infrared thermometer

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Ceedubya

Ceedubya

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I am looking for a infrared thermometer, more for kitchen use than for beer, but don't know much about them.

do any of you own one of these? what should I be looking for?
 
I have one that I am borrowing from work. It is fun to play with, but not that accurate. Shiny surfaces reflect the light, and give spurious readings. The scum on the top of cooking/cooling wort read very differently to pointing it at the liquid itself. It was very hard to get a reliable reading on if my wort had chilled enough to pitch. Might be OK if you just want to calibrate your oven, or find out where your windows are leaking. If you need any sort of accuracy, I would recommend against it.
 
I use a Raytek MT6 MiniTemp Infrared Thermometer, which has been useful in pizza making, baking etc. For beer it is dead on accurate for the outside surface of the fermenter, boil kettle and other solid surfaces. Sometimes it will work with liquids and other times not. If you had a metal spoon or mixer sticking out of your wort you could hit it with the laser and get a good read.

Also good for inquisitive dogs who like to chase red dots all over the carpet - my dog gets pretty bored after a few seconds and say f-u to me!
 
samc said:
I use a Raytek MT6 MiniTemp Infrared Thermometer, which has been useful in pizza making, baking etc. For beer it is dead on accurate for the outside surface of the fermenter, boil kettle and other solid surfaces. Sometimes it will work with liquids and other times not. If you had a metal spoon or mixer sticking out of your wort you could hit it with the laser and get a good read.

Also good for inquisitive dogs who like to chase red dots all over the carpet - my dog gets pretty bored after a few seconds and say f-u to me!
Click to expand...
+1 you have to be smarter than the tool you are using. Sorry guys.:eek:

(cats never tire):D
 
Infrared thermometers do not work on liquid. It is actually reading the temp on the bottom of the vessel you are shooting it into. It will read off any solid surface pretty accurately, of course that is dependent on how good a unit you buy.
 
I picked up a General Tools model marked down from $50 to $15 -- it's invaluable in my house. Like everyone else said -- it's not for monitoring mash temps as liquids are hard to read. But fermentation chamber temps, freezer temps, etc are all good.

Just remember the beam spreads over distance so it's more innacurate the longer the distance.
 
Spartan1979 said:
I've considered using one to read the temp of my starter wort when I'm cooling it.
Click to expand...

I have one of these
F-62_03a_200p.jpg

and it works great for that - and pretty much anything else that you can read a solid surface. And it will usually get a good reading of the surface of liquid that isn't emitting vapor. But reading mash temps or seeing how close wort is to boiling, not so much...

Cheers!
 

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