diff --git a/InstructorEmbedding/instructor.py b/InstructorEmbedding/instructor.py
index 2d9fb4a..f6beee0 100644
--- a/InstructorEmbedding/instructor.py
+++ b/InstructorEmbedding/instructor.py
@@ -623,7 +623,7 @@ def encode(
             input_was_string = True
 
         if device is None:
-            device = self._target_device
+            device = self.device
 
         self.to(device)
 
@@ -690,4 +690,4 @@ def encode(
         if input_was_string:
             all_embeddings = all_embeddings[0]
 
-        return all_embeddings
\ No newline at end of file
+        return all_embeddings