Temp probe placement in recirculating eBIAB builds

There seemed to have been quite a few of these builds lately. I myself am working on one as well. I'm curious where you are putting the temp probe. It seems it's either on a T with a sight glass, on a T that's attached to the valve, or just in the kettle wall.

I'm leaning toward place it after the valve as you would have constant movement and hopefully a more accurate temperature. I could see placement on the sight glass or kettle wall hitting a dead zone perhaps. It's probably not as big of a deal as I'm making it.

I'm entertaining the idea of a Thermowell (like this one from Brewers Hardware) through the lid.

Not completely sold on it yet, seriously thinking about it. Put it the lid ~1/4 of the way in from edge of lid. Then you can get temperature from multiple locations by simple moving the lid around.

Chris

This is what I'm doing. It's attached to my recirc valve at the top of my keg, so it measures the fluid as it re-enters the system, which everyone seems to agree is the best place to track temps.

I've got it on Camlock disconnects so I can move it to the CFC after the boil and really dial in my chilling rate.

Oh, and this picture isn't actually mine. This is from HBT member, shroomzofdoom. I got the idea by asking the exact same question a few months ago.

I'm curious what people have to say about putting it on a T, especially after the ball valve. I understand if your just wanting to control/monitor the recirc but what about ramping up for mash/sparge water? The kettle seems like the best solution to me if your using one vessel. I have mine in the kettle and maybe someday ill put one in the ball valve of my mash tun.

Kal certainly recommends putting the probe in the T exiting the ball valve from the HLT. Admittedly, it is not single-vessel, and he does monitor mash temp also. I don't know the best placement, and I am also interested in different points of view based upon experience. I do think that as long as it is not in a "dead zone" while recirculating it may not make much of a difference. It probably makes sense to measure temperature in the dead center of the mash while recirculating, measure it with your RTD probe wherever it is mounted, and set your PID correction offset to match the dead center mash temp. But I am speculating.

For some reason, I thought he had it at his HEX output. I just reread it and you're right.

I would think tracking temps that close to the element, when it still has distance to travel for recirc, wouldn't that be a little off? I'm still building my single vessel, so I'm just speculating, too.

Another plus for putting it on camlocks. I can swap location of the probe real easy until I find my sweet spot.

In my experience, if you're recirculating quick enough, it really doesn't matter. I have a 2v system and it's in my sightglass and it works perfect when I'm recirculating, but if I have the flow off, only when I'm heating up strike, I have to give 'er a swirl here and there. Certainly not worth changing in my opinion but if I was doing it again I'd put it at the out-valve.