Baby Steps Temperature Measurement and Control

My brother in law and I have been working on a propane fired single tier all grain rig for a few weeks and are making good progress. We are at the point where we need to deal with temperature measurement. Looking at some of the more capable thermometers, I was suprised at the cost vs. the relative cheapness of a PID controller.

Here is my idea: Use a PID to measure temps in my HLT and MLT. This appears to be cheaper and would be easy to upgrade into control of the system in the future.

Use this controller: http://www.lightobject.com/JLD612-Dual-Display-PID-Temperature-Controller-P43.aspx

Use this thermocouple: http://www.brewershardware.com/6-Temperature-Sensor-LOVE-TS.html

Or this thermocouple: http://www.lightobject.com/6ft-PT-100-PID-Precise-01-degree-Thermocouple-P218.aspx

Does this make sense?

All in cost would be <$125 for both HLT and MLT temp measurement with expansion possibilities. Eventually we could control HLT temps by firing the burner (at first manually and then using a solenoid valve) based on this, At some point we may switch to a HERMs or other system that we could use the full value of the set-up.


Check our our build using the link below:

Seems reasonable to me.