A better way to tell the temperature of your fermenter

[Scooby Tha Newbie]

Sorry Rod I thought you ment you placed your hand in the fermenter to check the temperature, not a "hand held" device. Lol to many liquid refreshments last nite.

 

[Rod]

Would have been helpful if I included the word thermometer after hand held

:lol:

I knew what I meant

 

[Scooby Tha Newbie]

Cool man I might still try with the cat. He needs a bath anyway. ;-)

 

[marksy]

How much heat would the yeast create and would the heat be evenly applied to the wort?

Can u take a Reading when checking the grav?

 

[Scooby Tha Newbie]

Bit of a mixed bag that question.
Simple answer is no its not even.
In terms of home brewing it's a misnomer tho. If you where doing say 100lt or even 60 I could see it being a small issue.
Thing is as heat rises and cold drops there is to a certain extent movement in the fermenter. Cooling provided buy say a ferment fridge will only penetrate to a certain extent. As the fermenting lquid heats (yeast activity) there will be currents created within the fermenter.
Once equilibrium is reached (temp) its a non issue in my ipinion.


There was talk about putting a thermo well in the fermenter to get a "core" temperature. This I feel is over kill. Just my opinion(flame suit on)
I was just tapping my probe to the side of the fermenter. Now I do this. I like it and it works for me.

 

[Spiesy]

Lol at "overkill". It's easier than having to tape up your thermometer every time. Insert thermowell, insert probe. Done.

 

[wynnum1]

Bluetooth Thermometer

 

[MastersBrewery]

Bluetooth Thermometer

nice toy, and I love gadgets but for ferment? I ain't getting out of bed at 2am because my brew has over shot by 3c

 

[Scooby Tha Newbie]

Lol at "overkill". It's easier than having to tape up your thermometer every time. Insert thermowell, insert probe. Done.

True mate. That one is a new fermenter so not shoure if you can see the other but it's semi permanent. As well that piece if neoprene is to small for my fridgemate probe.
So normally it's place fermenter in fridge insert probe close door. Done.

 

[ricardo]

Slightly off topic but i'm thinking of upgrading my temp controller to this.

http://buy.ohmbrewautomations.com/

Has anybody bought one, i contacted them and they said they have shipped quite a few to Oz?

 

[mb-squared]

Hi ricardo, if you are thinking of spending $155 on temp control, then I'd encourage you to consider the BCS-460. With that you'll be able to control up to 4 fermenters and/or the heat sources on your brew rig ... simultaneously! It would be a better investment in my mind.

2c

 

[SJW]

I just poke a hole in the top of the glad wrap and drop the temp probe straight into the wort. 100% temp accuracy with no need for corrections or guessing.

 

[gava]

Oh great! thanks for showing me BrewPI.... new project starting...

-Gav

 

[MastersBrewery]

Gav,
I do these things out of the kindness of my heart and to inspire your missus to hate me just a little

MB

 

[MastersBrewery]

And some further inspiration

 

[panzerd18]

Rod those thermometers on ebay are around $5 delivered now.

 

[Diggs]

I just poke a hole in the top of the glad wrap and drop the temp probe straight into the wort. 100% temp accuracy with no need for corrections or guessing.

As in its in there through the whole fermentation?

 

[bobsantos]

You can atleast use stick-on thermometer. This instrument is cost-effective and accurate to results.

 

[Feldon]

Cooling provided buy say a ferment fridge will only penetrate to a certain extent.

This concept comes up time and again whenever temp control is discussed. But its so wrong.

'Cooling' does not get into the fermentor. The heat in the fermentor gets out into the air in the fridge.

The word 'cooling' is an easy human construction we use to make sense of the world we live in. And for a lot of purposes it works OK.

(Its a bit like ignoring the curvature of the Earth when reading a road map. Just because you can navigate with a flat map does not mean the Earth is flat.)

In nature there is only heat (energy), not 'coolness'. And it will only move from places of high heat concentration to places of relatively lower heat concentration. Never the other way around.

The means of heat transfer are :
Convection - transported on liquid or air currents - eg. the wort in a fermentor or the air in a fridge;
Conduction - through a conductor - eg. through the walls of a plastic fermentor (a relatively poor conductor compared with the metal of a thermowell);
Radiation - like the sun radiates it's energy to Earth through the partial vacuum of space. Radiation is of no practical relevance to homebrew temp control (unless you leave your fermentor in sunlight!).

These basic principals are fundamental. Must get our heads around this if any conversation about temp control is going to go anywhere.

 

[leighaus]

Well said feldon... What's your opinion best place to read the temp of your wort ?