"The one I recently used was a basic one that stays in the food in the oven. I was cooking pork sausages. The recipe said 30 to 35 min. Before that I looked and it was way over 200 degrees. " If you are using a mechanical (bi-metal) dial-face probe thermometer, you can be getting highly inaccurate readings. "In general do people tend to over cook meat? " That's true, or a good part of the meat is overcooked. "When the meat reaches the correct temp does it have to be there for a certain amount of time or is it completely done? " It depends on what you mean by correct temperature. There is a term called "Resting time" and "carry-over heat", which you can get a more through explanation by Googling. "Can you use a thermometer in a slow cooker? " I suppose you can use a remote read thermometer, but you should only use a thermometer to take occasional readings. Slow cooker cooks best with the cover on. "I feel this must be some secret that good cooks keep to themselves as I have never known anyone who has ever used one. " Good cooks use good thermometers regularly. "--- I will say I'm a little intimidated on this forum as half the time I don't even know what you guys are talking about :) " That mean the other half of the time you know what they are talking about, not bad at all. :-) dcarch

Dcarch, I've been considering ordering an infrared thermometer for a long time, thanks for providing a few uses for it that I hadn't thought of! (a little extra justification never hurts!) Jadeite, thanks for pushing me over the edge by providing the link to the sale at Thermoworks. I've purchased a few items from them, and I'm on their mailing list. I don't know why I didn't get that email! DebraK, I had and threw out a number of digital thermometers because I couldn't trust them to be accurate. I asked for, and received, my Thermapen for Christmas a year ago and I use it all the time. It's accurate and reliable, and best of all it has a very slim, very sharp probe that can be used on thin things, like a steak, thin pork chop, or pounded chicken breast or even fish (though it's easy to tell when fish is done). I have also used it to find out how hot foods are in a warming tray on my Thanksgiving buffet--and also how cold a salad is, so I know when to put it back in the fridge. I've also used it to measure the temp of hot water for brewing green tea or coffee, and the temperature of the water going into the fish tank, and various other things. It's one of the most used things in my kitchen, and I count it very much worth the money spent. Cj

I have two polders, one that is very basic and one that is a bit more complicated but can time multiple items. I would stick with the brand if I needed to replace one.

Hello all, I recently got a new Bluestar range/oven. It's great (I have to relearn some of my cooking techniques ;) ) The one thing I miss is a clock/ timer and my meat probe. Now I bought one of the digital ones that has the probe that goes into the meat through the door opening, but its really not that elegant a solution. So I was thinking that I could route the wire through the oven from the vent on top. Then I saw the Williams sonoma wifi thermometer. Does any one have any experience with it? how well does it work and