PH Test Strips?

For those that measure PH - do you use standard PH test strips, digital meter, or something else?

If paper strips, are they accurate enough for brewing?

I've been using the beer range strips, the low cost one's from northern brewer. Seem to work fine, but a lot of people have said they can be wildly off. I've never tested them with buffer solution, but so far all my AG brews are coming out awesome with zero water treatments. My strips typically indicate my mash PH's between 5.2-5.6 depending on the batch. I'm most often at 5.4. Again though, many say the strips can be quite a bit off so until I either check with buffer strips or against a PH meter I can't say how accurate they are.


Rev.

I'm new to using pH testing for homebrew, but I'm using pH strips to test the acidity of my sour beers. I also use them to make sure the pH of my starsan is still low enough. So far they seem to be working just fine.

I bought some pH strips for beer at a local LHBS. They essentially did NOTHING!

I mean, there was ZERO change in color in the mash.

I've since switched to a digital meter from Hanna and it's great. I was only going to use the strips for a ballpark reading and they didn't even do that.

I have highly alkaline water where I live and enjoy playing with the salt additions, so having a meter to double-check my calculations is nice.

I've heard that the paper strips can be off as much as .3. That's quite a bit. If you can, I'd at least try and find someone with a meter and see how far off that batch is. If your serious about water additions, then a meter makes sense once you g a water report.