Probe placement in cellar

I've heard people recommend putting it in a bottle of water to get an approximation of the temp inside your beer bottles. It should be more accurate because the liquid inside will not change in temperature as rapidly as the air outside the bottle.






Probe!

 

^^ Agreed.

If you brew, punch a hole in a White Labs vial, fill it with a bit of water and probe away. Putting the probe in water will keep the fridge compressor from kicking on as often as if it's in air. Open the door and the air temp will shift drastically, but the glass-insulated liquids won't.

 

I have had the same issue with my JC probe. I tried to find a thermowell online that I could use but haven't been able to. Anyone provide a model/brand? Would be nice to have one that fit into a 12oz bottle.

 

The analog/digital should not make a difference in the temperature probe, most likely it is the same probe either way. Find a suitable container to let your probe sit in ~10oz of water and youll be fine.

The discrepancy between your temp controller setting and your measured temp could be calibration. An analog temp controller doesnt have any sort of feedback so whenever it thinks its at your setting itll hold there.

 

does it look like a copper line with a long, more bulbous (rarely get to use that word) end? If so, it's good to go in the water bottle.

 

If your afraid to put the probe in water(like i am).. I took a water bottle and taped the probe to the side of the bottle and took alittle bit of that memory foam and taped that to the probe to insulate it. My cellar stays within 1 degree of the beer temp!

 

Used a aquafina bottle of water. Put the probe half way down the bottle and used electrical tape to tape the probe to the bottle.. Then took alittle memory foam and put that over the taped probe and used packaging tape to tape the memory foam to the bottle..

 

I punched a hole in the lid of a glass San Pellegrino bottle (filled with tap water) and have my copper probe in there
I get great temperature results and my freezer rarely kicks on

Why are you guys afraid of putting the probe in water?

 

Yeah, I have mine in a bottle of water on the middle shelf of my cellar fridge, with the temp set to 52 degrees.

It's been that way for quite some time, and the probe and temp regulator have worked just fine.

I initially had it in a bottle of water that I had drilled a whole through the plastic cap.

When I moved I just used the first bomber that I purchased in my new town, filled it with water, and put the probe in that.

I really think this is the way to go.

 

Figured this was the best place to put this...

A couple of questions about my Johnson Temp controller I just purchased. This is set up in a standard fridge/freezer combo (pardon my ignorance ahead of time):

I currently have the probe taped (with electrical tape) to the outside of a beer bottle corked and filled with water. I tried to just put it in a glass bottle of water, but it kept tipping over and spilling. Is this method accurate? I guess I could find a plastic bottle and drill a hole in the cap if needed.

Question 1 and question 2 are kind of tied together. I set the SP at 55 last night with default settings for everything else. Snaked the the cord up through the top of the fridge and its reading 49... I should be plus/minus 5 right? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Looks like it just had to get the fridge up to 55... I put the temp controller in a roughly 45 degree fridge with quite a bit of beer initially. Hit a "cold" spell here in Texas, so the garage was way too cold for the fridge temp to increase at all. Now that things have warmed up it's holding right at 55.

Haven't poured a beer to check beer temp. but will sometime this weekend.

 

49 is fine. Yes, you should be +/- 5 degrees, but when you're 6 degrees cooler than your SP, your fridge isn't going to warm up to hit 50. Anything between 46-56 is good!