Over in this thread, there’s discussion about the proper temperature of pork. So as not to hijack it, I thought I’d open a new thread on meat thermometers. I have a Polder instant-read thermometer but I worry that it’s not accurate enough. I have a crap oven that doesn’t heat meat evenly, and I want a thermometer I can really rely on.
So what’s best? Digital instant reads? Digital oven thermometers? A non-digital oven meat thermometer? And of those, what brand or model do you think works best? I’d really rather not poison my family. They’re cute and I like them.
Any of the inexpensive digital thermometers on the market now are probably going to be accurate to within one or two degrees - a far sight better than any of the traditional cheap dial thermometers you’ll find at the grocery store, and infinitely better than that old thermometer banging around the back of the kitchen drawer where the head is so loose you can spin it to read anything you want. (Mom, have you thrown that thing out yet?)
When a digital thermometer goes bad, it’s likely to go REALLY bad, like saying room temperature is 35 degrees or 180 degrees. Analog thermometers will more likely just drift and read some number of degrees off of reality.
The really compact dial thermometers like you see tucked into chefs’ sleeves are to me, more for quick safety checks - “is the steam table hot enough?” without emphasis on exactly how hot.
I’m partial to the programmable remote thermometers, especially for cooking roasts and similar things that just sit there and bake. Mine’s made byPyrex, and cost something like $17 at Bed Bath & Beyond.
Thanks. I think my digital instant read has problems, since it has told me that for example, my chicken is cooked through, and then I cut it open to find lots of blood still left in it.
We used to have a programmable remote but it broke. Maybe it’s time to buy a new one.
I’ve got a traditional cheap dial thermometer that you’ll find at the grocery store, and I think it was banging around in the back of my mom’s kitchen drawer for a few years and it works like a charm.
It’s not instant read, but it’s not worth throwing out. To get a good gauge, I’ll stick it in, then shut the oven door while it registers, then pull it out.
As to accuracy of these devices. . .I think we’ve pretty much got “thermometer technology” down at this point. The main thing is getting it into the correct part of the meat (usually the thickest) to know what you want it to register.
For chickens, I put it in deep into the breast, and around where the leg meets the body, one of the last places to finish cooking, usually. I use it on roasts, and large cuts, but on any kind of chop or burger. . .that’s all touch at this point.
I prefer analog instant read thermometers because you can adjust them easily. Just look for ones with a nut where the stem meets the dial. Amazon has Taylors for $3. You can find some with a adjusting wrench built into the probe cover.
You only need to use an oven thermometer once or twice a year if you know how to reset the over control. On my stove the knob comes off and there’s a screw to loosen, letting me move the knob in relation to the piece that slips onto the thing the knob actually turns. If you do decide to leave a thermometer in your oven, check reviews of that thermometer, I keep reading about ones that loose their printed numbers when you clean them :eek:. (The Taylor at the top here for instance. The ones below that don’t have the problem.)
Experience. Get an El cheapo thermometer and after you get the meat to your desired temperature, fondle the meat with your tongs. You are trying to get a feel for the firmness. Do this for a while and you’ll soon be able to tell how done something is by feel. I rarely use thermometers for checking the doneness of my meat anymore. Although, I do still have a meat thermometer from when I worked in a few restaurants. I only use the meat thermometer on really big cuts of meat such as a fresh ham or if I’m doing a large roast.
My suggestion is to get one of the digital leave-in oven thermometers, and literally cook your food with the thermometer probe inside. As long as you make sure your probe is in an appropriate place to ensure your food is safely cooked (i.e. fairly deep in the thickest part of the cut), you’ll both get safely cooked meat, and less overcooked meat, which is most people’s primary culinary sin.
If you want a digital instant-read thermometer, you can’t do any better than the Thermapen. It’s the one you see on every cooking/barbecuing show out there, and in pro kitchens as well.
I’d just make sure that a mixture of ice and water really does read 32/0 or very close to it- if so, then you’re pretty close to calibrated. The main thing with cheaper thermometers isn’t so much calibration, as read time. Some take 5-10 seconds to have the temp level out, and most people don’t wait long enough.
Is the blood near the bone? If so, that’s not blood, it’s various proteins that leak from the bone. If the thighs are around 165 and the breast is around 145, your chicken is done. If you cook to the point that there’s no pinky stuff around the bone, it’s overdone.
Another ‘is my chicken done’ test is to grab the leg/thigh and see if it easily moves. You should just about be able to pull the thigh off the chicken with little effort when it’s done.
I have a probe thermometer. It stays in the meat; it’s connected via a thin flexible cable to the readout which sits on the stove/ counter. My favorite feature is a temp alert which beeps when a certain temp is reached.
Based on some simple tests and experiences using it, it’s quite accurate. .
This for me too. I get excellent results with it, especially when the reecommended cooking time on the packaging are vague or way off (I once bought a chicken that the package recommended cooking for 130 minutes; it was done in 70. God knows what it would have looked like after another hour in the oven.).
I have a cheap digital thermometer and I calibrated it both in an ice-water bath and in a pot of rapidly boiling water. And I’m tempted by that Thermopen, even though it costs almost a hundred bucks and I really don’t need it. But it’s a gadget and I love gadgets.
I convinced my wife to buy me one for Father’s Day this year (our larva is not quite 2, so she’s buying the gifts for now!), and it showed up yesterday.
Haven’t had a chance to unpack it and check it out yet though.
It’s not? Tell me where you do use it, because I don’t cook much meat and that would seem to be the obvious use. (BTW, the other thing I’m considering is one of the non-contact thermometers.)
Oil for frying, custards, candy, yogurt, cake, etc. I used it the other day to get the temperature right for a batch of white tea. I can also stick it in the thermometer hole of my smoker to get an accurate reading of the internal temperature.
I believe the Thermapen was the first widely available kitchen thermometer to use a thermocouple as the temperature sensor. Other themometers used thrmistors; thermocouples can be much smaller, allowing for a thinner tip. Which is why it became popular - a thin tip means it can read the temperature quickly and unobtrusively (i.e. without affecting the temperature of the food).
Nowadays there are many other thermocouple thermometers on the market, most of them more affordable than the Thermapen. Still, I’m happy with my Thermapen and don’t regret buying it.
Although in our household, the “leave in oven” type thermometer gets used more frequently. It’s much easier to use (just set it up and set up a temperature alarm), doesn’t require you to open the oven until cooking is done, and you don’t need to poke a new hole in the meat every time you measure the temperature.
I’ll use any good quality dial quick reading thermometer. Some of them come with a wrench built into the holder for calibration and I save those holders because they fit most of the thermometers. It only takes a couple of minutes to calibrate one. I have one high temp thermometer for checking oil temperature, though an infrared thermometer works just fine for that. I also have a candy thermometer* for a rapid, accurate read in liquids.
*It’s actually made of metal and glass. Candy would melt.