Beer Forum

So I have pre ordered a 15 gallon speidel fermenter. When I would use glass carboys I would just tape my johnson digital probe to the side and had fine results. The speidel tank is plastic, will that method still be effective? The thermowells that more beer sells are only compatible with ranco controllers...which I do not have. Any thoughts?

I attach my probe to the outside of my better bottle...and it works great...not sure why it would be different unless the plastic is extremely thick..

The only problem I see with plastic is that it will take the probe a little longer to see temperature changes due to the insulating properties of plastic. This could lead to slightly bigger swings in temperature due to the lag, but I doubt it is enough to be noticeable.

I tape a piece of foam rubber over the probe to insulate it from outside temerature swings. You could use a small folded towel, sock or whatever.
Good luck!

the plastic insulating qualities is what I was also concerned about. Not sure how thick the plastic is yet as the fermenter has yet to arrive.

I have two speidel fermenters, and I do exactly as you propose to do. Never had any issues with this. Liquids don't change temperatur so rapidly that the plastic would affect the readings. I'd say the plastic in the speidel fermenter is only sligthly thicker than the regular plastic buckets.

I checked it out on the morebeer site. It looks like a good fermenter for the money. I'm tempted to order a 15 gallon myself. I like my better bottles but this would be a lot easier to clean plus I could put a 10 gallon batch in one and have a lot more headspace.

They appear to be just like the Mini Brew conicals in a different shape. The walls are pretty thick, but I don't think you'd have too much of a problem reading a fairly accurate temp. My only complaint with the HDPE fermenters is you have to slow down & be very careful when cleaning them. Typically CIP, but I've had to break down & use a really soft sponge a couple of times. If you remember to fill them with hot PBW immediately after draining it helps a lot, even if you're too tired to do the full cleaning cycle on them right that second.