Did a Porter yesterday and was shooting for 153°. My Kettle has a thermowell with a probe connected to a Ranco PID controller. After dough in it read 152°, pretty close so I could have just winged it or heated it up. I look at the dial thermometer right next to the thermowell, it reads 158 :x Next I get the “lollypop” scientific thermometer out and it reads 154°, also close enough. Yes this was all after stirring it up.
I don’t worry much about stuff like this and always figured that if it is close, it will come out beer, better beer that I can get at the convenience store. I am inclined to trust the “traceable” scientific thermometer but also know if you poke any thermometer around in the mash you can get a bunch of different readings. What do you all think?
BTW the Porter is happily chugging along this morning and was within .002 of my target gravity.