Love probes, thermowells... lost

So, I'm ready to pull the trigger on a TSS2 for my fermentation fridge. I'm planning on putting everything in a nice box like TomSD's awesome build, and because I'll probably need to have a heat-wrap on my carboy, I was intending on putting a thermowell through the stopper and into the beer rather than taping & insulating the probe.

Looking at the options on Brewer's Hardware, I'm a bit lost. I saw a few other posts where it was recommended to buy the temperature probe from Brewer's Hardware rather than Dwyer based on cost, but their teminology has me confused. So, help a brewer out, do I need a straight-wall thermowell and one of these sensors? Do I buy a 10' sensor from Dwyer and use the BH thermowell? If I buy from Dwyer, is the TS-21 (10', stainless cap) going to work fine for me?

I have the straight thermowell, not the probe. It is stainless and is 16 inches long. I am going to put this in a bung so I ca use it with my carboy. The probe that comes with the Love Controller fits in this thermowell nicely. I hope that this helps.

LuiInIdaho said:

I have the straight thermowell, not the probe. It is stainless and is 16 inches long. I am going to put this in a bung so I ca use it with my carboy. The probe that comes with the Love Controller fits in this thermowell nicely. I hope that this helps.

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+1
Though I use an eBay aquarium controller instead of the Love, my probe fits into the 16" thermowell quite nice.

I have four of the 16" thermowells and they work great. As for the temperature monitoring, this solution has been working very well for over a year now.

It's basically a $59 starter kit that comes with a base and one receiver. The base sits back at your computer and easily transmits across the length of the house. Each additional sensor is $44 and I think you can have up to 20 sensors on one base. You'll get three readings on each sensor which are ambient temp / humidity and then a temp for the probe itself. Each probe is on a 6ft wire and fits nicely down into the thermowell. You can put water in the well if you like to keep temps more consistant (the probes appear to be waterproof even though they don't say it) and it works great! They also give you a free page to monitor the temps - here's mine.

Anyway, just throwing this out there because it's been working well for me and is reasonably affordable. I need to buy two more sensors at some point because I stole them from my keezer and bright tank to do all four fermentation chambers.

Here's the full chamber build if anyone is interested in checking it out.

Hope this helps.

I just read a bit more on the Brewer's Hardware site regarding products that they have for sale. The offer three different products.

1. They have Temperature Sensors that have stainless steel ends. These would be used instead of the Temperature Probe that comes with the Love Controller. However, these would be used with a fitting that would allow you to insert the probe through stainless, for example, to monitor wort temperature. These require the use of a bulkhead or fitting that would not leak. The cost is $13 - $16.

2. They also offer Temperature Probe Ends that do not contain any wiring or electronics. These would be used with the temperature probe that comes with your Love Controller. Like the product above, these would require a bulkhead or compressing fitting to go through the wall of your kettle, for example. Your temperature probe would fit inside this end to be used for monitor temperature. Prices from these range from $3.00 to $8.00 depending on the length desired.

3. The third product is a Thermowell. This would house the temperature probe that comes with your Love Controller. They are all stainless, sealed on one end, with a slightly wider end on the open end. These are similar to the Temperature Probe Ends, described above, and are a bit more expensive -- starting at $14 and going up for the longer size.

I have the Thermowell (Option 3) not the Temperature Probe End (Option 2). I would think that you could get the Temperature Probe Ends to work for you too. The major difference between these two is that I think the thermowell is designed to be used with carboy bungs, etc, while the Temperature Probe end is designed to be fit into a compression fitting making the installation semi-permanent.

I hope that this helps.

Mark

Thanks, everyone. This was a lot of help.