Ebiab Temp probe Mount Loaction

[nick sekerak]

I just got a new 2" RTD PT100 prob for my Ebiab setup and i am wondering where the best location is to mount it. I have seen guys doing either of the two options:

#1 - Mount the probe to a Tee at the kettle outlet/ball valve feeding into your pump.
PRO's This may be good to control your re-circ temps when sparging. It would auto compensate for any slight temp loss.
CON's Not sure how well it would control the boil temp with this config, and you would have to re-circ during the boil. Also wort at you heating element might be a higher temp, but your wort going into mash re-circ would be the correct temp for mashing.

#2 - Do a weldless mount to the wall of the kettle adjacent to your heating element. This would keep the wort around your element at the set point temp as on your PID controller.

I am leaning more towards option #1, but would like to see what is the best option between the two before i go drilling holes in the kettle that i may regret in the future.

 

[ABI Brewery]

Will you have a false bottom, my Ebiab set up I have a recirc. and a "T" at the top where the sparge arm is, and for the boil I have a port for the RTD that is about 1/4" below the false bottom, it keeps it out of the bag to prevent getting caught when removing the bag and is about 4" off of the bottom, I have a brew hardware false bottom with 4 1/2" legs. With this I do have to have more than one RTD, one for the "T" and one for the bung in the kettle, that way I can just unplug from one and into the other so its a good thing they're cheep, and its also nice to have the extra cable, I have had to fix all of my cables because the tiny wires break, just replaced cable with some Cat5e i had laying around. This is assuming you have the type of RTD that has the disconnect.

 

[nick sekerak]

Will you have a false bottom, my Ebiab set up I have a recirc. and a "T" at the top where the sparge arm is, and for the boil I have a port for the RTD that is about 1/4" below the false bottom, it keeps it out of the bag to prevent getting caught when removing the bag and is about 4" off of the bottom, I have a brew hardware false bottom with 4 1/2" legs. With this I do have to have more than one RTD, one for the "T" and one for the bung in the kettle, that way I can just unplug from one and into the other so its a good thing they're cheep, and its also nice to have the extra cable, I have had to fix all of my cables because the tiny wires break, just replaced cable with some Cat5e i had laying around. This is assuming you have the type of RTD that has the disconnect.

I have the same FB you have from BobbyM, thats a good idea about using the two probe locations and just switching the probe plugs. I think i will plan to do that eventually. I still have to learn how to soder this weekend to attach my prob wires to the XLR so i can plug it into my controller.

First i think i will install the probe coming off my sparge are like suggested. Have you noticed much of a temp differential between the wort under your FB compared to whats coming out of your sparge arm.

 

[ABI Brewery]

I have not noticed a difference in temps, but I only run location at a time, at the "T" during the sparge and under the false bottom during the boil, seems to work really good for me.

 

[doug293cz]

I just got a new 2" RTD PT100 prob for my Ebiab setup and i am wondering where the best location is to mount it. I have seen guys doing either of the two options:

#1 - Mount the probe to a Tee at the kettle outlet/ball valve feeding into your pump.
PRO's This may be good to control your re-circ temps when sparging. It would auto compensate for any slight temp loss.
CON's Not sure how well it would control the boil temp with this config, and you would have to re-circ during the boil. Also wort at you heating element might be a higher temp, but your wort going into mash re-circ would be the correct temp for mashing.

#2 - Do a weldless mount to the wall of the kettle adjacent to your heating element. This would keep the wort around your element at the set point temp as on your PID controller.

I am leaning more towards option #1, but would like to see what is the best option between the two before i go drilling holes in the kettle that i may regret in the future.

I recommend #2. You want as close to 0 time lag between temp increases at the element and detection by the PID as possible. The longer the time lag, the more the wort can get overheated before the PID recognizes the problem. The higher the flow rate, the lower the time lag for any particular probe to element distance. Since many BIAB'ers find they have to run slow recirc rates (because of fine crush) BIAB rigs tend to need the probe as close as possible to the element, and in the recirc flow field.

You cannot control the boil temp, as that is fixed depending on your location's altitude. All you can do is control the boil vigor by manually setting a power level. The temp probe is useless during the boil no matter where it is. However the temp probe does provide useful information during heat up to boil.

Brew on

 

[nick sekerak]

I recommend #2. You want as close to 0 time lag between temp increases at the element and detection by the PID as possible. The longer the time lag, the more the wort can get overheated before the PID recognizes the problem. The higher the flow rate, the lower the time lag for any particular probe to element distance. Since many BIAB'ers find they have to run slow recirc rates (because of fine crush) BIAB rigs tend to need the probe as close as possible to the element, and in the recirc flow field.

You cannot control the boil temp, as that is fixed depending on your location's altitude. All you can do is control the boil vigor by manually setting a power level. The temp probe is useless during the boil no matter where it is. However the temp probe does provide useful information during heat up to boil.

Brew on

That's a good point. Sounds like the best spot to put the probe is a spot between the element and intake port going to my pump. Currently i have a 3 ft line to my pump, and a 3ft line from pump to upper re-circ port on the kettle. I am finding a 4*F heat loss when recirculating from this configuration. When i mash in at 154* that means my recirculated wort is mixing into my brew bag at 150* resulting in the mash temp dropping. I thought it would be more stable since the wort below my false bottom was at 154*. So to correct it I bought some foam pipe insulation to wrap around my silicone hoses to help insulate the lines to limit the heat losses. In my last brew i raised my set temp 6*F higher than my target mash to try and compensate for this heat losses, but found out later that was not a good idea. My mash temps were up and down the whole 60 min mash because i raised the set temp up 6* to get back to my target mash temp then once i hit it, i backed the set temp back to 154*. It seem to stabilize for about 10 min the began to drop again so i had to raise the set temp again. Now i was opening the lid alot to check my temps so there was more heat loss with that too. Hopefully the insulation fixed this issue, if not i will insulate the kettle aswell. I can live with a heat loss of 1-2*F but the whole point of me going to a Ebiab system was to have the most accurate mash temps.

 

[BeeRRunBrewery]

I have been doing BIAB for 6 years. I’ve put the temperature probe within the mash (bag/ basket), under the bag/basket, to the side of the bag/basket and have since settled on (and happiest with) in line directly after the kettle outlet valve. After mashing in my grains I’m able to come to my target mash temperature within 10 minutes. I’m able to recirculate at a decent flow so that any temperature loss is within 1 degree. As previously mentioned, when it’s time to boil, I run the controller in manual and for my system at 85% output.

 

[nick sekerak]

I recommend #2. You want as close to 0 time lag between temp increases at the element and detection by the PID as possible. The longer the time lag, the more the wort can get overheated before the PID recognizes the problem. The higher the flow rate, the lower the time lag for any particular probe to element distance. Since many BIAB'ers find they have to run slow recirc rates (because of fine crush) BIAB rigs tend to need the probe as close as possible to the element, and in the recirc flow field.

You cannot control the boil temp, as that is fixed depending on your location's altitude. All you can do is control the boil vigor by manually setting a power level. The temp probe is useless during the boil no matter where it is. However the temp probe does provide useful information during heat up to boil.

Brew on

Thanks for the advice, I tried it on my last brew and was able to maintain a stable mash temp with locating my probe as you recommended. This was my easiest mash in since I did not have to worry about the temps fluxing up and down the whole mash. It was so nice to see that each time I checked the mash temp it was within 0 to 0.5 degrees of my target.