Thermometers

Pretty much everywhere you look, the accepted wisdom of the BBQ/Live Fire/Meat Cookery world is that a way of finding out the internal temperature of what you are cooking is a must. There are 2 main reasons for this:

1. Food poisoning is not fun.

2. Good meat is expensive and you don’t want to over or under cook it.

My brother bought me the BGE dual thermometer as a birthday present which was great. It worked really well, was easy to set up and certainly improved the quality of the cooks. An early one was a simple roast chicken which I cooked to 68°C then rested until it got to the safe temp of 74°C. The result was juicy and delicious and didn’t need all those Delia Smith checks of tugging the leg or checking the colour of the juices as they dripped onto a white plate. I was sold. Then one of the probes stopped working and I couldn’t source a replacement.

Next up, I shelled out about £35 on the Inkbird IBT-6X which connect to a phone app via Bluetooth. As a temperature probe the Inkbird is great. Really great. The app is good and has several pre-set temperature ranges for you to set up what you are cooking. You can track progress with a graph of temperature over time. You don’t actually need the app if you’re not bothered about the Bluetooth connectivity as there is a really bright LCD display that scrolls through the temperatures of the connected probes. I’ve never cooked anything requiring 6 probes at a time and I’m not sure I ever will but I could if I wanted to. I like the design and having calibrated it in boiling water, I can tell you it is pretty accurate. One small gripe is that all the probes supplied are really long which can make it different to get them into the meat being cooked and still fit inside the Egg dome; it would have been nice if it had come with a couple of the stubbier “pit” style probes to attach to the cooking grate. All in all, I thought it was a pretty good device for what it cost.

But

Bloody probes. Of the 6 it came with, only 2 now work. I can buy replacements but they seem disproportionately expensive compared to the original overall cost. Maybe the ones supplied with it are not the best quality. Those that do work, work well and they are super-flexible. I did some deep fried chicken over the weekend and used 1 probe for the oil and the other for the chicken. Had to be careful with the crossed wires though.

So the latest buy was the Meater+. They’ve been on the market for a while now and I have been keeping my eye on them. Just before Christmas, I took advantage of a 1st time customer discount voucher from Farmison and Co and took the plunge. The Meater+ promises more bluetooth range plus the ability to monitor your cooks online via another device. I guess this means your dinner guests can be remotely kept abreast of things if you really want to.

Before the first use, there is a bit of setting up to be done. You have to charge it for 8 hours before you actually use it (I left mine overnight) and then pair it with your phone via the Meater app. If you want to use the guest-informing WiFi feature, you have to sign up for an account. I would say the app is almost the Meater’s best feature – like the Inkbird you can choose preset temperature based on what you’re cooking and adjust up or down depending on your preference. I love that 1 probe does both the internal temperature and the ambient and, once it’s had a chance to ponder on these for a bit, the app will estimate how long it will take for your food to be cooked. You get an alert to take your joint off the heat when the internal temperature is within a few degrees of what you want; you then leave the probe in while it monitors the resting period. It’s impressive and works pretty seamlessly. With no wires involved it is brilliant. After each cook, I follow various bits of advice and give the probe a really good clean to get rid of any brown, burnt on bits – there is a risk these interfere with the charging contact. I have found fine gauge wire wool works perfectly.

It’s not without what we might euphemistically call “wrinkles” however. Although I can have my phone in the kitchen while the probe and base unit are out in the garden, the Bluetooth does get a bit sketchy if I move my phone further inside. To try to combat this I paired the probe with my iPad, but now if both it and my phone are in range of the probe when I set up the cook, it doesn’t connect to either unless I turn the Bluetooth on one of them off. Small issue I know, but there we are. I actually also slightly miss the app-less temperature readout on the Inkbird which is rather handy if you just want to probe something while it’s in a pan on the hob. You can’t do this with the Meater+, but it’s probably not really designed for this purpose I guess.

Overall, the Meater+ is great; easy to set up, works really well and the app is fantastic. It feels like there is less to go wrong since there are no vulnerable wires to twist or overheat and the build quality feels excellent. From my experience, I’d recommend it highly, but prospective buyers should bear in mind what it does and how it does it before committing. If you need something quick and efficient for checking burgers or steaks on a hot griddle, then it might not be the thing for you. If you do a lot of long cooks, it’s very, very good.