Sticker strip Thermometer ?

[ebaynote]

Just curious how reliable everyone finds these to be when stuck on to outside of carboy? I seem to be noticing a 5-7 degree difference from air temp to temp on carboy. Even when I put room temp water in carboy to test differences. Any feedback would be appreciated.

This also led me to another question. If a given recipe says to ferment at 68 degrees should that be the air temp in the room? Or b/c they say the temp in the fermenter could be 5-10 degree warmer should I get the air temp to 58-63.

 

[Yooper]

Just curious how reliable everyone finds these to be when stuck on to outside of carboy? I seem to be noticing a 5-7 degree difference from air temp to temp on carboy. Even when I put room temp water in carboy to test differences. Any feedback would be appreciated.

This also led me to another question. If a given recipe says to ferment at 68 degrees should that be the air temp in the room? Or b/c they say the temp in the fermenter could be 5-10 degree warmer should I get the air temp to 58-63.

They're pretty accurate, usually within a degree or so. Use an accurate thermometer to take the temperature of the water inside and see how it matches up to the reading on the strip. It should be very close.

You want your temperature to be the wort fermenting temperature, not room temperature. Air temperature really doesn't relate well. I mean, I guess a cooler room would give you a cooler fermentation temperature but it's not that precise to be able to say if the room is 59, then your fermentation will be 66.

Use the themometer strip as your guide. If it's 65 for example, and it's an ale, it's fine no matter what the room temperature is.

 

[ebaynote]

Fair enough. Getting a little nervous because I have a Brown IPA (Wyeast 1272) fermenting in a small room with the AC on. The room temp is 65 but the sticker thermometer says 72-74. It seems to be a the biggest discrepancy I've noticed (this is my 5th batch). In the other 4 my air temp and sticker temp have been pretty close. Maybe this has an more active fermentation. Thanks for the input.

 

[woollybugger2]

not sure exactly how accurate they are but i've got three that are reading the same 72* temperature...

 

[Tripod]

I find my stick on "fermometer" to be fairly accurate but it is not my only temp gauge. I use the swamp cooler method so the water in the cooler acts like insulation to keep my temperatures from swinging. I use a submersable thermometer in the swamp water and use that reading to tweak the setting on the aquarium heater. The stick-on goes onto the carboy and I use that to let me know that I'm in the ball-park for the style I'm attempting. I find the stick on to be farly close to the digital reading but only as close as a color gauge can get to a digital read-out that displays 1/10th-degree increments.

Hope that helps.

-Tripod

 

[fastricky]

Interesting as I was going to ask a related question... say you're brewing with a yeast that is rated to work at 60-72 degrees. You keep the room at 68 degrees. But the sticker/thermometer says 76! Now, I know when yeast are going crazy doing their business, they raise the temp 5 degrees or so, that would explain the discrepancy.

So! Is the yeast rating room temp or fermentation temp?

 

[ChshreCat]

So! Is the yeast rating room temp or fermentation temp?

Fermentation temp. The yeast aren't going to care what the temp is somewhere outside of their habitat.

 

[fastricky]

Now ya tell me! ;-)

 

[Indy418]

Fair enough. Getting a little nervous because I have a Brown IPA (Wyeast 1272) fermenting in a small room with the AC on. The room temp is 65 but the sticker thermometer says 72-74.

If your air temp is still cooler than your batch temp, just wrap a cool wash cloth around the fermenter. That should help apply some direct cooling and bring your temps down.

 

[ebaynote]

Yup. Just put a t-shirt, that I ran under cold water, over her. That dropped the temp down within 15 min-right to where i wanted it. Thanks for all the input.