Temp probe in the thermowell?

[Dfitz]

Somewhere I saw a discussion regarding placement of the thermowell in the ferm chamber but can't seem to find it now. It stands to reason that locating your temp probe for the stc1000 in the thermowell. Some said in a bottle of water, some said just free hanging in the fermentation chamber witch makes sense. My chamber is in my garage and I don't see any excessive cycling, but when I located my probe in the thermowell I found a degree or so difference.

I also recall a post stating you should free hang your controller probe then have a separate meter for the thermowell. Not too sure about that. I'm somewhat of the mindset that a man with two watches seldom knows what time it is. Eventually I'd probably end up just believing in one probe unless they both read the same temp.

 

[Johow]

Taping my probe to the side of the fermenter make me happy...

 

[zgja2]

There is really no right or wrong answer. Or rather there is no right answer with a STC. You want to control the temp of the beer itself the thermowell should be the best bet. Problem is you are using a simple thermostat to control the temp of a liquid liquid (lots of mass) with air (very little mass). So you will experience temps swings above and under set point. The only way to precisely control temp of the beer is with a PID controller like brew pi (which is amazing, fun to build and works great)

Simple solution, tape the probe to the side of the vessel and insulate it from the air with some foam. Good as you are going to get with an STC

 

[kev211]

If you have the thermowell use it. I just switched to an SS brewbucket and Ive found the thermowell is much more accurate than when I stuck it on the side of my better bottle.