Okay, I did the piece on the Fluke Volt Alert for the next issue, so it was kind of on my mind. And it is summer now, and the barbeque has been busy, both at home and on Growler. I love cooking on the grill, as it spins even a boring evening into a party.
If you work in the kitchen like me, you are always on the lookout for a tool or cooking instrument that promises to make cooking more fun, produce even better results when it is time to serve up another meal.
I know a couple of slick corkscrews have found their way into my life, as did the right knife. Well, I’ve had some good and bad luck with those oven thermometers with food probes and remotes. Ideally, these units measure the cooking temperature of various foods and let you know when the food has reached a specific temperature. Most have alarms to alert the cook when the chicken or turkey is close to its ideal internal temperature. That’s pretty handy…when it works.
In complete frustration, I threw mine in the garbage last week. It was the third such unit I’ve purchased in recent years, this one sold through Taylor. I’ve had the Weber version, and I recall using one sold by Pyrex. They are all made to the same poor standards in China, and they are similar in looks and operation. Frankly, while I love the concept of such products, in my experience, they are manufactured to a price point, rather than a focus on quality in operation and accuracy. What is the point of spending even a paltry $20 when it only works once or twice, then starts annoying everyone in the house when the remote blasts its alarm from a lost signal, or the probe temperature goes nuts?
A lot of things seem like that these days, where high quality is manufactured out so as to create cheaper, disposable products. From light bulbs that seemingly last about a week to oven thermometers that irritate people, a lot of products aren’t really very good anymore.
Annoyed and somewhat perplexed that I couldn’t find a quality oven thermometer, I researched the various thermometers out there, Googling the world market, as it were, and none of the available products seems to have many fans. The consumer remarks on some sites, such as those on Amazon.com, were in complete agreement with my experience. The concept is good, the products are not.
Why can’t a Swiss company produce a high quality oven thermometer, like a Rolex for the oven? I would pay for such quality. Maybe that’s why I love my boat, and all of its hardware and equipment. It is refined, handcrafted quality that I can see, touch, and be proud of.
The reason I am so interested in this is that I know the importance of cooking food to the proper internal temperature. We’ve all seen the recent scares of e Coli, salmonella, and other microbial food-borne illnesses, even in pet food. Today we must accept the need to cook food thoroughly. But without the right galley and kitchen gear to ensure proper temperatures, what’s a cook to do? The traditional “touch” test works to a point, but why take chances when feeding your family and friends?
Back to the Fluke. It occurred to me, after my London Broil came out a little overdone, that my boat’s Fluke multimeter also measures temperature. So I wondered if I could use the stainless steel probe from the failed Taylor unit on the Fluke meter somehow. After all, the Fluke’s line of meters defines professional ruggedness and accuracy, and Fluke meters surpass every standard of measurement accuracy I know of.
My mind clicked into high gear and I looked at the meter with that goal in mind. It took a little investigation, but I located a Fluke accessory for the meter, an adapter (Fluke Part #80-AK, less than $20) that could be used to attach the probe wires to the meter. The set up won’t have remote capability, which really isn’t that important, as the grill is a social center during the summer on my deck, and in the cockpit of Growler.
My first experiment was an utter failure, as not minutes into cooking a chicken, the Fluke meter showed an open circuit, and it took me a bit to understand what happened. The small print on the Taylor product sheet (and the many consumer comments I subsequently found in product reviews) indicate the probe can’t be used in temperature ranges beyond about 350 degrees. It just stops working from an internal meltdown. I guess that might have been the culprit for all of the other low-quality units I’ve purchased over the years. After a couple of uses, they just aren’t reliable anymore. A number of comments verify the short lifespan of these temperature probes.
In my mind, a probe that can’t be used in ovens or barbeques over 350 degrees is a major handicap, as a gas barbeque is always hotter than 350 degrees—the very reason I enjoy cooking on the grill so much. Hot is a good thing. Ever make a pizza on the grill? Outstanding!
So again I hit the computer, searching for food service-grade probes that could stand the higher temperature of a real oven and grill environment. I found a company in Utah, ThermoWorks (thermoworks.com), which offers a high temperature probe that can stand heat up to 662 degrees. The Smoke House Penetration Probe, which comes with a six-foot long cable with stainless steel armor sheathing, is perfect for my needs. While it costs $65, I am willing to pay for quality and performance that fits how I cook. The plug on the probe fits into the adapter which plugs into the Fluke meter. Now I’m good to go, on my deck or in my cockpit.
As you can see from the images, the yellow Fluke meter (it is the 87V model), with the six-foot long cable, can sit far enough away from the grill to stay safe, yet it accurately displays the temperature of whatever is being cooked. From a cookbook, I made a chart of the correct internal cooking temperatures for rare, medium-rare, medium, and well done for the variety of things that I typically grill or cook in the oven. (We never use the oven on Growler, by the way, as we use the grill.) I’m a medium-rare guy.
Now, I not only have a useful tool for electrical troubleshooting around the boat, but also an accurate way to prepare food that is safe to eat without becoming overcooked, dried out mutton.
And that is something I can get excited about. Another job well done…er, completed successfully.
