STC1000

[Oldspeckledgit]

Hi
After 18 months of clearing out my garage ( it used to be my office/workshop for self employed printing business ), I am finally building my home brewery. Two 70 ltr stockpots for hlt and boiler and a 50 ltr thermopot for mashtun all purchased from nordic will be my setup. Various other bits from Malt Miller (great service) and STC 1000 from Cedaronics (also great service), to regulate liquor temperature in hlt.
I have fitted ball valve, 2.75kw element and sight glass to hlt, (Qmax cutters are great).
I was thinking that the hlt is now finished but then it ocurred to me - do I need to fit a thermowell for the STC 1000 probe?
I originally thought that I could just drop the supplied temp. probe into the water in hlt, but now I'm not so sure.
Any advice would be most welcome.
Apologies if this is a stupid question, but I'm still learning, although after following this forum for nearly 2 years I am hugely indebted to so many of you for the information I have gathered so far.
Cheers
OSG

 

[Northern Brewer]

Not sure what size thread your probe is but my PT100 probe was M8 so I bought a length of 15mm brass rod from ebay, cut around a 20mm section of it, tapped it M8 at one end and the rest slightly bigger so there's a hole through it. I then put a bulkhead connector about a third way up the HLT. The bulkhead connector was one of those pushfit jobbies. The brass rod pushes in then with a bit of PTFE tape the probe screws in. Make sure sufficient rod pokes out so you can grip it to tighten or loosen the probe.

Hope that helps.

 

[Oldspeckledgit]

Thanks Northern Brewer for reply.
Forgive me but I think I may have mislead you when I said that the STC1000 had a probe. It's really a sensor - just a wire with a plastic sealed sensor on the end.
If I fitted some sort of thermowell, say near to the ball valve, would I get an accurate temperature reading if I just inserted the sensor into it?
Thanks

 

[Northern Brewer]

if you used some heat transfer paste in the thermowell then it may work but I've never tried it. Remember that as the sensor is at the bottom it means you will need to give the HLT a stir to get a true reading as heat rises and the water will probably be hotter at the top even with convection. Another way is to buy a probe for the STC and stick it through the lid or use a gland like I did. There are companies that make them to various lengths but will probably be quite expensive.
Cheers NB

 

[Oldspeckledgit]

Thanks for your suggestions NB.
Think I may have to do some experiments to see if it will work.
Cheers
OSG