Do you use a meat thermometer?

[Manuela]

Do cooks use meat thermometers all the time? I use them rarely. Two cases really, pork butt on the smoker (need 200 or 205 Fahrenheit) and rotisserie chicken… just because it’s there; I like to check it before taking it of the spit. Other than that, you can “judge” when it’s done (with practice). Frying a piece of chicken it stops “talking to you” (quits doing major oil bubbles and flares) when it is close to done. Most fried food “floats” when close to done. Pressing (not hard) on beef like steak or hamburger gives you the idea of doneness (wavy like a waterbed is RARE!!!).
How many use the thermometers and why? :p

[karenlyn]

I don't use one often, either. Basically, only when I'm trying to get beef to a perfect level of "doneness" or when I want to be sure about a whole chicken.

[Samuel]

I use a meat thermometer only if I have guests, because I can't just cut the meat to check it every time, it will ruin the "visual show" I've prepared. This gadget is actually very good against overcooking. And it's not just for meat...we should all use this device more often.

[NOCHEF&JUSTLOVESFOOD.YUM]

I use a meat thermometer only if I have guests, because I can't just cut the meat to check it every time, it will ruin the "visual show" I've prepared. This gadget is actually very good against overcooking. And it's not just for meat...we should all use this device more often.

I agree, if you have cooked for a while there are precious few times I use one, mostly as the rest of the group has described. Having been raised on a pig farm in Iowa I love "Heritage" pork like Berkshire instead of that tasteless "other white meat" so I use it there because I like that meat juicy and a little more "pink" than the FDA wants me to eat it. :)

It's like today's "chickens", we mess them up so badly raising them and then portray them as evil so that we all need 3 color coated cutting boards to avoid "cross contamination" and THEN we eat them...sigh


Sorry, I seem to have gotten off the subject. :rolleyes:

[Denton15]

I have never used one, in fact I don't even posses one. I don't think it is really necessary, I have been cooking for years and raised a family without poisoning anyone, so I think I can survive without one.

[mcnerd]

I use thermometers, especially for poultry and pork, just to be safe. Ignorance is bliss, so never talk to doctors in the Emergency Room in hospitals in big cities.

I've known people that have "canned" food for years without going through the water processing to kill bacteria, believing it was safe because nobody ever got sick.......until their luck changed.

[Ralphy]

Hmm.. we don't even have one. Is it that important? :D
We always trust our instincts and we are just fine, until now.
Maybe it really is time to have that in the house, you never know what could happen.
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[beginnercook]

I never used this either, but it's not a rule since I am still learning and I have to find out almost daily that there's something new I don't use yet. My instincts are not that good either, but most of the time my family doesn't leave me alone in the kitchen so they also keep an eye on the meat

[wildfire]

For some reason I always feel compelled to use one on holidays for turkey, duck or ham. I actually really don't even know why, I never do for anything else! :rolleyes: Talk about being a total creature of habit.