Dial Thermometer

[MarkA]

I have just purchased a Thermometer to fit to my HLT.

I've checked it in boiling water and it read 86 degrees, so recalibrated it using the screw on the back to 100 (after a good few attempts and recalibrates, it's steady at 100). The water was at 99.8 according to my usual thermometer.

I then placed both thermometers in cold water (8 degrees) and the dial read 18 degrees! It does take a while for the needle to move to temperature, but this was after 5 minutes, so it should have settled by then.

Does anyone have any tips before I ask for a refund?

[Fil]

what temp range are you interested in in your hlt? 60-85C?? if so why not try heating up a tankfull and calibrating it against your trusted thermometer somewhere in the middle of the range, and then if it performs well within the range your interested in do you have a problem????

if it dosent then get onto customer services..

google led me to a morebeer page for a similar thermometer which boasts 1% accuracy within its scale which looked like it went upto 240F so thats roughly +/- 1C accuracy its boasting ???
http://www.morebeer.com/products/fermen ... probe.html
but 0-100C isnt the usual range of temps of interest to a brewer when looking at a hlt or tun??

[MarkA]

Very true Fil, but it's easier to hold a boil for measuring purposes rather than try to heat the HLT to 73 degrees, dip the probe thermometer in, then dip the probe of the dial thermometer in, take it out, adjust the calibration (meanwhile it's rapidly cooling down), dip in, repeat trying to hit a moving target........also, with the HLT heater cycling on and off, there will also be a discrepancy there too. I assumed, after reading everyone else's posts on calibration, the method was check at 100 and 0?

[Fil]

ahh i see, perhaps if you used a float (old bit of packing polystyrene?) to poke the hanna probe thru for a constant read and the dial thermometer so u can tune while wet?? you only need to get it to agree with the hana somewhere in the middle of the range your interested in for a basic test,

the name of the thing implies it should read true at lower temps too fermentap ffs on second thoughts i think a polite email to customer services may be in order after all...

[MarkA]

Cheers, Fil. From their website "The 2" Probe works great in a boil kettle or hot liquor tank"

I think you could be right

[chastuck]

I think you might have a bummer here. I use a Fermentap in my CFC and it has always given good results.