pH meter suggestion?

[Ward Chillington]

So paper strips have been serving me OK but I seem to see many experienced brewers blowing them off and citing inaccuracy due to all kinds of reasons so what's the board think?

Amazon has ones running in the low to mid teens to a couple hundred bucks that are high tolerance (+/- .1) which for beer I think is just fine to get in that sweet spot of around 5 and these measure down to 2 decimal points which is much better than the paper strips I have been using which are one decimal but put your scale in a .2 step ( 5.0, 5.2, 5.4 etc.). The problem is that the Amazon reviews are all over the place including an engineer's comment stating that you may as well use your nose which I thought was pretty funny!

Any recommendations from any of you??

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

this is a good one to get
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001DTNDME/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_7?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

 

[Nosybear]

I like the MW102.

 

[Mark Farrall]

Whatever you get calibrate often. I've been caught out with that a few times recently.

 

[Ward Chillington]

ouch! My new cost analysis method put those at 6 batches of brew to 1 pH meter. I was looking at one of the $40 units....hmmmm

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

none of the cheap meters will hold up to that one, if you want cheap buy this, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CNFQTC8/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
calibrate it every couple of brews, only use it with cooled wort and clean it well, it should last 2 years, that's the catch these cheap plastic versions don't last

 

[Nosybear]

ouch! My new cost analysis method put those at 6 batches of brew to 1 pH meter. I was looking at one of the $40 units....hmmmm

You get what you pay for. My $120 unit will outlast several of those $40 units.

 

[Hawkbox]

I get lucky and the city does very accurate readings here, I have a cheap PH meter and it was a waste of money. At this point I just do calculations and hope it comes out as expected. So far I haven't had an issue.

 

[Nosybear]

Water pH doesn't matter much and if you brew the same/similar beers, you can easily arrive at a solution that works most of the time. If you know your water analysis, the calculations are usually "good enough." But sometimes something weird happens.... As it did to me yesterday (outlined in another thread).

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

one thing that happens is when you test your water in a lab it's not necessarily going to always be those numbers, my water changes 2 times a year and other cities might change even more

 

[Hawkbox]

I get lucky that the city posts daily water reports.

 

[Ward Chillington]

one thing that happens is when you test your water in a lab it's not necessarily going to always be those numbers, my water changes 2 times a year and other cities might change even more

Exactly! And I live out in the sticks so I'm on a well. I have run the range of 7.3 to 5.8 today when I put up a test gallon of Yopper's Welch's Wine.

 

[thunderwagn]

I have a Myron PT2 Ultra pen. Great, compact device.
https://www.coleparmer.com/i/myron-l-ultrapen-pt2-ultrapen-ph-and-temperature-pen/0575440