Most helpful customer reviews

152 of 154 people found the following review helpful.
Indispensable kitchen tool
By Frank Lynch
There may be better instant read thermometers out there, but this has always done the trick for me, whether it's testing the water in baking bread or quickly finding out whether a roast is done. Its slender needle goes into hunks of meat quickly, and the whole thing is light enough that, if you are concerned that your burgers on the grill are properly cooked, you can easily put this in your pocket as you head to the back yard. Small note of caution for other dummies like me: the dial is under a plastic window, and so the whole thing should not go -in- the oven. For that, you want a meat thermoeter with a glass face.

90 of 92 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent for a great French pressed coffee
By Manish Laxmikant
Everyone talks about how convenient, versatile and simple this little thing is. It's great.

Information you might wonder about, and my coffee method:

- Size: It's about the length of a ball-point pen, and comes with a holder that looks like one. The head is about the size of a quarter.

- Speed: The needle moves a lot faster than the liquid in a candy thermometer. Instant-read it's not, unless you mean that you can instantly read the temperature after the needle stops moving. But it's still pretty fast, and as you see the needle slow down, you get a pretty good idea of where it's going to stop. Kind of like knowing where you'll stop when you hit the brakes. So, it gets more useful as you get used to it.

- Accuracy: I tried it with boiling water, and with an ice-water mix that had been shaken around. It's pretty accurate - accurate enough for most uses.

- Coffee: I use it mostly for making French pressed coffee. If you put boiling water in coffee grinds, you will likely get a bitter brew. I pick the pot right before it reaches a boil and use this little device to read 205 degrees F. Drop the water into a french press containing coarse grounds, and four minutes later you have excellent coffee. Thanks to this little guy I discovered that eyeballing the water in the kettle is not a good way to figure out the right temperature.

81 of 86 people found the following review helpful.
Keep it Stupid Simple.
By Belladonna Le Femme
You can keep your bulky & fragile digital readout probes, I'll take a good ol' thearmalcouple any day. I've tried various digitals & EVERY SINGLE ONE stopped working over time(no, not a dead battery). I've had dozens of similar probes as this Taylor model over the years & always lose them before they stop working. The only thing I don't care for is the soft plastic, somewhat bulky sheath. However it does have a notch for recalibrating so needle nose pliers aren't neccisarry.