Rural Gardening: Making Chevre, 1 by Jayryunen

Jayryunen wrote:
An important note... when pasteurizing and making cheeses, you'll need a thermometer that can be calibrated for accuracy. They generally have a small nut on the backside of the dial so you can use a wrench to adjust them.

To calibrate, put the sensing end in a glass of ice water... mostly ice, just enough water to fill the spaces. After everything's had a few minutes to chill, your thermometer should read 32*. If it doesn't, take a small wrench and tweak the nut, holding the dial, til it does.

The first time I tried to pasteurize my milk, I hadn't done this and the dang milk was boiling and supposedly it hadn't reached the high temp I wanted (there's a high temp version of pasteurizing, where you keep the temp up for something like 15 sec. but it doesn't yield as desirable a curd for cheese making). Soooo, that's how I found out about calibrating thermometers. LOL