Taylor Instant Read Analog Meat Food Grill BBQ Cooking Kitchen Thermometer with Red Pocket Sleeve for Calibration 1

For $4-5 this is very efficient and functional equipment. It's "instant read" because the dial is constantly adjusting to the temperature based on the metal inside the stem. So if you place it in boiling water it will take about 10 seconds for the metal in the stem to expand and accurately display the temperature of its surroundings. When I received it the gauge was off by a couple degrees, which is no big deal because I just placed it in the plastic holder it comes in and let it sit in boiling water until the gauge was steady and adjusted it according to the instructions (which is very easy - just twist the dial) to 212 degrees. Now it works very accurately, you can always test it by setting it in ice water or boiling water. I've only had it for a few days so I will update if anything happens. I only use this for measuring water temperatures - and for that it is definitely worth it over the more expensive thermometers! If you are planning to use this for measuring your meat temperatures I would suggest going for a digital read where the measuring part of the instrument is only in the tip. There is a dimple 2" from the tip where the thermometer must be submerged into whatever to give you the proper temperature so you could insert it into the side of a thin cut of meat and it should work properly. Read more

I had this running joke with fiance. Every morning I make him coffee and breakfast before we head to work. He ALWAYS takes his cup of coffee and states it's too hot and then forgets about it but when he remembers, always acts very nice and says it was great coffee, however, I know he is just being sweet when he really should just go heat that cup up. I got this more as a joke-gift, and honestly was unsure if the device would work. When the product arrived, I read over the directions and everything was pretty self-explanatory. I tested it out with his morning cup of coffee to see how hot it was, then handed it to him, I made sure to keep an eye on the cup of coffee and then when he finally went to drink it, I made a joke and pulled out the thermometer, it was down to 75 degrees and we ended up cracking up on how many cold "amazing" cups of coffee he drank. Long story short, this little joke gift worked perfectly and honestly I think this is a very useful item to have in the house. And hopefully for me it will help me get closer to getting my fiance the perfect tempature cup of coffee. :) Read more

While the dial is small and the numbers on the dial are tiny, it has a built-in magnifier to help with reading it. If your light is overhead, this works well; but if the light is coming in from the side it doesn't work so well, with half the dial in shadow. Also, I wouldn't call it "Instant Read," as they do. You have to leave it in for quite a few seconds, which means either taking your food out of the oven and closing the oven door; or letting a lot of heat into your kitchen while you wait for the needle to stop moving. The dial says "NOT OVEN SAFE" and the listing says the lens/magnifier is plastic; so you can't leave it in the oven with your food. Given The caveats, though, it does work well and I would expect it to do so for many years. The dial reads from 0º - 220º F; so you could use this to check your refrigerator, freezer or even room temp. Read more

Don't put in oven while like I did! It is accurate and got it to replace my first one. Well made and no need to callebrate. Read more

Pros: 1) It can easily be recalibrated using the blue plastic carrying case/tool (test it using ice water, 32 F, or boiling water, 212 F at sea level). When that gets lost you can use a small wrench. Many other thermometers can't be calibrated and get tossed when they lose accuracy. The Taylor thermometer was accurate out of the box. 2) It's simple and there is no battery that can die and can cost as much as the thermometer to replace. 3) Excellent customer service. The first thermometer I received had an imperfection in the face and wasn't working properly after a month. I was ready to move on but thought I'd send them an e-mail to see if I could fix the problem, they responded and sent a replacement . All fine since then. Sure its only $6.39 but nice to find a company that stands behind their product. Another Taylor thermometer we have has lasted for years. I'll update if this one goes bad. Cons: 1) Another customer commented the face is dime-size. It is somewhat small but not dime size, it's a quarter (see my photo), but easy enough to read to within a degree accuracy. 2) It's a little slow to get a stable reading but I'm OK with that. Tested on a pan of hot water and at 10 sec it read 150F; 20 sec 160F; 30 sec 165F; 40 sec 167F and that's where it remained. So within 20-30 sec good enough for government work. I'd rather have it accurate than fast and wrong. 3) It wasn't made for the oven (it has a hard plastic face), so you have to take the meat out and then take the temperature. I haven't found this a big problem. Overall: excellent value. Because they stood behind their product I bought a second thermometer -- so I can quickly get 2 temp. readings and make sure the whole meat is at the same temp. Read more