How hot are Hot brakes
It is good airmanship to check the temperature of the brakes during a walk-around inspection between landings. However, without a brake temperature gauge in the cockpit to read specific figures, it becomes a matter of subjective assessment based on experience.
One Boeing instructor told me that if you cannot hold your hand on the brake assemblies without burning yourself, then by definition the brakes are hot and appropriate time factors should be applied. I also read that in one of the early editions of the Boeing Airliner magazine.
With the trend for 30 minute turn-arounds, one man's hot brakes is another man's warm brakes. In one small airline I operated with, you could tell which pilots had flown the previous leg as some were heavy footed and you could invariably rely on a hot brake walk-around, while other pilots were better operators and used accurate threshold speeds coupled with proper reverse thrust and judicious use of manual brakes. Result was cool brakes and no risk of burning your hand. Autobrakes always heated up the brakes, which is why we did not use autobrakes unless absolutely necessary (slippery short runway, very strong crosswinds and short runway etc).
I would be most interested in other views on the subject of how hot is hot in terms of your own the walk-around check. More to the point what do you do about it - especially on quick turn-arounds.