I've not seen posts in this forum complaining about thermometers; must be a bunch of good smart cooks!
But, due to frustration due to reading other forums filled with people whining about their probe not working I thought I'd post this:
A probe thermometer needs to be in contact "submersed" in the item. Using them for ambient cooking is a waste. They react way too quickly to changes and I believe they can over-react. I use an iGrill with an ambient probe and it works great. In fact, it measures about the same as the temp set on my PartyQ.
Invest in an infrared thermometer if you cook at high temps, pan fry including eggs, sear in a pan or BBQ pizza. Thermoworks often has open box specials on them. I use mine to monitor the rise in the temp of my bread dough so I never over kneed it.
Get a kitchen scale. I convert all recipes to weight because it makes cooking faster and it is easier to adjust the flavors and portions. Cooking for 6 with a recipe that feeds 4, that's 1.5 times the ingredients. I make notes so the next time I can apply a percentage to the weight of an ingredient to get the subtle change. It also makes things like salsa a snap: most fresh salsa recipes are 3:1 tomatoes to onion by weight (Rick Bayless's ratio and several others too). Prep the tomatoes, weigh the tomato and put in your onions based on the weight of the tomatoes. Fast an no more "too much onion". For large batches I can also weigh the other ingredients.
Making a large batch of rub is much faster using the scale and that is a great example of being able to adjust the flavors with easy precision.
I'm a gadget head, yes. I've 4 probe thermometers (Thermoworks 7 second read, iGrill (1 ambient probe, 1 standard), 2x Maverick remote) and a Thermoworks infrared gun, I use them all. Not to mention the PartyQ, Sous Vide...
Cheers.
Mr. Gadget, Scoobs
But, due to frustration due to reading other forums filled with people whining about their probe not working I thought I'd post this:
A probe thermometer needs to be in contact "submersed" in the item. Using them for ambient cooking is a waste. They react way too quickly to changes and I believe they can over-react. I use an iGrill with an ambient probe and it works great. In fact, it measures about the same as the temp set on my PartyQ.
Invest in an infrared thermometer if you cook at high temps, pan fry including eggs, sear in a pan or BBQ pizza. Thermoworks often has open box specials on them. I use mine to monitor the rise in the temp of my bread dough so I never over kneed it.
Get a kitchen scale. I convert all recipes to weight because it makes cooking faster and it is easier to adjust the flavors and portions. Cooking for 6 with a recipe that feeds 4, that's 1.5 times the ingredients. I make notes so the next time I can apply a percentage to the weight of an ingredient to get the subtle change. It also makes things like salsa a snap: most fresh salsa recipes are 3:1 tomatoes to onion by weight (Rick Bayless's ratio and several others too). Prep the tomatoes, weigh the tomato and put in your onions based on the weight of the tomatoes. Fast an no more "too much onion". For large batches I can also weigh the other ingredients.
Making a large batch of rub is much faster using the scale and that is a great example of being able to adjust the flavors with easy precision.
I'm a gadget head, yes. I've 4 probe thermometers (Thermoworks 7 second read, iGrill (1 ambient probe, 1 standard), 2x Maverick remote) and a Thermoworks infrared gun, I use them all. Not to mention the PartyQ, Sous Vide...
Cheers.
Mr. Gadget, Scoobs
