Portable Water Activity Meter Food Safety Tester for Dried & Fresh Food

READ THIS REVIEW ALL THE WAY THROUGH BEFORE USE. 5 STARS for the product. 0 STARS for the instructions. The instructions are down right dangerous. I own 2 AW meters and .75 and .92 standards for calibration. After weeks of trial and error I can tell you that in my experience this meter is actually very accurate. But NOT if you just follow the instructions. First off the instructions say the test time is 5 min. It's not. It takes hours to run the test accurately. Second the instructions DO NOT tell you that you need to calibrate it to standards WHICH YOU MUST DO. Following the instructions, I got crazy readings all over the map. The lower aw standard would typically come in pretty close pre calibration. But the higher aw standard reading would be erratic and unreliable. I was going to throw the meter out before figuring out my test procedure - which sucessfully calibrated the meter to standards. MY test procedure. Step 1 - Put the sample in the testing cup and place it in the meter. Close the meter on the sample. Don't turn the meter on. Step 2 - WAIT several hours (even overnight). Step 3 - Turn on the meter with it still closed on the sample. Step 4 - Read the results Before use you MUST calibrate it to standards, in the range you are testing for, from a reputable lab (using the procedure above). You need 2 different standards of different values close to the food you make to do this safely. Annoyingly the standards cost almost as much as the meter. But without them you can't use this safely. I have seen 1 star reviews where people explain that the meter gives erratic results when tested using standards. And they are correct if you use the instructions that come with the product. But at least in my case, using the procedure above, I can get the meter to read the standards accurately. In fact it's actually more accurate than my expensive German AW meter. NOTE, I test it with a standard every time I use it to confirm it's reading correctly before trusting the results with food. After all this is food safety we are talking about. DISCLAIMER: I am just a consumer reporting my experience with the product. I do not speak for the manufacturer. Before trusting any product like this you MUST verify that it is reading correctly using standards. I only wrote this because the included instructions are JUNK IMHO.

Great quality

We paid several hundred dollars for this unit just a couple months ago.. We havent been able to contact the seller here or by email at their website with no response. This system we put brand new batteries and it just beeps non-stop. Then we added more new batteries and the same. We have zero support for this and you could have a better experience BUYING FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE!

Handheld easy to use 5 minutes , you are done.

These handheld meters are about the cheapest bench top/mobile Aw meters you can buy and that is for a reason. I knew it wouldn't compare to something like a Meter Group, Rotronic, etc. It worked well for almost 4 months of minor usage and then suddenly started showing much, much higher Aw values. Nothing had changed in the sampling, instrument management or quality. I used a NaCl solution standard and it was actually within threshold of 0.02 Aw at 0.86, but when evaluating samples in the 0.55-0.70 range, would always display about 0.10 off. I am not even going to both reaching out to the manufacturer, as they clearly won't support the product based on the entrance cost. Time to upgrade to a more reliable instrument and instrument manufacturer. Only use this if can't afford to pay for a better quality Aw meter. Or get insurance on it.

A great choice

Works very well but had to YouTube instructions because none came with it

Great item.