Dial thermometers in your sculpture??

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kegtoe

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Do any of you folks who have built your breweing rigs use and anolog thermometer such as the bi-metal dials??

Any concern in using that kind.

Post pics if you have them thanks.
 
Not sure why there would be a issue. People have been using them for years. The good thing about most of the ones that can be bought out of the sale catalogs is that there is a screw on the back to adjust the face. That way you can calibrate them(kind of).

I have one in my tun and HLT.

Stand.jpg
 
I no longer use any of the bi-metal type dial thermometers. I had an expensive one that turned out to be very unreliable regardless of how well and how often I calibrated it. I went digital and never looked back. I only wish I had done so much sooner.
 
cat, do you us yours directly into mash, water or wort OR do you use a thermowell. Are yours fed back to a PID or plain display? RTD or termocouple?
 
I use a thermowell which is simply a section of 1/2" rigid copper pipe capped on the bottom and mounted vertically down into the mash. It is held in place by a wooden cross bar on top of the mash tun:

4185957489_44046d0fbd_b.jpg


The orange thing is a piece of a fiberglass driveway marker I use to push the probe to the bottom of the thermowell and hold it in place. I'm running a semi-automatic direct fired RIMS. I use a Johnson A419 to control the burner and the probe for it is mounted on the output side of the pump. The digital thermometer monitors the mash temp and I adjust the controller as needed to achieve the desired mash temp. I say semi-auto as I still must adjust the flame level and the pump flow rate manually, but that's easy to do. The thermowell is fully adjustable vertically for various batch sizes. I have it mounted half way from the center of the tun to the outer wall and half way to the bottom of the grain bed. I figure this will give me a good indication of the average mash temperature. It's been working very well. I like the cross bar arrangement as it can be easily moved out of the way if necessary such as when stirring the mash. I did not like having a probe or thermowell coming in from the side as it got in the way when stirring and was not adjustable or well positioned.
 
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