Thermoworks has 15% off site wide right now. I just bought a 8689 meter and solutions.
How do you like your meter?
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I like it. It seems to work fine. I bought it because others on the board have spoken positively of it and I wanted an inexpensive pen type meter with replaceable probe.
Pluses: I like that it has a little screw on cap to hold the storage solution.
Minuses: the buttons on the faceplate are a bit awkward to press especially when the probe is in the liquid.
Cool, curious if you use any water software to calculate your PH? And if so how accurate is it when compared to your readings?
I use brunwater but do not have a meter, still deciding if it's necessary and worth the cost and maintenance
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I can't answer that yet. I have used for 2 batches with my house tap water but I don't know the exact makeup of that water. I plan to go back to RO water for my next batch. Then I will have some insight.
My first batch with the meter was with RO water but the RO water had TDS of 70ppm and I think I messed up the calibration. That result was off from Brunwater but I have no idea what made up the 70 ppm of TDS.
PS. without a meter I did think just using Brunwater with RO water was helping my beer. But, I could never measure my pH. I wanted to know exactly where I was so I can try to correlate to what I am tasting with my lagers.
I have now down two batches with Brunwater, a Ward labs water report, and the 8689 meter. Brunwater seems to do quite well predicting the Ph.
Batch 1. Brunwater: 5.18 Ph, 8689 measured 5.19 Ph.
Batch 2. Brunwater: 5.27 Ph, 8689 measured 5.33 Ph.
I guessing any error has as much to do with my ability to calibrate and use the meter correctly as any other factor.
That's been my experience too. In fact, the biggest variation I've found has come when my LHBS changes malt suppliers. I saw a surprising change in actual pH (lower than Brunwater predicted) when they switched from Best Munich (which yielded a mash pH in-line with Brunwater) to Avanguard Munich (which for a few batches came in lower than Brunwater predicted).
Lately they've stuck with the Avanguard but the pH has come back closer to the Brunwater prediction. I know there have been other discussions indicating that some maltsters' products were sometimes tainted with acidulated or somehow otherwise overly acidic.
I guess my take-away from all that is while I feel pretty confident in the predictions, I still like to test mash pH once per batch even with tried and true recipes. Usually I just test the same sample I'm using for my pre-boil gravity and record it. At that point it's too late to adjust anything, but at least if any changed I'll understand how that might relate to any sensory differences I'm experiencing when tasting the beer.