Sam Smith, Author at Klipspringer

In-House Thermometer Verification Methods Explained

Whenever temperature plays a role in the food safety or quality of a product, checking thermometer calibration is a critical part of the technical department’s routine.

For some it’s daily and for others it’s weekly. Whichever it is, there are three main ways technical and quality teams throughout the world do this:

Ice & Boiling Water
Test Caps
The LazaPort family of dry-block calibrators

Ice & Boiling Water

For many years, ice and boiling water was the favorite method, mainly due to the fact it was the only option!

Although it seems simple and inexpensive, it has several downfalls which compromise both its accuracy and safety for use in the modern food factory.

Low cost
Check multiple probes at once

Temperatures are constantly increasing or decreasing, requiring an additional reference thermometer
Difficult to obtain consistent, repeatable results
Health & safety risk from boiling water
Takes significant time to set up, carry out and clear up.

Test Caps

Test caps are a quick and convenient way to check thermometer units, doing away with many of the problems presented by ice and boiling water.

Are they really the straightforward solution that they seem?

Safe to use
Fast checking process with no set up required

Not suitable for thermometers with integral probes
Every test cap needs externally calibrating to UKAS standard each year
Test caps simulate the electrical current of a probe. 20 years’ worth of data shows that the majority of thermometer accuracy issues are with the probe, so if the thermometer is perfect but the probe is not reading correctly, test caps will not identify this.

The LazaPort Family

Klipspringer launched the first Lazaport into the food industry as a safer, faster and more accurate way to check probe thermometers on site.

20 years on, Klipspringer is launching the third generation model to further improve the efficiency and compliance of on-site temperature calibration.