I bought a Meater + cooking thermometer in a moment of techno enthusiasm. Now I’m wondering whether it’s actually any real use. Anyone have any experience, or hints on how to use it successfully?
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I almost bought one last year. Many here on BBQ/Kamado threads swear by them, but I think I decided that if I’m going to bugger up some roast meat I can do it all by myself with or without a gadget.
Perhaps ensuring the meat is suitably and safely cooked is the main benefit and there will be differing opinions on the best cooking styles/temperatures. If it’s simply a case of getting a temperature internally for cooked meat to a certain level well that can be achieved with any number of set temperatures but the results/quality from outside to point of measurement inside would graduate quite differently I’d imagine. Hope that makes sense.
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My wife is the local primary school cook……its necessary to use for uncooked meats. We now use at home……we had a 3 rib roast on Xmas day and used the probe to get the right temperature for us and my daughters……we like rare, they like medium. Plenty of temperature info on the web.
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As head chef in an establishment where clientele included infirm people my wife used a probe thermometer every time she cooked meat at work - and she brought that food safety move home, so we do likewise with meats where it is important to ensure adequately cooked (e.g. poultry and pork), or where it is just wanted fully cooked, It is also useful when making certain cheeses like Ricotta or Paneer, and sugar based syrups, caramel etc.
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I use one mainly of chicken occasionally for meat pork in particularly.
We certainly find a thermometer probe very useful, specially for joints etc. But ours is a wired version - I had visions of the WiFi probe failing to connect to the iPhone whilst the joint slowly cremates itself……
I would bet 95% that this type of product is a gimmick and would give inaccurate readings. The idea is great in principle, but I can’t believe the oven temperature doesn’t influence the temperature reading of the tip inside the meat.
I’ve used this Thermapen for 10 years and it’s 100% precise and consistent. I can’t see any reason to change it. I’ve since noticed loads of pro chefs use it on the tv too (Raymond Blanc, James Martin, Marcus Wareing,…etc).
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Overkill! Ours is similar to Count.d’s- no wires, ni wifi, no app, just probe whenyiu think it myst be nearly ready: simple, cheap, and nothing to go wrong other than battery eventually needing replacement.
However, when I worked in a laboratory, where we had numerous ovens and incubatirs and furnaces and waterbaths and fridges and freezers that had to be maintained within specified temperature tolerances, and we potentially needed to be able to prove that they had been, we had calibrated wireless monitors in everything, with a central monitoring unit and alarms etc. (Before that, it was a calibrated thermometer or thermocouple in everything critical, checked regularly, and recorded.)
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I have a wired thermometer we use occasionally. The Meater is a new product and my kids’ friends swear by it. It uses Bluetooth rather than WiFi. It looks rather like a metal biro refill.
If the app loses sight of the thermometer, then it gives a “critical incident warning alert” so you can go and see what is happening. It has a Bluetooth range of 50 m so you don’t need to be close to the oven to use it.
Also you can tell by the marketing and the quality of the marketing, it’s a second rate product. It’s not even waterproof! Googled reviews and as expected quite a few reviews saying it’s rubbish. It’s all very well saying my mate swears by it, but most people haven’t got a clue anyway.
Also, accuracy to 1c is very poor and not a scientific product. My Thermopen is accurate to 0.1c and confirmed by me when I had two in possession.
Don’t forget temperature mapping the whole internal volume right pain that was together with measurement of uncertainty on the cross calibration of the thermometer
I don’t regularly use a thermometer & normally cook by just oven temp & time, its worked faultlessly since forever.
I will use a meat thermometer for roast sirloin & ribs when it has to be rare, but I use it for BBQ’ing meat joints & whole chickens when cooking temperature is more hit & miss.
The only tester I need for steaks & lamb ribs is a finger.
Indeed! At least not required for cooking ovens!
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That’ll cheer David up no end!
We’ve possibly taken the same ‘my honest but blunt opinion’ pill in the last 24 hours looking at some of my recent posts again!
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That’s my reasoning too, however…
With steaks I think I’m pretty good generally at cooking them as I like them, which is generally ‘rare’.
For joints that need to be thoroughly cooked I probably overcook them to be sure rather than measure temps.
For beef (or less frequently lamb) that I might want rare or pink it’s far more hit and miss, as cooking by weight often takes little account of the shape of the meat. Add to that I quite like the outside of beef as crisp and dark as possible which doesn’t always go hand in hand with rare/pink inside. More often than not I think I tend to overcook beef so a thermometer might really help.
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Don’t worry - I’m ignoring his rather boorish response.
The particular friend who recommended it to me is a serious and capable chef and he actually uses one. So not just looking at advertising and making a snap judgement.
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I suspect my innate thoughts that I don’t need one simply reflect recognition that I haven’t honed my roasting/grilling skills to the level of a professional cook, and more ‘manual’ experience might make me better. If professionals use them regularly it’s obviously not an entirely predictable art 
It’s a food safety thing:
Professionals undercooking of, say, a chicken, at best could lead to an unhappy customer, at worst potentially could cause someone’s death, prosecution, maybe closure of the business, so it is a no-brainer for them -probing tells them it is cooked so they can be happy risk minimised, likewise enforcement authorities inspecting, and in the event of a problem they can show that they have acted with due diligence at least in that respect.
At home, it similarly reduces risk of food poisoning, alternatively risk of overcooking by cooking longer to be on the safe side.
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Come back in a year, re-open the thread and tell me how it went. How its probe is too long to be of any use in chickens, etc, how it leaked when saturated in 200c oil after 50 uses, it lost connection, inaccurate and basically a gimmicky hassle.
Chefs! Quite a proportion of them can’t even fillet a fish properly or even sharpen a knife.
I shall have forgotten all about you long before a year chum.
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