An Expert Gift: Taylor Thermometers
November 5, 2007 by Kate Heyhoe
Sometimes an instant-read thermometer just isn’t enough. With inventive cooking techniques on the rise, coupled with all too common incidents of food contamination, performing a science-check of all stages of food temperatures seems prudent. Take your pick of Taylor’s Refrigerator-Freezer Thermometers in commercial and consumer versions, and monitor to see if your freezer and refrigerator are truly storing foods in the safe zone. (Buy one for each: freezers should be at or below 0 degrees F., and refrigerators should stay between 34 and 40 degrees F.)
But don’t stop there.
All ovens are subject to hot and cold zones, and calibration alters over time; so double-check for accuracy with Taylor’s Connoisseur Series Oven Thermometer, which hangs, sits, or clips wherever it’s needed (and is easily readable through the oven window). But wait: there’s more! Visual clues give way to precise cooking with Taylor’s Digital Infrared Thermometer. This baby measures surface temperatures, and it does so from a distance; just point and click for a digital reading.
Why is this important?
Because solid pieces of meat (roasts and whole turkeys, for instance) typically carry bacteria on the outer surface, so a check of the exterior temperature is as important, or even more so, than reading internal temperature. And here’s something else to think about: use it to measure a pan’s surface temperature. Now you can tell if a griddle has reached 350 degrees F., the optimum temperature for pancakes, and do away the guesswork of dancing water droplets (which bead between 320 and 440 degrees); and candy making becomes less messy (no contact thermometer needed, just point and click). Cool!
Taylor Classic Freezer-Refrigerator Thermometer
Taylor Commercial Freezer-Refrigerator Thermometer
can you tell me whether, with the Taylor microwave meat thermometer, the plastic sheath is meant to remain inside the meat during the cooking phase or is it just used to pierce the meat in order to more easily insert the glass thermometer.
Thank you.
Please let me know soon as I am about to use it
Insert thermometer in the thickest part of food. Be sure frozen food is entirely thawed before inserting thermometer. When used with meat, be sure to insert the thermometer into the thickest part of meat to the point where the tip is past the center, but not in contact with the bone, fat or gristle. Place food into microwave oven, leaving thermometer inserted during cooking. When thermometer reached desired temperature, remove food. Use a heat resistant glove.