Reliable Kitchen Thermometers

It seems like any thermometer you buy from any kitchen supply store like Bed Bath or WS is unreliable at best and breaks fairly quickly. What does the ChefSteps team use? What do you recommend?

Find more posts tagged with

What About Tools?

Comments

grant

These are the actual units we use:

http://store.chefsteps.com/collections/thermometers

Cheers,

Grant

elie_nassar_13710

Awesome. Thanks Grant.

elie_nassar_13710

For the Dual Thermocouple Meter, does one probe actually go in the meat?

Johan_Edstrom_5586

@enassar Yup. - Or both can go into meat if you have oddly shaped pieces.

grant

It is often very useful to have on near the surface of the meat and one in the interior. This will tell you a lot about your ambient temperature. They two temps should not deviate form each other very far. if they do your could infer that the cooking temperature is too high and the exterior of the meat will likely be over cooked.

You can place a probe in the interior of the meat. And one in the oven or whatever medium.

Grant

Johan_Edstrom_5586

@Grant just described how a Swedish roast beef tended to be done

Kevin__55609

@enassar - Those thermapens are invaluable. Best $100 I've ever spent.

Jack_Mayer_85396

I'll second the hearty recommendation for the Thermapen! And, you can buy one right here on ChefSteps!

ParkerCook_66639

I got a thermapen for my confectionary class and it's been amazing. I'm the envy of the class!

Chris_Young_80640

Here are the one's we like:

http://www.chefsteps.com/courses/accelerated-sous-vide-cooking-course/choosing-a-thermometer

Josh_6076

I'm a little confused about the differences between the thermometers, these are probably newbie questions but I'd appreciate any input:

Is there a difference between the $129 and $69 dollar probe besides the increased accuracy of the probe?

The thermapen has the same accuracy as the $69 dollar model, but the $69 dollar model can measure two temperatures?

Can I put the thermocouple probes in the oven, close for the entire cooking cycle?

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Architeuthis - don't know about the price/accuracy, but if you look for example at the pastrami recipe, the dual

thermocouple are indispensable when you want to close the door, monitor both a proteins internal temp and the outside temp.

Another neat use with the couples and foam tape is that you can monitor core temp when doing sous vide.

With the right thermocouples, yes you can have them in fire or in the oven.

Kevin__55609

@Architeuthis - Johan makes a good point about the wet bulb and dry bulb temperatures in an oven. Google this as it will help you understand how things cook in an oven. To put it simply, you rarely (if ever) 'roast' something in the oven but rather bake everything.

Josh_6076

@Kevin I understand wet bulb/dry bulb temperatures, it's an important topic but that should be for another thread

@Johan thank you for answering my question about keeping the probes in the oven

I was wondering what the differences are between the two thermocouples. One is priced at $139 (it's not 129) and the other $69. The 129 model boasts .4C accuracy, the $69 boasts .7C accuracy. I don't care about the temperature difference. It looks like both meters accept K type probes, and both meters have probes sold separately (the $69 meter says 'meter only' next to the price, the $139 meter says 'probes sold separately' in the description). Let me be more specific about my question:

1. Does either meter come with probes, and if so which probes

2. Is there any other practical day-to-day advantages to buying the more expensive probes

I'm looking for input from people who have used these probes

Johan_Edstrom_5586

It looks like neither of them come with probes.

It tends to be that the ChefSteps crew recommends a low cost alternative to their favorite tool,

the accuracy probably won't matter as much as rugged design, i.e lifespan.

For the monitoring you are probably looking to do, no I doubt there are advantages.

Answering what is better type questions always is difficult, the benefits show more

with usage patterns - like in the case of Chef vs. Creative Series.

The K-Type probes are interchangeable, that is the beauty of it.

I have several for various applications.

On the "cheaper" model there are also kits you can buy for high-temp / BBQ - that'll contain

probes that you need.

merridith

Are the probes you recommend the ones we can leave in when cooking sous vide? What other probes would you recommend for (1) sous vide use and (2) for leaving in meat or other things while cooking in the oven? I am about to buy the Thermoworks dual thermocouple model but I can't decide what probes to buy. The ones you list on Amazon are very cheap. The ones sold at Thermoworks are very expensive...what to buy???