Adhesive Temperature Strip Tip
 

Therm Strips...a lot of us have them on our primary buckets and carboys. We're always complaining about how they self destruct after they get wet when we clean up.

Personally, I've lost about 6-8 of them that way. :mad:

Well, I've come up with a solution that will eliminate having to buy them over and over again. You LHBS may not like it, but hey, they already made the sale.

I laminate my therm strips with 3" clear packing tape. I also bend about 1/4" of the tape (end) over on itself so you can easily pull it off the fermenter to use it over and over. If it ever tears you can just cut the excess off and place another layer on top to start fresh again.

Leave the back strip on (where you would normally expose the adhesive).

This way you can remove it before washing your vessels and put them back on after they dry. :mug:

So, let me get this straight--you just enclose the whole thing (backing and all) in the clear packing tape, then temporarily tape that to your carboy each time?

I have covered them with clear tape after attaching them to the carboy, and that works pretty well, too, although they still get screwed up when I set the carboy in a tub of water (my method for controlling temperature with lagers in my garage).

Mine also get screwed up with long term immersion (I have packing tape over them). Seems like this idea would work but not if you leave it soaking in the water since the idea is to remove it while you wash it to keep the strip from ever getting wet.

Now if you actually laminate it (or perhaps put tape on both sides) that may work underwater. I thin you'd be measuring the water temp though, which should be very close to the carboy temp since water is a much better conductor of heat than air.

No, don't place any tape on the back. It comes with a paper strip covering the adhesive but I don't remove it.

Sure, you could adhere it to a fermenter by covering it up, but removing it every time I wash the outside works better for me. ;)

You are correct...my purpose here is not to measure the water temp with a strip although that would work for some time if it was laminated.

I use a metal therm in the water when I use a tub/bath to measure/control water temps in the summer.

What I recommend works all year round as long as the fermenter is not underwater.

whne i use a waterbath to cool my fermentors and use ice to keep the temp i use a probe as the water in the cooler will normalize with the temp of the wort and keep fluctuations down. right now i use foam as the lids of the 2 48qt sq coolers i have and just push the digital probe through the side between the foam and the cooler into the water. i make sure i dont set it next to a bottle of water. i have been thinking about using a water bath chiller and a pump to pump cool water through the cooler as it heats up and when temp falls it shuts off. but then again i just might finish up my dorm fridge cooler conversion and not even worry about that.

Clear contact paper (shelf paper @ target) is an excellent and cheap laminator.