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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

thermometer

After Last Year’s Thanksgiving Disaster, I Bought a Combustion Thermometer. The Result Was Juicy, Just-Right Turkey

In 2021, I hit a Thanksgiving home run.

After deciding to brine a turkey for the first time, the results were much better than expected. Guests were happy, compliments were given, and when I learned we were hosting again last year, I figured it’d be easy to replicate the juicy, delicious result.

But I was wrong. Last year’s turkey was a disaster, so overcooked that the thing was pretty much an inedible piece of gristle.

What happened? After reviewing the steps and comparing them to the previous year, I realized I simply left the turkey in my old oven for too long without taking the bird’s temperature. When I did take it out to check it with my old-school thermometer, it had an internal temperature of 200 degrees and was climbing quickly. Experienced hands will know that’s WAY too hot – over 35 degrees hotter than the suggested cooking temperature – and the results were what you’d expect: a turkey was so overcooked it was all but inedible.

Needless to say, this year, I wasn’t taking any chances. I was going to invest in a smart thermometer and keep track of the bird’s temperature in real-time.

Which one? I decided I wanted to go with the Combustion because I liked the idea of keeping an accurate read on the bird’s temperature from core to surface (as well as ambient temperature) via the thermometer’s eight sensors. I also wanted to take advantage of Combustion’s predictive technology, which would give me a countdown and notify me when it would hit the target temperature.

I took the Combustion thermometer out of its bright yellow box on Thanksgiving morning. I’d downloaded the app to my phone a day prior, enabled it to connect via Bluetooth with the Combustion app, and ensured the thermometer was fully charged. I estimated the turkey would take about four hours to cook at 300 degrees (that’s with convection – if I didn’t use convection, I’d have cooked it at 325). I put in a target temperature of 160 degrees, knowing the bird’s core temperature would continue to rise after I took it out of the oven and waited.

After about 30 minutes, the Combustion gave me an estimate for when the turkey would hit my target temperature. Unsurprisingly, it was cooking slightly faster than my initial estimates, but I was prepared because I had the Combustion.

I watched the countdown clock tick downward, and when it hit 160 degrees, the app told me it was time to pull out the turkey. I double-checked the temperature with my old school thermometer and it matched the temperature reading on my Combustion thermometer. I put foil over the bird and let it sit for about 45 minutes before carving it up.

The result? A juicy, just-right turkey.

You’re probably asking why I didn’t use a smart thermometer before, and it’s a good question. The answer is I should have, but I figured at the time I could just do the math myself. As it turns out, however, older ovens can be a bit unpredictable (as can turkey cooking time estimates), and now the Combustion will be a permanent fixture come turkey cooking time.

Could I have used another thermometer? Maybe, as long as it has enough sensors to measure the core, surface, and ambient temperatures. While the original Meater had two sensors, it couldn’t measure core, ambient, and surface temperatures. However, Meater’s latest thermometer, the Meater 2 Plus, has five internal sensors and an ambient sensor, so I figured that would have worked great as well.

But after my experience, I recommend the Combustion predictive thermometer. The company tries to get you to buy the pair of the thermometer and the yellow kitchen clock, but I found the app works just find (and meant less clutter on my counter). You can buy the thermometer by itself right now for $119, or buy the thermometer and clock for $159.

Manage Cooking Multiple Meats to Different Temperatures with the New MEATER Block

Just in time for summer grilling season, Apption Labs, the company behind the connected MEATER thermometer, announced the launch of the new MEATER Block today. The new Block of thermometers allows users to monitor the cooking of multiple pieces of meat at once and extends the wireless range of the device.

The new MEATER system still acts much the same way as the single probe. It’s a connected thermometer roughly the size of a heavy-duty nail that you slide into your meat (beef, chicken, fish, pork, etc.). It wirelessly talks with the accompanying mobile app to let you know how the meat is doing, and even gives you tips on when to pull it out and how long to rest it.

While MEATER had sold multiple thermometers bundled together before, the new MEATER Block set of probes is different in that they work together so you can monitor different meats simultaneously. So you can be grilling different pieces of beef to different doneness at the same time, or even monitor simultaneous cooking of different types of meat.

Additonally, the new MEATER Block acts as a WiFi bridge, boosting the wireless communication range of the device so you can presumably be anywhere in your house and still check in on those chops. Other versions of the MEATER only go 33 ft. or 165 ft., depending on the model. The MEATER Block also sports a touchscreen and has a standalone mode so you don’t even need to use a phone.

I tested the single MEATER last year and thought it worked well. I’m pretty nervous when it comes to cooking proteins thoroughly, so monitoring my meat without needing to open up a hot oven (and let all the heat out) to insert a thermometer is a nice touch. The company has sent me the new block to test out, but it hasn’t arrived yet. If it works as advertised, it will be a great tool for summer cook-outs, especially with its new ability to continuously cook and keep track of different foods on the same grill.

Despite these advancements, MEATER seems to still have the same issue I had with the previous generation: its size. The MEATER itself is big, and because you keep it in the meat throughout the cooking process, a sizeable hole forms. The other thing we’ll lament here at The Spoon is that the MEATER doesn’t have a plant-based meat option for, say, grilling Beyond Burgers.

But if those aren’t dealbreakers, you may want to check out the new MEATER Block, which is available now for $269.

Review: Meet Meater, the Connected Thermometer

Proteins are generally the hardest part of the meal to make. Overcook them and they turn to inedible leather; undercook them and possibly send loved ones to the ER. For the nervous meat cookers who are skittish around the skillet, Meater is a new, connected thermometer that’s here to help.

Meater is a $69 bluetooth- and wifi-enabled meat thermometer, but it’s actually more than that. With its accompanying app, Meater is actually a guided cooking system that monitors your meats, tells you when they’ve reached a safe cooking temperature, and lets you know when to remove your meat from heat to let it rest properly.

The device itself looks like a shiny five inch nail. You stick Meater into the meat and leave it there while cooking. Truth be told, you have to jam the Meater in there pretty deep for it to work properly.

The depth needed for the probe actually caused a problem for my first test. The chicken thighs I was going to cook were too small for the Meater to work properly, even though the Meater app lists chicken thighs as something you can cook with it. Meater seems to be meant for larger cuts of thicker meat, so I opted for a pork loin in my second go-round.

Setup for the Meater itself was straightforward. I chose the Bluetooth option over the wifi because wifi required setting up a (free) account. Meater paired easily, but because the device is in an oven, or wrapped in foil, the signal dropped if I took the phone out of the kitchen.

Once Meater is inserted, you select what type of meat and what cut you are going to cook from the app. Then you choose the target internal temperature you want the meat to cook to. It gives you a few options based on the level of done-ness you prefer, as well as the USDA recommended cooking temp. With just a few taps on your phone, you’re ready to cook.

The app gives you a readout with three indicators: The current internal temp, the target temp, and the ambient temp. After a few minutes in the oven, it also provides an estimated cooking time. Once it starts cooking you can watch the various temperatures move around the dial.

What’s nice, for a nervous, OCD nelly like me, is that with the probe always in the meat, there’s no need to repeatedly open up the oven (letting heat escape) to re-insert a traditional thermometer. Since you have a constant running readout of the internal temperature, it frees you up to do other things in the kitchen.

Where Meater gets more helpful is when you’re meat is almost ready. The app delivered a nice little alarm when there was about five minutes left on my cook time, and then it instructed me to remove the meat before it reached the final temperature. It kept cooking out of the oven and hit the targeted 145 degrees as promised without overcooking. I even checked with a second meat thermometer to confirm the accuracy of the Meater.

The result was great. The pork loin came out tender and flavorful and, most important, safely cooked.

When not in use, Meater comes in a handsome wood holder/charger. The holder requires one AAA battery to charge Meater, and has a magnetic backing you so you can stick it to an oven hood to keep it handy. At $69, Meater is a pretty good value considering a Thermapen costs at least $79.

For a cautious cook such as myself, Meater would be a great addition to my kitchen, and would give me more confidence to cook proteins I might not normally try.