cycling or overshooting. I cannot remember my heater ever switching on (unless I was intentionally warming the vessel) which suggests the exothermic reactions are compensating for the downward swing in air temperatures when the compressor is active. YMMV.
 
meryvn said:
Yes, if you have your probe hanging in the air.

If it is in the fermenter, and the wort drops to 18 then the heater will come on. However it will take a long time for the wort around the probe to increase to 19, when it does the air in the fridge is likely to be much higher than 19. This will keep heating the wort until the probe reads 20 where the inkbird will turn on the cooling and the same swing will happen in reverse.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but I'm calling shenanigans on this entire concept. A bazzillionth of a kilo of air can't possible have any effect on the temperature of 20kg of liquid, science just doesn't work that way. When the wort reaches 19 I don't care if the remaining air inside the fridge is at boiling point, once the heater's shut off there's no way on this earth that such a small amount of air could raise the temperature of the wort by a whole degree. I'd bet that the increase wouldn't even be measurable without a science lab to do the experiment in.

If you take a marble, which weighs millions of times more than a fridge full of air, and stick it in the microwave until it's glowing hot, and lob that into a bucket of water, you still won't see a whole degree increase in the temperature of the water. Try it, it's just not possible.
 
nigelnorris said:
I'm sorry but I'm calling shenanigans on this entire concept. A bazzillionth of a kilo of air can't possible have any effect on the temperature of 20kg of liquid, science just doesn't work that way. When the wort reaches 19 I don't care if the remaining air inside the fridge is at boiling point, once the heater's shut off there's no way on this earth that such a small amount of air could raise the temperature of the wort by a whole degree. I'd bet that the increase wouldn't even be measurable without a science lab to do the experiment in.

If you take a marble, which weighs millions of times more than a fridge full of air, and stick it in the microwave until it's glowing hot, and lob that into a bucket of water, you still won't see a whole degree increase in the temperature of the water. Try it, it's just not possible.
Click to expand...

It isn't just the air though but the walls of the fridge, and plastic has quite a high specific heat, albeit half that of wort. If 5kg of plastic in the walls is 15C higher than your target temperature then that is enough thermal energy to raise the temperature of 20L wort by over a degree.
 

Similar threads

Frisp
Chest Freezer Fermentation vessel problems/questions
2
Replies
36
Views
870
MashBag
MashBag
marshbrewer
Thermowell for inkbird probe
Replies
11
Views
1K
marshbrewer
marshbrewer
Galena
Inkbird IPB-16s temperature probe?
Replies
0
Views
310
Galena
Galena
L
Brewfridge stuck at 12C
Replies
4
Views
435
LewisA
L
P
Weldless Thermowell
Replies
0
Views
208
pearson_56
P

Latest posts

Back
Top