CDNLarge Dial Cooking Thermometer

This thing is simple and basic. I like the ease of use. I like that it has fire temps for many popular proteins. If you know how to calibrate a thermometer, than you should have no troubles with this. It is the third thermometer that I have bought through the past decade (and have used endless more!) and this is my favorite, amongst the standard analog types.If you got money to burn, go get a flashy digital one.If you want something cheap and useful, get this.

I ordered this thermometer to replace my standard dial thermometer that sits in the oven over the duration of the cooking time. This is NOT the same type of thermometer. You CANNOT leave this one in the oven while your food cooks. This is evident when you read the usage instructions and observe that the temperature dial plate is made of plastic and not glass.I use this to periodically check the temperature of meat during the cooking process - be it sauteing, broiling, roasting, grilling, searing, etc. While I love the concept of the the thermometers you leave in the oven, I find in practice that they are not very reliable. This thermometer is accurate and quick to register temperature. My gripe about this method is it can involve opening the oven and removing the food to the temperature and thus lowering the oven temperature and pro-longing the cooking process. I also make a point to probe the meat in the same place as if you do not, you end up loosing a lot of the juices during the cooking process. The probe is long enough for all but the largest cuts of meat. I have used it on large turkeys, chickens, prime rib roasts, pork tenderloins, and temperature registered reflected level of done-ness accurately.Thanks for taking the time to read my review, and I hope you found it helpful in making a purchase decision.

It's a simple little meat thermometer - nothing fancy - but it does the job it's supposed to do and does it well. Our meat comes out at the desired done-ness, no muss no fuss.It's also quite durable. My husband was moving our smoker and ran it over, and neither the sleeve or the glass over the thermometer cracked & it still works perfectly.Highly recommended!

First off, I find myself questioning the accuracy of this item. The dial is small and a little hard to read. The incremental design of the gauge makes the thermometer more difficult to read with any precision. But if you don't mind a good 1-5 degree margin of error that's ok I suppose. The problem is that this is exacerbated by the fact that the needle jumps somewhat during reading!! One minute it will sit at 140, then suddenly jump up to 150! Makes you wonder what kind of precision this unit was designed with. It claims a +/-2 Degree accuracy.In addition I tested it using boiling water and it appears to be a few degrees too low (so it should have read 212F), though it was hard to tell. *Update: Apparently, the boiling point of water varies with altitude and air pressure (here water boils at 210, not 212). So if you use the 'boiling water test' to check the accuracey do a search to find the precise boiling point for your elevation and for the current barometric pressure. The thermometer still seems calibrated slightly low though, and all other review info holds true. But I might up it to two stars if I could*Calling this unit "instant read" is a bit of a euphemism as well, it takes a good 15-30 seconds to get any kind of an accurate reading. On top of that, the unit is not safe to go in the oven (you could damage it)! So if you're cooking a chicken or turkey, you must take it out of the oven, insert the thermometer, wait until it gets a stable reading, squint to try and discern the temperature, then question if the thermometer is telling you the truth! If it's not done yet you must remove the thermometer, and place the meat back in the oven again (of course by now you've lost some heat! Plus the hole in the meat will cause loss of juices once it's put back in. Oh well.The big problem here is design. It is designed like a typical oven meat thermometer, but can't go in the oven. And it's less-than-instant response time means it's not very good for taking quick readings. You can use it for chicken breasts but the temp sensor isn't in the tip! It's about an inch up the probe. Thus it must be a good 2-3 inches into the meat to get a good reading! This is means picking up a breast and inserting the probe sideways! And make sure you're aiming straight or you will come out the side and really mess up the breast! The depth of penetration needed and the design of this unit also make it more or less impossible to leave the probe inside a breast while in the pan too. So I guess I have trouble seeing what this thing is good for! On the good side, it has a sheath that lists recommended cooking temps, it's compact, and it's not very pricey.The thing is that you really need a good thermometer to cook, too. It makes cooking much easier by eliminating guesswork and reducing the chances you will undercook food (possibly poisoning yourself) or overcook it (which makes for bad eats). But you need a thermometer with a quick response time, that is accurate enough to gain your trust, is easy to read, and is designed intelligently to be convenient and useful for many different tasks and many types of foods. This unit is none of those things! This might be good for measuring the temperature of a cup of coffee, but I'm not sure what else.

I love the large dial but I find it a bit difficult to calibrate since the gauge doesn't read down to freezing. Also, the slip case does not have a calibration adjustment tool built-in (my other thermometers do). Also, the needle seems to stick a bit on this device so I end up having to tap it against the pot to get it to the accurate reading. Once that is done, it seems to provide accurate readings. Overall, though, I wouldn't buy this one again.

Well made, great value. I haven't yet stuck it into a chicken or a steak, but I see no reason that it would not work as well as it does in liquids. It is small, but it seems well made and takes up almost no space, takes only a few seconds to read out at the Highest temp.

I only used this thermometer a handful of times during the two months that it was functional, and it did a perfectly good job. I liked the fact that it was adjustable so that I could calibrate it when necessary. The last time I used it, I took a reading, set it down on the counter, and when I picked it up again the stem (and thus the needle) spun freely. The problem isn't with the nut that is normally used for calibrations, so it appears to be something that can't be fixed.

What can I say. This item works as advertised. I had received it about a week after I had ordered it, which was impressive. I like the thermometer. It is very simplistic and easy to use. It also has the temps on the case for different meats. Very handy!