%&$# thermometers...

rant!
don't you hate it when one thermometer is showing one temp that is off by over 10*?
so, normally you grab another, and that is showing a different temp then you wanted by 10* lower... so you grab another one, and that is showing in the middle of both?

im' taking the median for this and am somewhat close because... im' already mashing my grain... so i can't really run to the store to get another Lets hope this turns out...


they've been fine before, guess it's time to calibrate them again!

/rant off

anyone else brewing today?

That sucks. I recalibrate pretty frequently, but didn't for awhile and realized it was off when our apartment was NOT the 80* the thermo claimed....about 65 would've been more accurate. Which also means my ferm temps were actually right on, not 78.

Hope you find a better one for next time! Kyle

That is why I bought a thermapen. I got sick of thermometers reading way off, breaking, etc. I spent > $100 replacing thermometers before I finally wised up.

Going to the LHBS, does that count?

All of my digital thermos from CDN to cheap Harbor Freight read pretty close to each other. Only difference is in the time it takes to stabilize on the reading. Bi-Metal ones are useless for me (even the overpriced Blichmann).

Brewing my cranberry wheat today. Gotta get it in the primary today so that I can have it bottled and ready to drink by Christmas.

I got rid of all my old thermometer and only use my instant read digital thermometer. I always hated trying to read the dial on my old thermometers. It only cost me $20 and works great. Fast and reliable.

I got a digital one for about 17bucks, and it came with an official calibration certificate. It's very accurate and I'll probably buy another one for a backup.

I have one of these:

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/12-laboratory-thermometer.html

It's a $5 french made lab thermometer and it works great. Only issue is it's not as fast to reach the read temp as a digital, but it's great for calibration and for checking water temps and such. I calibrated my Blichmann brewmometer with it and it now even reads my house temp (68F) just sitting empty on the stove 100% accurately.


Rev.

To go with the others, I noticed my batches getting more and more "out." I then found my thermometer to be about 12 degrees hot. Thermapen I went. Never go back. Great beer since then. I probably did about 8 batches that could have been much better. Good luck.

weirdboy said:

That is why I bought a thermapen. I got sick of thermometers reading way off, breaking, etc. I spent > $100 replacing thermometers before I finally wised up.

Click to expand...

THIS. I got along well enough when I brewed extract with the long probe dial thermometer that came with my original Midwest kit. When I went AG, it was obvious I'd need something good. I had read enough of cheap thermometer woes here on HBT and on other forums that when I needed a good thermometer, I just coughed up the $100 for the Thermapen, and have been nothing but delighted with it since. I use it for brewing, cooking, and baking. Pretty much indispensable now. I don't even touch our old Polder probe-on-a-wire thermometer any more, takes way too long to settle down to a reading.

weirdboy said:

That is why I bought a thermapen. I got sick of thermometers reading way off, breaking, etc. I spent > $100 replacing thermometers before I finally wised up.

Click to expand...

Can't figure how to take the temp of my mash deep in my 5 gallon kooler w/that short probe. I see it would be great to get reading on my strike water or wort temp before adding yeast.