ProAccurate Thermometer
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Our Price: $19.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Kitchen See more product details |
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of ProAccurate Thermometer
Customer Review: Trusted Kitchen Tool
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great product which has served me well for more than a year with no flaws. I don't treat it with an excess of care, either, but it doesn't seem to mind. It seems to be sturdily built. I've not had to replace the battery yet. I have given several as gifts.
I've found a variety of uses beyond the normal "is this chicken done?" test. For example-- my reheated lasagna is hot on the surface-- is it hot in the middle? Is the water I'm heating for my Aeropress (coffee maker) too hot? How close is the pasta water to boiling? Has my bread dough reached the recommended proofing temperature of 77-81 degrees?
This tool is so fun to use that you'll find new things to do with thermometers in your kitchen.
Update, Dec 2009: Three+ years on and this thermometer continues to work flawlessly. I have not yet needed to replace the battery! This is a great deal and one of the best gifts you can get an aspiring cook. I've also had good luck with this probe thermometer: Polder Classic Cooking Thermometer/Timer, Graphite which is excellent for telling when a roast has hit medium rare, and then when it has rested long enough to slice.
Customer Review: Fantastic product, but don't trust the chart on the probe cover
Summary: 5 Stars
Reads in about 5 seconds
very shallow read (good for reading small things) maybe 1/2"
nice 5" probe
auto-off after 10 minutes (I can't tell you how many times I've pulled my old Taylor out of the drawer and found it turned on)
easy to change batteries
can be recalibrated
waterproof
can hold temp or review max
seems extremely accurate (I've tested the boiling point on some known things and it seems within .5 degrees or so.)
All in all I'd say it's a perfect thermometer. You could get a Taylor 9840 at Walmart for half this price, but you would be sitting for 20-30 seconds waiting on it to read (and it's not waterproof, doesn't turn off, and you have to take it apart to change the battery). A Thermapen would be better (I trust, I haven't ever actually used one), but you're going to pay $90 for it.
My only complaint is that it has a chart on the probe cover of cooking temperatures of various things, which would be fantastic except that it's taken from USDA guidelines, which disagree with reality. I've never met anyone who considers a 160 degree F steak to be "medium"...
Customer Review: Sooo much better than dials
Summary: 5 Stars
I see some people talking about the Thermopen and that's good, but America's Test Kitchen recently changed their recommendation to this model I think, so I decided to give it a try. I'm not disappointed at all.
I used to use "instant read" dial thermos, which have two problems. First of all they're very slow, 10-30 seconds. Second of all, they use a very long sensor, which is in the first 1-2 inches of the probe. That makes it tricky to know if you have the probe in far enough on big cuts, and tricky to get into small cuts at all.
By contrast, the CDN digital thermometer is very fast, only a couple seconds before the reading levels off. It seems accurate although I don't think I've put this one in boiling water yet.
The probe is great, it's the type that only needs the bottom centimeter or so stuck in, which makes it easier to be in the center of a cutlet or something other than a 1-1/2" thick steak. It's great for those too though. :-)
This will continue to be my trusted tool of choice for a long time to come, and in the case that it breaks, it's cheap enough that I won't be too terribly sad.
Customer Review: Accurate, easy to read and can be calibrated
Summary: 5 Stars
This little digital thermometer has a lot going for it. It's inexpensive, fairly quick, easy to read and easy to use. Best of all, it's accurate and can be calibrated. Few digital thermometers are this simple to calibrate - there's a button right on the face of it for that very purpose. After having a roast almost ruined by an inaccurate thermometer, accuracy and the ability to recalibrate (in case of accidental drops, for instance) are a must for me.
The ProAccurate has a thinner tip at the end than most of its kind, leaving behind a much smaller "hole" when inserted and removed. The only drawback, if any, is its speed. Although it's not particularly slow, I wouldn't call this an instant read as a slight bit of waiting is necessary. I can be impatient and even I don't consider this a deal breaker. I would love to upgrade to a true instant read Thermapen, but they're pricey. Until then, this one is a very good choice and an excellent little thermometer for a great price.
Customer Review: Junk
Summary: 1 Stars
I wish now I would have sent this piece of garbage back and gotten my money back. I have three other thermometers, but they are meat thermometers that only go up to about 200 F. I urgently needed one for bread since I had people who wanted my bread. Bread temperatures are 205 to 210 F.
Even though I recalibrated the temperature for accuracy, the temp was at least 5 F lower than actual temperature. It takes at least an entire minute to register the temperature and even then I really don't know how much the reading is off the actual temp of the bread. So I have to take the bread out of the oven to test the temp, something I would not have to do if it registered in a few seconds.
Being let down with this thermometer, I stopped by a Bed, Bath, and Beyond and picked up a cheap Polder thermometer for less than $9.00. It was so much more accurate and faster than this one.
Don't waste your money if you want accuracy and a quick read.