Suggested Inkbird Settings

I've got my brewfridge set up with a 45w tube heater and Inkbird ITC-310T. Ignoring the ability to program the extra steps, just wondered what people suggest as settings (other than target temp, obvs). I'm especially interested in the heating and cooling differential.

The reason for asking is that I gave things a test run without a fermenter inside and found that the heater and cooler kept alternating and the temperature would go over and under target by more than a 1.5-2 degrees. I couldn't figure out if the differential was set too high or too low.

In practice, I'd be looking to have the thermometer probe attached to the side of the FV and covered in either bubble wrap or polystyrene, such that it's measuring the temperature of the liquid rather than the air temperature. However, with liquid heating and cooling slower than the air, does this not risk greater swings, i.e. if liquid drops to 18*C then the heater kicks in, but air temperature might get up to 30*C before the liquid hits the target of 20*. The heater will go off but liquid will then continue to get warmer given air temp is now higher. It'll get to 20.5* and kick the cooler in, but again with liquid taking longer to cool than the air, we just go back the other way.

Or is it the case that the volume of liquid compared to air space (it's an under counter fridge and FV is 25l, so fills the fridge) means the issue is otherwise negligible?

I'm sure I could figure this out but don't want to mess up a batch for the sake of not asking the question.

Cheers

I leave my differentials at 0.5C each way and have my duty cycle set to 10minutes. Without a fermenter in there the temp swings will be much higher and faster. Taping it to the side of the FV will slow the cooling and heating and I don't see much overshoot in either direction tbh.

1C differential each way will also work, depending on how tight you want your temps.

Mine is set to 0.5 I think and I don't see any major swings. As said above, not having an FV in there when testing will affect it hugely.

-Bezza- said:

if liquid drops to 18*C then the heater kicks in, but air temperature might get up to 30*C before the liquid hits the target of 20*. The heater will go off but liquid will then continue to get warmer given air temp is now higher. It'll get to 20.5* and kick the cooler in, but again with liquid taking longer to cool than the air, we just go back the other way.

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Hi!
The beer in the FV will take a lot more energy to heat up by 1°C than the air, and, conversely, the air will lose energy much more quickly than the beer.
If you have the sensor taped to the FV, even though the air temperature rises well above 20°C, when the beer temperature reaches 20°C the heater switches off and the air temperature rapidly falls off but the beer temperature will take much longer to fall.
Any residual energy in the air after the heater turns off will have a heating effect on the beer, but this will disappear quickly.
@svenito has given good advice.

Appreciate the responses. Will check the cycle times too.

I used to regularly check the actual wort temp (sample from the tap), and it was always within 0.5° of target set on the inkbird. I'd heard that the temperature of fermenting wort could be several degrees higher than the air temperature in a fermenting chamber. But found this not to be the case.

I don't know my settings on the inkbird, but they will be the minimum allowable to keep actual temp as close to target as possible.

I set a new fermentation off this weekend and can already see that temperatures are more stable with the FV in the fridge. Also noted that the compressor delay was set to zero which wouldn't have helped much either!

So I hopefully have some warm, cosy and well-fed yeasties having a ball right now.

Excellent. The compressor delay is really there to keep your compressor from cycling too frequently. Compressors don't like to work in short bursts. If you notice that temp does overshoot too much, 5minute delay is also ok.

Worth bearing in mind that the inkbirds are only accurate plus or minus one degree, so there's no point getting hung up on controlling your temps any more accurately than that.