Viscometer

Used to measure the viscosity of liquids, a viscometer is rarely essential in a modern kitchen. It measures the absolute thickness of a liquid, so it is extremely useful for standardizing thickeners and thickening mixtures. If, for example, you want to prepare a sauce with the exact thickness of a particular béchamel sauce, but you want to use xanthan gum instead of flour, a viscometer will allow you to establish the quantities of ingredients you need. (So will the chart in the back of this book Relative Viscosity—carefully calculated using a viscometer.)