Just purchased a couple of Johnson Analog Temprature Controlers That I am going to use with a small chest freezer. My question is would it be ok to just let the probe hang in the air near the fermenter Or sink it in a container of water near it for better accuracy. Anyone heard of this? Tank :cheers:
I prefer to tape mine to my carboy. I’ve taken a piece of styrofoam and used a drill bit to dig a groove in the side that the probe fits most (but not quite completely) into. This way the probe is touching the carboy but has a nice layer of styrofoam behind it to insulate it from the rest of the cooler. I find this get’s a good reading for me.
I use this same setup for my kegged beer too to keep it at desired temp. For your fermenter I think it’s a better approach than placing the probe in water or taking ambient temps. The yeast will create heat so your wort/beer will be hotter than water in a jar. Taking ambient temps will be a bit too far off in my opinion. The air cools and heats much faster than the wort/beer ever will.
Neither…attach it to the fermenter as shown above.
The reason is that your fermentation makes heat so it will be warmer than ambient and also warmer than a bucket of water which will be the same as ambient . You want your ambient a couple degrees colder than your target fermentation.
I just tape it to the side of the fermenter and then cover it with some bubble wrap to insulate it a bit from the side of the freezer.
I keep my probe in a real skinny bottle filled with bleach and water. The bottle probably only holds 2-3 ozs. The reason I don’t tape it to the keg is that it is real tight in there and I am afraid I’d pull the keg out and forget to untape the probe.
