Primary Fermentation Temp monitoring

We all know that the stick on's aren't really giving an accurate reading of the wort temp. So I drilled a tiny hole in the middle of my primary bucket lid and inserted a sanitized dial thermometer (long 12" probe) into it. No more guessing. I am sure others have done this, just wanted to share. If you do this, just make sure you use a bit that is just under the size diameter of the probe. It will fit tightly.

Any other nifty monitoring schemes out there? I figure you could do the same thing with one of those dual carboy lids, just drill a hole in the second cap and insert the thermometer.

We don't all know it. As it was news to me.

guess I'll have to test it with the calibration thermometer

Thanks for the post

Actually, I've been assuming my Fermometer was correct. I take it this is false?

abracadabra said:

We don't all know it. As it was news to me.

guess I'll have to test it with the calibration thermometer

Thanks for the post

Click to expand...

Yeah you have the thermal transfer through the plastic (or glass). [edit]glass is a poor conductor of heat, plastic is a slight insulator[/edit]. Plus you have a reading that is taken on the outside edge where all of the transfer is occuring. This translates to the actual temperature being probably a few degrees higher (not significantly so though so don't worry bout it!) than the stick on reads. Plus they (imo) aren't all that easy to read anyways.

[more edit]Think of it this way, if you took a infrared picture of the sucker you'd see an image that was red in the middle and probably orange to yellow at the edges. [/more edit]

[I am botching this post] Not that the strip isn't making an accurate reading...it is telling you pretty much what it is reading. The problem comes in that it is slightly higher in the middle than the edge where you put it.[/I am botching this post]

I do accept that the stick on deal is probably reading +/- about 2 degrees of the overall beer temp but that's ok with me. I like to keep a spare thermo in a jar of water near the fermenter which will tell me the settling temp after the thermic fermentation is done.

I have this cheap wallmart digital thermo that has a remote sensor. They say it's waterproof but they really mean rain proof (yes, I found out the hard way). However, the unit does have min/max memory so it would be cool to use this in the fermenter inside a cheap copper tube thermo probe so you can really see how cold/hot it got during the whole primary.

Bobby_M said:

I do accept that the stick on deal is probably reading +/- about 2 degrees of the overall beer temp but that's ok with me. I like to keep a spare thermo in a jar of water near the fermenter which will tell me the settling temp after the thermic fermentation is done.

I have this cheap wallmart digital thermo that has a remote sensor. They say it's waterproof but they really mean rain proof (yes, I found out the hard way). However, the unit does have min/max memory so it would be cool to use this in the fermenter inside a cheap copper tube thermo probe so you can really see how cold/hot it got during the whole primary.

Click to expand...

Actually now that you mention it....It would be totally awesome to hook up a thermocouple rig and set it up to record on a pc. Just for the fun of it. Who has the time though!

I mentioned that in this thread, I think, but didn't get much of a response https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=22410 My idea was at post 17. Would something like that work?