diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 6005b82a..bd55fc13 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 
 - **Default model temperatures**: Set task-appropriate temperature defaults — 0.3 for QA, research, and title generation; 0.0 for RLM and picture description. Previously unset (provider defaults, typically 0.7–1.0).
 - **Default title max_tokens**: Set `max_tokens=100` for title generation model to keep titles concise
+- **Evaluation judge**: Set `temperature=0.0` and `enable_thinking=True` for deterministic, higher-quality judging. Removed unused judge config from retrieval benchmarks.
 - **Test suite cleanup**: Removed stale VCR cassettes, dead fixtures, orphaned directories, and redundant tests. Strengthened weak assertions across search, context enhancement, and converter tests. Relocated misplaced `SearchResult._get_primary_label` test to `test_search.py`
 - **Parallel test execution**: Added `pytest-xdist` and enabled parallel test runs by default (`-n auto`), reducing test suite time from ~3.5 min to ~2 min
 
diff --git a/evaluations/evaluations/benchmark.py b/evaluations/evaluations/benchmark.py
index 2dcae976..fea86afa 100644
--- a/evaluations/evaluations/benchmark.py
+++ b/evaluations/evaluations/benchmark.py
@@ -38,10 +38,10 @@ def build_experiment_metadata(
     dataset_key: str,
     test_cases: int,
     config: AppConfig,
-    judge_config: ModelConfig,
+    judge_config: ModelConfig | None = None,
 ) -> dict[str, Any]:
     """Build experiment metadata for Logfire tracking."""
-    return {
+    metadata: dict[str, Any] = {
         "dataset": dataset_key,
         "test_cases": test_cases,
         "embedder_provider": config.embeddings.model.provider,
@@ -61,12 +61,18 @@ def build_experiment_metadata(
         "qa_temperature": config.qa.model.temperature,
         "qa_max_tokens": config.qa.model.max_tokens,
         "qa_enable_thinking": config.qa.model.enable_thinking,
-        "judge_provider": judge_config.provider,
-        "judge_model": judge_config.name,
-        "judge_temperature": judge_config.temperature,
-        "judge_max_tokens": judge_config.max_tokens,
-        "judge_enable_thinking": judge_config.enable_thinking,
     }
+    if judge_config is not None:
+        metadata.update(
+            {
+                "judge_provider": judge_config.provider,
+                "judge_model": judge_config.name,
+                "judge_temperature": judge_config.temperature,
+                "judge_max_tokens": judge_config.max_tokens,
+                "judge_enable_thinking": judge_config.enable_thinking,
+            }
+        )
+    return metadata
 
 
 async def populate_db(
@@ -220,14 +226,10 @@ async def run_retrieval_benchmark(
 
         eval_name = name if name is not None else f"{spec.key}_retrieval_evaluation"
 
-        judge_config = ModelConfig(
-            provider="ollama", name="gpt-oss", enable_thinking=False
-        )
         experiment_metadata = build_experiment_metadata(
             dataset_key=spec.key,
             test_cases=len(cases),
             config=config,
-            judge_config=judge_config,
         )
 
         report = await dataset.evaluate(
@@ -275,7 +277,9 @@ async def run_qa_benchmark(
         for index, doc in enumerate(corpus, start=1)
     ]
 
-    judge_config = ModelConfig(provider="ollama", name="gpt-oss", enable_thinking=False)
+    judge_config = ModelConfig(
+        provider="ollama", name="gpt-oss", enable_thinking=False, temperature=0.0
+    )
     judge_model = get_model(judge_config, config)
 
     evaluation_dataset = EvalDataset[str, str, dict[str, str]](
diff --git a/evaluations/evaluations/evaluators/judge.py b/evaluations/evaluations/evaluators/judge.py
index a225d19b..14b6d83e 100644
--- a/evaluations/evaluations/evaluators/judge.py
+++ b/evaluations/evaluations/evaluators/judge.py
@@ -36,7 +36,9 @@ class LLMJudge:
     """LLM-as-judge for evaluating answer equivalence using Pydantic AI."""
 
     def __init__(self, model: str = "gpt-oss", config: AppConfig | None = None):
-        model_config = ModelConfig(provider="ollama", name=model, enable_thinking=False)
+        model_config = ModelConfig(
+            provider="ollama", name=model, enable_thinking=True, temperature=0.0
+        )
         model_obj = get_model(model_config, config)
 
         # Create Pydantic AI agent