In a video I watched a brewer seemed to have his ink bird probe on the outside of his fermentor, held in place with some kind of putty. Does anyone know if this is effective?
Inkbird temperature probe
- Thread starter Lawrence22
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pvt_ak
Budding Brewer !
Hahahaaa
I haven't heard the word (or any actual) Semtex in years. Fond memories!! I believe they do that to isolate the external temp so foam, putty, bubble wrap etc should create a barrier. I believe it works well as many folk still do it.
I haven't heard the word (or any actual) Semtex in years. Fond memories!! I believe they do that to isolate the external temp so foam, putty, bubble wrap etc should create a barrier. I believe it works well as many folk still do it.
BREWERS DROOP
Landlord.
i use a block of polystyrene with a slit down the side taped to the fermenter
nigelnorris
Beavis at Bat
I mostly have my probe inside the bucket, but otherwise I lift the bucket up and sit it directly on top of it. Seems to work without the necessity of finding something to stick / insulate it.
Thanks everyone, I had presumed the probe would have had to be in the beer. Will look into getting an ink bird now I think.
meryvn
Active Member
If it is in a fridge then hanging in the air is suitable to keep the temperatures stable with little fluctuation.
nigelnorris
Beavis at Bat
I found exactly the opposite to be true, just left flapping about my inkbird was on and off as frequently as the compressor delay allowed for. Plus the swings were much bigger, inside or underneath the bucket it spends ages [as in big chunks of an hour or more] moving 1/2 a degree or so whereas outside and away from the bucket it can move by as much as 2 or 3 degrees in a few minutes.
Different fridges behave differently I guess.
meryvn
Active Member
Moving the temperature of the wort is a very slow process, inside the bucket or attached to the bucket means that you will be trying to add heat (or remove heat) for a long time to see a slight change, therefore the inkbird will fluctuate less often but likely for higher amounts of change. This will happen as there will be a lag, i.e. when the wort has heated to 20ðC the air around is likely much higher than this, even though the heat is then turned off the wort will keep heating eventually overshooting and causing the cooling to come on. Controlling the air temperature is much easier so there will be quicker fluctuations but they will be much smaller.
The post linked below shows it much better:
www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=54503&highlight=temperature&page=2
Martybhoy
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I have my inkbird thermometer taped to the outside of the FV in a brew fridge. Not sure it's suitable for permanent submersion in wort.
I regularly check the temp of the wort from a sample from the tap, and it is always within a degree of the control temp. I have read people say the wort temp can increase significantly during active fermentation, but I have not found this to be the case.
I regularly check the temp of the wort from a sample from the tap, and it is always within a degree of the control temp. I have read people say the wort temp can increase significantly during active fermentation, but I have not found this to be the case.
This thread is why I just leave mine suspended in the air. You do need to consider the variation around the set temp to avoid cycling hot and cold but this is fairly straightforward. If I'm aiming to cool the wort during active fermentation or a cold crash I set the cooling value 1ðC above where I want it but the heating value 3ðC below. If I'm warming it to encourage attenuation I will set the heating value 1ðC below the target but the heating one 3ðC above. This works really well and means the beer temp only shifts gently and doesn't overshoot.
nigelnorris
Beavis at Bat
That is just so counterintuitive. If my wort temp raises from 19 to 19.5 my inkbird switches the cooler on and keeps it on until the wort temp is back to 19, takes a few minutes. Then an hour for it to rise another 1/2 degree. Rinse and repeat. That's nice, energy efficient, doesn't stress the compressor or whatever it's called, that's how I like it.
If my probe is in mid air and the air temp rises to 19.5, the cooler comes on and it takes a fridge seconds to reduce the air back to 19. it then takes only minutes to return back to 19.5 and the fridge is on and off and on and off every minute or two. Way too inefficient for my liking. More likely to trash the fridge too.
meryvn
Active Member
If you are using 20L of wort it will take a lot longer than a few minutes to move wort temperature 0.5C, and the fridge will most likely drop to quite a bit below 19C which will then keep cooling your wort and cause the heater to come on a lot more also.
On observing mine which is usually set at 19C +/- 0.5C it stays pretty constant with the heating or cooling only on intermittently once the wort is stabilised. The wort acts as a large heatsink to keep the air stable once it is at the temperature required.
Martybhoy
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Surely, if wort takes a long time to fully change temperature, and if you set your inkbird to 19ð, and have the max @ 20ð and the minimum @ 18ð, then no matter how quickly the air in the fridge hits the maximum and minimum temps, the wort will be pretty much stuck in the middle? I.e. 19ð (or thereabouts).
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meryvn
Active Member
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.
M
mcphail
Guest
There's a fairly recent episode of the Come and Brew It Radio podcast where they discuss this. They used a setup with 2 probes (one in a thermowell in the wort and one dangling in the air, taped to the side or in a smaller jar of liquid). For a steel FV, taping to the side seemed fine. They were less enthusiastic about taping to plastic (for reasons which may have been spurious). Dangling in free air or in a smaller vessel of liquid was useless, with large discrepancies between the temperature of the fridge and the wort.
They also discussed BrewPi software which could use both probes to work out the optimal schedule to keep the wort at the correct temperature. However, they found the fermentation characteristics of the finished beer were a little unexpected with this very tight temperature control: perhaps our targets for fermentation temperatures is as skewed as our methods of measuring and controlling?
They also discussed BrewPi software which could use both probes to work out the optimal schedule to keep the wort at the correct temperature. However, they found the fermentation characteristics of the finished beer were a little unexpected with this very tight temperature control: perhaps our targets for fermentation temperatures is as skewed as our methods of measuring and controlling?
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