I got the Johnson A419 too. I keep my probe in the air about 12" off the bottom of the chest freezer an inch off the wall, its just stuck there with some tape. I switched the jumpers on the controller from the factory settings, so its in cut out mode now I believe. Set point 61 keeps the beer at 60 , every time I looked it says 60. I keep a seperate thermometer probe taped to the side of the carboy and covered in some foam insulation, just for monitoring the beer temp. When the beer temp goes up as the fermentation really gets goin, I just lower the set point by 3 degrees to bring the beer temp back to 60.
I tried taping the Johnson probe to the carboy with the insulation, but it made the beer temp to cold. Even if I had the beer temp stable at 60 before I put it in the freezer, the freezer still overshot the set point and made the beer temp drop lower than what I wanted.
I did these tests with water in the carboy first, I wanted to get it all dialed in before I set my pacman friends to work. I found keeping the Johnson probe in the air kept my beer temps the most stable. I run the 1 degree temp difference and 10 minute short cycle delay.
Bob
