Those chinese make some bargain thermometers

So Im really excited because Im about to do my first partial mash recipe and my digital thermometer just came in. So sorry if Im rambling. But I ordered a digital thermometer on ebay for an unreal price of $1 plus $2.95 shipping not realizing that it was coming from China, until I got this email.


""
Your item has been shipped from Hong Kong Post via Airmail:

Once your item arrives, WE SINCERELY HOPE THAT YOU CAN LEAVE US 5 STARS SELLER RATING AND POSITIVE FEEDBACK.

Even you may not fully satisfied to the delivery time, we do hope you can
still give us 5 STARS RATING and POSITIVE FEEDBACK when you consider the
product you purchased from us are in such a good bargain and shipped from
oversea.

If you have received the item but feel like we fell short of FIVE STARS,
please contact me first and I will make sure you are happy. We can send a
replacement or refund payment. If you are not satisfied with shipping time
I will refund partial or full postage, but please DO NOT LOW Rating on Shipping
Time considering this is oversea transaction.
""

Well I laughed at this for a while and thought Id share it with you guys. And it came in today and I shoved it under my arm pit, gave it a minute, and it read 98.4 degrees, not bad. It took 15 days to arrive in Boston but for a total of $3.95 its definitely worth it. Just search "Digital Cooking Food Probe Meat Thermometer Kitchen BBQ" on ebay.

Cheers

I guess under the armpit is better than up your............

Your going to brew with a $4 thermometer? I believe I would check more than my armpit temp.

Well how else can I test it?

Try ice water and boiling water. And if you have another thermometer, check that they both read within a degree or two of each other.

1+ on the ice water. We run a commercial kitchen at our facility and that is how the Health Dept. tests our dial thermometers.

I was going to suggest another body orifice but then you might not want to brew with it.

LOL

btw - It's crazy how some Ebay sellers are nutz to protect that 5 star rating. I ran up against one of them who sold me a POS $10 item and I had to spend $5 in shipping it because it was defective. They went crazy when I left them bad feedback.

In the lab we use ice water and boiling water and always compare to a NIST calibrated thermometer. You need the extremes (0C and 100C) to determine the linearity of the device. While it may be accurate at 0C, the boiling temps could be a few degrees off.... In an ideal world, the device will be linear throughout the entire range you wish to measure.

Thats an awesome score, but I would make sure to calibrate it before every brew day. The cheapies are known to eventually go bad and you dont want to mash 10° high or low

So the thermometer sucks dont buy it. I guess it is cheap for a reason

joey11bball said:

Well all this is the original poster here. I didnt mean to start such a firey uproar about politics and patriotism. I merely thought I would share a funny story about a Chinese guy trying to translate into English in an email and pleading me to give him a FIVE STAR RATING and POSTIVE FEEDBACK. But the true funny part about this whole thread and where its gone now, is I used the thermometer today and it SUCKS. Its all over the place so DONT BUY IT. And now I get the pleasure of giving a 0 STAR RATING and NEGATIVE FEEDBACK.

Lets all call a truce, homebrewers gotta stick together

Click to expand...

Dude, that is phenomenal!! OMG, I can't wait to hear about the email you are going to get back from them. While reading their initial email to you, all I could think about was "how bad must the product be for them to almost apologize for its lack of quality before you even get and complain?" This is classic!

....not sure why most of my replies were deleted, I thought I was on topic. The OP was not asking for my opinion on the item, he was just sharing a story he thought we would find funny and I was trying to be funny back and share a similar experience. Oh well, no big deal.

I see now this was posted in the equipment/sanitation forum but when I read it the OP appeared more about the funny plead for a superior rating than it was a discussion about the piece of equipment. I guess that opened the discussion beyond technical talk.

Your right I should of put it in a more general forum