Vent: my roast thermometer lied for 3 weeks and ruined 8 batches

I got a cheap probe thermometer last month and trusted it blindly. It said my beans were hitting 410F but they were actually around 380F, so I kept pulling them early. The coffee tasted sour and grassy every single time, really frustrating. I only caught it because I boiled water and checked the reading against my kettle thermometer. That cost me about $60 in green beans, has anyone else had a probe drift this badly?

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blake_black471mo ago

Started tightening the chuck on my drill press one time and the key slipped, sent me into a whole spiral about calibration on everything in my life. Checked my bathroom scale against a bag of flour, my oven temp with a separate probe, even my tape measure against a ruler I trust. Now I keep a little notebook with dates and readings for everything, which drives my wife nuts because she just wants coffee without a science project attached. But honestly, cheap gear drifting that far feels more like a factory defect than normal wear, 30 degrees off is wild. Your kettle trick is smart though, I do the same thing now before every new bag of beans, takes two minutes and saves a lot of sadness.

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