Why put a thermometer on a boil kettle?

Thread title says it all. I can't for the life of me figure out why I would do this. I can definitely see wanting one for a mash tun, but why would someone care what the temperature is in the boil. You are just boiling right? I guess I could see it as a way to make sure you have cooled enough to transfer to the fermenter and pitch yeast, but that hardly seems worth the investment. Anyone care to educate me?

When coming up to a boil, it might be nice to see if you're close to boiling or not.

Closer to boiling, the closer you need to watch for a boil over.

Mine doesn't have one, but I wish it did. I use an immersion chiller and it would be nice if it had a built in thermometer to let me know when I'm down to pitching temp.

WitsEnd said:

When coming up to a boil, it might be nice to see if you're close to boiling or not.

Closer to boiling, the closer you need to watch for a boil over.

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Ding! Ding! Ding!

We have a winner!

When I switched to a cooler for a MLT my boiling kettle became my old keggle MLT and I am now addicted to the thermometer to help me keep from boiling over. Would I spend $50 to add one to an existing pot? probably not.

The temperature you pitch the yeast at is at least as important as anything you are doing in the mast tun.

I don't know. I can pretty much tell when the wort is about to reach a boil. It is pretty obvious. As for pitching temperature, I'll agree that is is pretty important, but a simple $5 thermometer is sufficient to tell me if I'm below 80F or so. It isn't like I am trying to make a distinction between 152F and 154F in the MLT.

I have one in my boil kettle. I watch to see how close I am to a boil and I use it to know when it is done chilling. I suppose a $5 thermometer would do the same functions but I can see the needle on mine from across the room so I don't have to stop what I am doing and go look.

Linc

Most useful when cooling, but I decided a thermometer would get in the way of the immersion chiller.

I don't have one I just use a pot, but if I did would't I use the same pot for boiling that I use for heating the mash/sparge water and then it would serve another more useful purpose?

jgln said:

I don't have one I just use a pot, but if I did would't I use the same pot for boiling that I use for heating the mash/sparge water and then it would serve another more useful purpose?

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Yeah, I gave that a lot of thought, but I batch sparge. I need the boil kettle to catch the runnings and a separate pot to heat the sparge water.

Two reasons;

1. Tells you how hot your strike/sparge water is as you drink a beer.
2. Tells you when you can kill the water running through the wort chiller and drain your wort to a fermentor.

On number 2 you don't need to worry about sanitizing it either.

uwjester said:

Yeah, I gave that a lot of thought, but I batch sparge. I need the boil kettle to catch the runnings and a separate pot to heat the sparge water.

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Could still use it for the strike water and if you had another bucket for the runnings you could use it for the sparge too. I guess it all depends on you. Much like what the sasuage guy says including the cooling later.

I'd love to have another Brewmometer for my BK, but $29 is going other places right now. I use a lab rod to tell me for now.

It doesn't sound like you should have one.

So I know what time it is?

I brewed for 20+ years without one. Got one recently and it is a nice feature for getting my strike temp, sparge temp, close to boil and cool enough to pitch yeast without worrying about dropping a thermometer into the water or having to sanitize it. It would, however, be way down on my list of things to get if you are starting out.

GT

Brew Haus said:

So I know what time it is?

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Oh yah. Prove it!

Schlenkerla said:

Oh yah. Prove it!

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Easy. 212 = beer time!

I have an instant read thermo I just put in the pot when the chiller is doing it's thing. i also just watch the pot when I'm geting th boil going and use it then too. I don't need no stinkin thermometer built into the pot. My instant read thermo is triple duty. It is used when smoking meats too. and checking all sorts of foods.