Why You Need a Cheap Analog Food Thermometer
A digital thermometer ranks as a good knife on the list of indispensable kitchen tools these days, but you never hear anyone recommend their analog predecessors. This is too bad: old school thermometers do the same job for a small fee.
I have a digital thermometer that I use for meat and meat only, because I learned the hard way that steam spoils it. It makes sense: digital instruments run on batteries, which tend to do poorly with water, vapor, or whatever.
Unfortunately, I measure the temperature of hot liquids more than anything else – warm water for bread dough, boiled milk for microwave pastry creams , Swiss meringues , quiche toppings and the like – which means mine ice thermometer is a lot of use.
Sure, it’s a little slower and doesn’t measure tenths of a degree, but I’d rather a measurement that can be trusted than functionally meaningless precision. (If you think there is a measurable difference between a custard cooked at 185 ° F and a custard cooked at 185.5 ° F, well, that’s not the case. Sorry!) Also, calibrate the dial thermometer to funny simple: all you need is ice water and a wrench .
To show you what I mean, I will tell you the story of my first Swiss meringue. Since I’m not a complete dummy, I used Stella Parks’s recipe , which asks you to heat egg whites and sugar in a water bath to 175ºF. I stirred this godforsaken bowl for an hour , checking the temperature frequently, but my digital thermometer politely refused to read 175 degrees Fahrenheit. It turns out that steam coming out of both the water bath and the meringue was causing it to fail, that is, taking too long to read the temperature, and accidentally shutting down. I switched to my ice thermometer for the next batch and the rest is a perfect, fluffy story.
Admittedly, my digital thermometer is OXO shit that I bought for ten dollars in 2009, but the original battery still works and it does what I ask. If I had a thermal pen , I would feel differently. But when my digital thermometer finally hits the Big Watch in the sky, I still don’t spend on Thermapen or even a cheaper fake; I will buy a five dollar thermometer with a dial and will feel great.