Author: Marshall Schott

When it comes to making quality beer, there’s one element that seems to come up most often and is important at many different times during the brewing process: temperature. Strike, mash, mashout, sparge, pitch, ferment- as brewers, we’re well aware of how imperative it to accurately monitor temperatures at all of these stages. To do, this, we’ve many options, the tough part lies in deciding on which one to go with.

When I got into all-grain brewing, I did some research and ultimately settled on the low-priced Taylor 9842 digital waterproof thermometer, which worked fine until I dropped it in a kettle full of boiling wort. I bought another one, it had minor calibration issues, but I made it work for another few months. If finally went belly-up after I dropped it on my cement garage floor. This thermometer would take about 30 seconds, give-or-take, to reach a stable temperature.

I ended up scoring a great deal (free) on a Robelle digital cooking thermometer, I really liked the longer probe, but the face of it kept popping off. This didn’t seem to have a huge impact on its functionality, but clearly this wasn’t the highest quality piece of equipment. Also, when taking calibration measurements in ice water, the temps were regularly inconsistent, but only off by 0.5°F or so. Again, I made it work, though reaching a stable measure of mash temps took even longer than the Taylor at 45-50 seconds.

I was ready for something more, a piece of gear I could trust was accurate, quick, and durable. Enter the ThermaPen by ThermoWorks. I’ve been aware of this Cadillac of thermometers for years, I even knew of a few homebrewers who swore by theirs, but I avoided purchasing one for a single reason– price. As many of you are aware, the ol’ ThermaPen don’t come cheap! At $96 apiece, it’s understandable why someone might forgo this luxury item for some other perhaps more critical piece of gear.

When my ThermaPen arrived last week, I couldn’t wait to pull it out of the box and test it out. Could the hype really be true? Would this seemingly over-priced thermometer really measure stable temps in 3 seconds? Before putting it to the test, I rigged a bit of insurance by attaching one end of twine to the unit and making a loop large enough to fit around my wrist on the other end. Crude but effective.

Next, I turned both the ThermaPen and my old Robelle on at the same time and let them sit in the open air. Since they’d been sitting in the same spot for the 20 or so minutes prior to turning them on, both were already at ambient temp. As you can see, the ThermaPen was already slightly different.

Next was the first speed test. I filled an insulated coffee mug with hot tap water, placed both thermometers in at the same time, then started timing. Unfortunately, my hands were too busy to snap photos of this, but I did document the numbers.

ThermaPen temp reading: 129.1°F

ThermaPen time to stable temp: 3.2 seconds

Old Thermometer temp reading: 128.4°F

Old Thermometer time to stable temp: 46.8 seconds

It was actually sort of difficult timing the ThermaPen, as the temp stabilized so damn fast! I could barely believe it. I went around measuring the temperatures of all kinds of things- milk in the fridge, my daughter’s glass of ice water, cold groundwater temp. Every time, it took mere seconds to reach a stable reading. Needless to say, I was impressed.

I brewed that weekend, it was my first using the ThermaPen to actually make beer. Again, I did some comparisons and took a few more pics. Here are some of the more interesting results:

When measuring mash temp, the ThermaPen took 2.9 seconds to reach a stable reading of 150.3F (target was 150°F), while my older thermometer took a whopping 49.3 seconds to stabilize at a reading of 149.6°F.

I was rather impressed with how similar the temp readings were, nice job Robelle… but I’ll tell you, after experiencing the quickness of the ThermaPen, the wait for my old thermometer to stabilize seemed to last fooooooooreeeevverr.

Next test, measuring wort temp at the start of boil. Right as the wort began to roll, the ThermaPen clocked a temp of 211.6°F after 3.6 seconds (thanks to FermCap-S for making this test possible); I checked again a few minutes later and it read spot-on 212°F. My old thermometer stabilized at 210.7°F after 49.3 seconds, which sort of surprised me given how close it was to the ThermaPen in prior tests.

Finally, after to the boil was complete, the wort was chilled using my King Cobra IC in under 4.5 minutes (54°F groundwater is good for something). I pitted the two thermometers against each other one last time, achieving predictably similar results as in prior tests.

The ThermaPen stabilized at 58.7°F in under 3 seconds- my finger actually missed the “stop” button on my stopwatch because it happened so quickly, but when I went for it, it was still reading in the 2 second range. The old thermometer took 45.6 seconds to reach a stable reading of 59.2°F, which was the first time it read higher than the ThermaPen. For some reason, I’m more comfortable trusting the accuracy of my new toy.

| The Verdict |

Is the ThermaPen a necessary tool? Will it make you better brewer? Of course not. In fact, there are myriad options available that cost far less and will likely help you to produce a high quality finished product. That said, my experience with the ThermaPen so far has absolutely proven it to be an incredibly durable, accurate, and super-fast thermometer! If these are things you value, then perhaps a ThermaPen is something you should consider. Sure, it’s expensive, I get that, and I’ll admit to filling a little haughty when I first used it, but those feelings are gradually fading away, replaced by the contentment of knowing I can now achieve stable and accurate temp readings at the simple flip of a probe.

UPDATE (02/2016): ThermoWorks recently announced the release of the ThermaPen Mk4, which boasts rad upgrades including a patented auto-rotating display, intelligent backlight that turns on when needed, motion-sensing sleep mode that detects when you’ve set it down and automatically shuts the unit off, extended battery life, and a waterproof design. The links above will automatically redirect since the Mk4 is replacing the older model. I’ve been using the Mk4 for the last few months and love the upgrades, especially the rotating display!

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