Hi all,
I’m finding this surprisingly hard to find, and I could use recommendations.
Does anyone have a liquid thermometer that they keep inside a wine bottle in their cellar to keep track of liquid temperature, not air temperature in the cellar? I’m looking for a stand-alone device, not something that connects to an AC unit. Keeping track of the temperature variations with an app of some type is nice but not required.
Thanks!
For several years I simply used a digital cooking thermometer. Fill bottle with water. With the cork, drill a hole all the way through with a fairly small diameter bit. Since the probe is fairly thick this makes it easier to insert the probe all the way through the cork. Voila!
Great tip! If you go this direction make sure you get a quality thermometer. The cheap ones are like putting a finger in the wind.
This works with the wireless tag system. You have to make a hole through a cork. I use a 375ml wine that I don’t plan to drink. Inexpensive. You could easily sub a 750ml cheapie. It works great. Either the temp probe or the thermocouple. It will trend. You can get data from your browser and set up alerts. About $65 to 70 US.
don’s right, but to make it even easier and cheaper buy the kumo sensor and a compatible probe on amazon such as this; https://www.amazon.com/Aideepen-DS18B20-Waterproof-Temperature-Stainless/dp/B07RDFMR6Q
this is the sensor you should buy: https://goo.gl/D8ZWfL
you’ll also need the tag manager, which allows you to add additional sensors. when i had my own cellar, i would keep track of water temp and air temp and set alarms for both.
I use a product called “The wine vault” fro Viking leisure products Marrieta Ga. It is a bottle filled with liquid and sealed with a thermometer with a dial display on the end. Woks great, is accurate and easy to read. Not sure if this is still available since this one is many years old.
Is there a huge variation in the air temperature such that you want to observe any potential variation in liquid temperature? If the air temperature is pretty steady, then the liquid temp will be too …
On multiple occasions, I’ve taken a bottle temperature with an infrared contactless thermometer and it always reads within 1-1.5 degrees F of the air temperature in my wine fridge. Given that the wine fridge seems to live between 55F and 57F in air temp, it’s not something that really bothers me. The fridge is also 95%+ full all the time, which I’m sure helps it keep a steady temp.
FWIW I use the “Temp Stick” (150 bucks on Amazon) inside my wine fridge. While it does help give peace of mind in terms of air temp variation, the main reason I use it is to protect against the fridge going haywire and freezing or if we’re out of town over the summer and the power goes out or something and I need to ask a neighbor to go rescue my wine (It works over WiFi, and my cable modem and primary router access point are on a large backup battery).
if you can only have 1, yes, air temp would be preferred. but knowing liquid temp and trends, would tell you how efficient your cooling and insulation is. the perfect cooler would have a PID with inputs from both air and liquid. as mentioned on the other thread, the wireless tag system is imo crucial because you can get an instant notification if the temp goes above or below a user-specified range.