I finally want to start measuring fermentation temperature more accurately. I currently use a swamp cooler as my fermentation chamber, measure the water temp, and tack on 5-8 degrees as my assumed internal carboy temperature for the first 4-5 days. My blow-off valve gets a lot of use. Has anyone here built a thermowell - blow-off valve combo? I was thinking of just drilling a hole through the rubber stopper, putting a 12"-15" SS rod through it, and sealing the top and bottom of it with silicone. Does that seem like it’ll work?
My experience is that the bath water and the fermentation temp are within 0.5 F. Consequently I generally only measure bath temp.
I ferment in buckets, drilled an extra hole for a grommet and made a stainless tube for the thermo-well by pinching one end and fuse welding that end to make it water tight. If you are using carboys, they do sell blow-off/thermo-well combos.
I’m embarrassed at my Googling skills. It seems this will work with my Better Bottle just fine:
http://morebeer.com/products/hood-thermowell-3-5-6-65-gallon-smooth-neck-carboys-15.html
I use this sort of setup with a thermowell from brewers hardware. The end of the thermowell is plugged, welded, and polished. Looks great and is very smooth. I use a large worm clamp to tighten the hood to the fermenter.
The thinner tubing get clogged sometimes at the start of fermentation. Nothing to worry about really – http://youtu.be/FdSORiSaRW8?t=50s
I use the same setup as well, although I usually only need a blowoff tube if I’m fermenting a wheat beer or belgian.
Cool, so you replaced the SS rod that came with the hood and replaced it with this one?
That is the thermowell. Not sure what length I have, I think 12". I bought the hood seperatly. I have a few. I use the for blowoff, transfers, and brining water back from the RO machine. End up costing about $10 less than the MoreBeer kit.
+1 On all the above.
I use the Brewer’s Hardware 16" thermowell. I have 2 actually, one for 6 gallon glass and Betterbottles and one for 6.5 gallon (small cap). The trick is to cut the small pigtail on the cap off to about 1/4", stick it in hot water to soften and spray some starsan or leak detector on the thermowell. It will slide in the small hole quite easily then. I also use a 000 rubber stopper to plug the thermowell open end when I clean and sanitize it. Use 1/2" ID hose for the blowoff fits right over the larger hole on the cap.
I will need to give that a try. I have been using the center hole for the the thermowell and disassembling after each brew.