Heyy all... does anyone use or know if an infrared thermometer would work to monitor the temp of my beer while its fermenting? Not sure if it would just give me the outside air temp or temp of the bucket as compared to the liquid inside. My idea is to just use it without taking the lid of the bucket off instead of using a stick on thermometer. Might be a stretch
Infrared Thermometer for Fermentation
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I use one but don't count on it for reliability, it always is a few degrees off from my Brewpi readings.
Just use a stick on thermometer. They are surprisingly very accurate.
And very inexpensive. My LHBS sells them for around $2.50.
Awesome! Let me ask you this. I know I pitched around 78deg with this brew. I KNOW I needed to do it cooler, but after 2 hours I couldn't get any cooler without waiting all night... the temp after a week is 66-68. Should I be totally worried? It had a rapid primary with the Krausen dropping after only about a day and a half. Now its pretty stagnant after 7 days. Plan is to check the SG on Friday which will be the two week point.
I find my IR thermometer pretty useful. I generally only use it for something when I just need to ballpark the temp. This weekend I happened to be switching back and forth between and IR and normal digital thermometer, and surprisingly the IR one was always within 1 degree. (I was shooting it into half gallon mason jars, fwiw). Heres mine:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007VL25WW/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007VL25WW/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
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m1k3
Well-Known Member
Too many factors to say if that caused any problems for you on this occasion. You would need to check your gravity.
Ideally it is better to pitch cool and free rise up to your fermentation temp.
I live in California so I have had the same issue and pitched too warm. The fermentation fridge then cools the wort down slowly to ferm temp. Then after 3-4 days I start ramping the temp up to make sure it finishes out completely. Then I cold crash after 7-10 days and then keg.
This is a bit risky but it's worked fine for me. If you chilled too rapidly or had a slow start due to low pitching rate or low viability yeast than you could cause the yeast to flock too soon. (1.5 days and the krausen drops in could be an indication of this... but depends or Gravity and Yeast Strain)
About the Inferred Thermometer... I have one and it reads pretty accurately when I point it at a plastic bucket of fermenting beer.
That's just like mine, about the only thing I use mine for is checking the temp as I'm cooling the wort before adding the yeast. It's generally 1-2 degrees off but for $15 what do you expect.
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SpeedYellow
Well-Known Member
If you ferment in a bucket then an IR thermometer is useless since it would just measure the surface temp of the outside of the bucket. Useless.
However, if you ferment in glass, then it would read the beer properly. But still, accuracy would be an issue. Obviously you'd want to calibrate it, but even then I'm not sure it's repeatable. I'm a big fan of IR thermometers (I use mine every day), but you need to understand their limitations. I actually suspect it would be more accurate than the stick-on thermometers.
However, if you ferment in glass, then it would read the beer properly. But still, accuracy would be an issue. Obviously you'd want to calibrate it, but even then I'm not sure it's repeatable. I'm a big fan of IR thermometers (I use mine every day), but you need to understand their limitations. I actually suspect it would be more accurate than the stick-on thermometers.
I've used one to measure through Better Bottles for years: perfectly accurate as far as I can tell.
dyqik
Well-Known Member
That's very critically dependent on the type of glass and the angle to thermometer. IR thermometers can not see through many types of glass, and angling the glass causes big issues. In any case, they only read the very surface temperature of water or beer, if they can see through the glass at all, so they aren't going to be any better than a stick on thermometer.
SpeedYellow
Well-Known Member
Thanks. But even if the IR thermometer is only reading the surface of the glass, it still may be as good or better than the stick-on strips. The strips can be tough to read, and have a resolution of 2F and accuracy of, at best, +/- 1F. Resolution of IR thermometers is often 0.5F, but who knows the accuracy. I guess you'd have to experiment. Of course, +/- 1F accuracy with the strips is perfectly adequate.
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