checking temp before pitching

is there a way to check the temp of the wort before pitching the yeast? like by touch? my thermometer only goes to down to 100F, and i wasnt sure if i needed to buy another thermometer for temps below 100F..

thanks!

 

I do it by touch.

Before trying this on cooled wort, it would be a good idea to practice a bit with a container of liquid of known temperature just to get some experience.

 

Not sure. My thermometer goes down to like 40 or so, which is nice because I can determine how far off my hydrometer readings are.

 

Just buy another thermometer, you will need it at some point anyways.

 

many of the 'floating thermometers' that i see are glass ones that look like they get pretty bad reviews from beer brewers for being very fragile or being too submerged to read without constantly taking it out and in.. cant i just buy a metal 'poke' type thermometer and put it through cork or something bouyant and have one like that?

thanks

 

Why not just use one of the stick on thermometers on the fermenter? It works well enough for pitching temps from my experiences. I have a floating thermometer I use in the mash,& a dial type for the sparge water kettle.

 

I got a metal "poke" type thermometer at the not-so-LHBS that's about 8 inches long. It goes from 50* to 230* F. I used to use it in my boils as well as checking my cooled wort. Since going electric I just put it in the wort for the last 10 minutes of boil to sanitize and then check my wort temps in the buckets with it. Thermometers are cheap and pitching yeast at a planned temperature is far better than a guess that it's cool enough.

 

This is what I have used for about 3 years. I've yet to have an issue with it.

 

Digital deep fry thermometer. 15 bucks. Totally water proof and accurate. I'd say they're pretty much a must buy when starting out. I stopped using my dial thermometer after my first batch.