Infrared IR Thermometer?

[lght]

A friend of mine who stopped by for last weekends bon fire said I should get a IR Thermometer so I can know the temp of the box, the coals, the food, and even the different area's of the pit while cooking.

He uses one on the job (works for JPL) and says it's always +/- less than a degree and gives you a reading in a few seconds if that.

Anyone use these on their smoker, grill, food?

Here is the professional one he uses, but he said you can get them for around $50.00.

 

[pigcicles]

They work well for surface temps, but won't tell you the internal temp of food. It will help you in tuning a pit from end to end, but you will still need an internal thermometer for acurate food cooking temps.

 

[walking dude]

kewl.........but its only going to tell you the SURFACE temps of the food.......not internals.........but for the rest of the smoker.........sounds great

 

[fatback joe]

I have one....cool toy....there for a while I could tell you the temp of everything around the house right down to the dogs..........uhhh.....nevermind

Anyhow, I never really found a legit use for it when it came to smoking.

 

[bearmoe]

These guys are 100% correct. I work in a test lab and we use them too. Good for surface temps only.

 

[lght]

ok I guess it's not too helpful other than finding the cold spot on your pit and fine tunning it. That and maybe finding the temp of my pet during feeding?

 

[flyin'illini]

They are SO cool. I could see using it to see how your temps vary in your smoker to either tune in mods or rotate meat appropriately.

 

[bearmoe]

Only the surface temp of your pet though.....Get something with a probe so you can stick it in the thickest part of your meat and don't use it on your pet.

 

[bearmoe]

You could certainly determine the temperature on different shelves of a GOSM at particular gas flow settings. Could be very helpful. It would be interesting to determine what the temp. variation is in different parts. We also have an IR video camera at work. Blue colors in the image are coldest and red are hottest. They don't sell those at Wally World though....

 

[pigcicles]

<play Mission Impossible theme> Bearmoe - your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to take the smoker to work. Smoke anything of your liking and get Kewl pics of temperature variation from shelf to shelf. Should you get caught we as SMF will deny any knowlege of you or your mission.

Wally World needs to step up to the next generation.

 

[bearmoe]

I guess my inner nerd is showing....