Fermentation chamber,

Ingredients
1

I fashioned a fermentation chamber recently out of a new Chest freezer and InkBird temp controller.

I was wondering if anyone has any insight on how accurate of a temperature reading you are getting having your Probe taped to the side of the carboy and insulated from the chambers air?

Reading up on diacetyl rests and some more advanced brewing techniques.

The fermentation chamber is a game changer for sure. Just wanting to make sure I am maximizing it’s usefulness to get the most bang out of my buck

2

Its remarkably accurate.  I’ve compared taped to the fermenter to leaving it in air or a container of water.  Taped to the side was almost identical to a thermometer in the fermenter.  FWIW I almost never find a d rest is needed.

3

I never have.

4

The need to allow a fermentation to rise at the end is culture dependent. Really clean American-type ale cultures do not need a diacetyl rest.

5

Doing a northern english brown with WLP002

6

You may or may not need it.

7

To better reflect the temperature of what’s inside a fermenter, its a good idea to insulate the probe from the ambient air around the fermenter.  I just tape a small piece of foam to the side of my fermenter and the probe goes next to the fermenter wall into a small groove that I cut into the foam.  It might be a teeny bit off, but that’s not a concern to me.  Taping the probe to the fermenter wall is going to be slightly less precise, but its still going to be good enough if you’re using the external air space around the fermenter to control the fermenter temperature.

If you’re heating or cooling the fermenter with an internal coil or something like that, then you’ll definitely want to place the probe on the fermenter wall and insulate it from the ambient air as I describe above.

8

I got it shielded from the air around the fermentation vessel using some foam and tape, and in direct content of the vessel.