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Dropped $38 on a wireless meat probe at the Kansas City Royal and it read 15 degrees off all weekend
I bought a wireless meat probe at the Kansas City Royal two summers back for $38 because the guy at the booth swore it was within 1 degree. First cook was two pork butts on my offset and the probe said 203 when my Thermapen said 188. I trusted the probe, pulled them early, and served dry pork to 15 people at a family reunion in Topeka. The next weekend I tested it against boiling water and it read 197 instead of 212, so I knew it was junk. Some folks say you just gotta calibrate them with ice water first, but I did that and it still drifted mid cook every single time. Other guys in my cook group swear by theirs and say I got a bad unit, which is fair, but $38 plus $60 of ruined meat stings. So here is my question for yall, do you trust a cheap wireless probe or do you stick with a wired one you have to babysit? And has anyone actually gotten a refund or replacement from a vendor at a contest like that?
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clairem381mo ago
Wasted way too much money on those cheap wireless ones before I finally gave up. My last straw was a $40 probe that read my brisket at 205 when it was really sitting around 190, and of course the Thermapen told the truth after I already sliced it for company. Did the ice water test too and it would pass, then drift 10-15 degrees an hour into the cook, so calibration never fixed the real problem. Now I run a wired ThermoWorks and just deal with the cable, because losing $60 of meat hurts way more than babysitting a wire. As for the booth guys, good luck, most of them pack up Sunday and the receipt is basically a napkin, but a few folks in my cook group got a swap when they caught the vendor at the next contest with the same setup.
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