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Would love some opinions here.
I have a trusty STC-1000, and I use the "tape the insulated probe to the side of the carboy" method of measuring. It seems to work well enough, but it seems it should be more accurate to use a thermowell.
Interestingly, I see that the STC-1000 temp probe is supposedly waterproof. So tell me... would it be insane to just submerge the probe directly into the beer?
Posted 34 days ago.
lol, nice. So I've been doing it the hard way, is that what you're telling me?
Posted 34 days ago.
Clean and sanitize and you're golden.
Posted 34 days ago.
I wonder if there are long term effects on the probe? Beer being slightly acidic and all of that?
Ah, well. I can always spot check every now and then with a real thermometer. It's not like an STC-1000 is expensive.
Posted 34 days ago.
As long as it is sanitized and your deal is good, I can't think of a reason this wouldn't work. Plus, looks like we already have some evidence of it working out! May need to change my practices
Posted 34 days ago.
Yep, I fell victim of doing it this way (taping to the outside) because everyone seems to do it that way. But I do like to challenge ideas and try to do better where I can.
Not that I'll ever shoe in on Brulosophy, as he has this pretty nailed. My niche is more "how the hell did you manage to screw up that many things at once?"
Posted 34 days ago.
Granted, I've only done this in two batches so far, but I haven't had any problems yet. Wash it with a soapy paper towel, rinse it with a wet one, dry it off with a dry paper towel, then spray it down with starsan.
So far, so good.
Posted 34 days ago.
Fuck Chrome, now i have to retype my reply........... It closed because i hit some key or some shit.
Anywho.
Im not sure how this would work. It takes air a LOT to heat up/cool down a liquid, so by putting the probe in the LIQUID, youre creating a sort of...for lack of a better word, 'buffer' between the temp its reading, and the ambient temp.
Basically, if you put your temp module in the beer, your freezer will kick in, and run for quite some time, since the transmission of heat (or in this case, lack of heat/cold) is rather inefficient between air and liquid. Inefficient isnt probably the right word there. Slow would be more appropriate (since it takes much more energy to cool down/heat up liquid versus air, due to the density of the molecules).
What im saying (rather poorly) is because air doesnt cool liquid particularly quickly because of the lack of mass, wouldnt your freezer end up going down to sub-zero temperatures by running for (using a random number here) 20 minutes before the liquid actually dropped to the temp you want?
I dont temperature control my ales since i live in a cooler climate and have a basement (so quite frankly, i dont have to). When ive done lagers, ive just set the freezer a bit below the temp im trying to hit.
If i were doing ales, i think my methodology would be to use LCD? (stick on) thermometers to get a good idea of how much cooler my chamber had to be to keep the beer in the ideal range, and then just kinda use that info going forward. You could be super anal about it, but shit...were homebrewers here. Will 1-2 degrees really make or break your beer? Keep it in the middle of the temp range imo, and you shouldnt fluctuate more than a couple of degrees from the temp your shooting for once you dial in your system, no?
Posted 34 days ago.
I understand where you are coming from, but the thing is - you don't want to measure the ambient temp. That actually leads to a ton of hit and miss cycling, and in the meantime, the beer is way too warm.
The taped probe method works pretty well, but if the point is to control the temp of the beer, a probe in the beer would be the very best control.
Posted 34 days ago.
I totally understand the problems with measuring ambient temp over actual temp, but i guess im just curious how you would overcome the issue of the 'buffer' between beer temp and ambient temp if youre using the beer temp.
It takes a long time for air to cool down liquid, especially through another medium (glass/plastic, mostly glass).
Though i still kinda stick to my 'were being too picky' message. Keeping decent fermentation temps is important, but how picky do we need to get? Yes, fermenting US-05 at 75 degrees is bad news, but is the difference between 64 and 66 even something we should worry about?
Posted 34 days ago.
I find that if I set my chamber temp, stick the beer in close to that temp, it really does not run all that much. The air temp does stay cooler than the beer, of course, but it's not a huge issue.
I agree @ your comment regarding 64 vs 66, but an accurate reading can represent a much larger gap than this.
Posted 34 days ago.
I guess im not the authority on ale temp control by any means due to where i live, so dont take my word for it. Im just trying to think of it from a physics point of view, and i'd think that with the inefficiency in transfer of temperature from a gas to a liquid through plastic/glass that there would be some 'lag', and then you'd also have to think about the difference in temp from the liquid near the edge of the carboy to the liquid in the center, where the probe would be.
I'd happily bow to someone with experience with it. I guess its just a bit hard for me to wrap my head around since my experience is moreso using dual stage temp control in a freezer in my garage in the spring, where the temp can range from way too cold to way too warm for lagering.
That reminds me. I need to get my freezer into the basement. Too bad its got venison in it right now ;_;
Posted 34 days ago.
I live in Alabama; cooling is vital to making good beer here.
What happens is that you get some lag before active fermentation starts giving off appreciable heat. Assuming you've done a good job chilling your wort, by the time the yeast takes off, the fridge already has the beer at (or near) the desired temp. It then basically just cycles on and off in order to fight the heat generated by the yeast.
It's *not* efficient. This is why breweries use glycol jackets. But on the homebrewing scale, it works great.
Posted 34 days ago.
I guess what im getting at is the lag time between the fridge cooling down, and that temperature impacting the wort/beer. temperature transfer between air and liquid is horrendous, so how quickly would the beer cool down in relation to the air around it? If your probe is in your beer, the freezer might have to run 20 minutes before the beer temp actually drops, in which time the ambient temperature in the freezer might drop to say, 20 degrees. Now, that will all even out so its not a big issue, but i guess i'd rather just try to find the difference in the fermentation temperature of the wort and the temperature the freezer needs to be at. To each their own i guess, but to me it seems like its more efficient and stable to just keep the freezer (for example) 4 degrees cooler than what you want your beer to be at than to put the probe in the beer and then have the temperature swings of the temp in the freezer being bigger.
Posted 34 days ago.
