Thermometer Reading

To check my thermometer reading while heating up my mash water I usually hold the thermometer still with one hand and stir water with a paddle with the other hand! And I do the same to get mash readings during the 60 minutes!! The weird thing is unstirred it reads 5-8 degrees higher than if I stir mash and check the reading!
Which way gives you the most accurate reading off your floating thermometer, stirred or unstirred?
Is it time for a new thermometer?

The act of stirring a liquid will make it cool down. The more movement the more cooling effect. It is the heat exchange between the wort and the surface air, that is why a whirlpool chiller is so much more effective than a standard coil wort chiller. To get a true reading, don`t stir when you take a temp reading. If you are real anal about the temp, take a reading from the center of the pot then the outside edge of the pot, your overall temp will be somewhere in between. Same thing when your eating soup....eat from the edge, not the middle because the edge is cooler.

VB

What I've noticed while heatin water up on a turkey fryer while its going is it usually reads a higher temp while fryer is heating than while fryer is not heating.

there are probably hot/colder spots so I would think stirring gives a more accurate reading since its mixing the wort

have you checked different areas on the wort before stirring to see if you have variances?

terrapinj said:

have you checked different areas on the wort before stirring to see if you have variances?

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I don't worry to much with wort temp during boil! Just the mash water temp, getting up to 170F to get grain 153F mash temp in mash tun. The grain bed does have cooler areas so I do stir the mash and when I'm done stirring I check the temp and it's right on at 153F but before I stir mash it reads about 158-160F :-/