Reddit reviews CDN DTP482 Digital Programmable Probe Thermometer/Timer

Since I have a set meal plan, I cook most of my food on Sunday evenings to eat for lunch and dinner throughout the week. I usually bake four chicken breasts at a time. Been doing it a while now, and I've gotten really, really good at it.

Here's how you do it:

• Take a rectangular glass, or "Pyrex", baking dish and lightly drizzle olive oil into the dish. You can use lower-calorie cooking sprays, but I like to keep things full-calorie, unprocessed and all-natural. Plus, olive oil will add lots of flavor and it is good for your heart.
  
  
• Place four boneless/skinless chicken breasts into the dish, and slide them around a little bit upon placing them into the dish to make sure there is good oil coverage to prevent sticking/burning.
  
  
• Salt and pepper to taste. I highly recommend using Kosher salt. It will stick better, it is easier to apply, and the crystals are larger so you can visually gauge how much salt you are applying. Also, grow the fuck up and use real, fresh-cracked black pepper. Your taste buds will thank you.
  
  
• From here you can add flavor using herbs and spices. I switch it up depending on my mood, but my go-to herb/spice blend includes oregano, marjoram, basil, thyme, cayenne pepper and paprika. You can add even more flavor by using onion powder, garlic powder, lemon pepper, etc. The choice is yours. I've even used some masala spice blends for a more Middle-Eastern flavor profile. The point is you are adding flavor without adding calories when you use herbs and spices instead of breading, cheese, etc.
  
  
• Optional Step: Drizzle olive oil on the chicken breasts after you have salted, peppered, and seasoned it to your liking. I find this adds even more flavor and gives the final product a more satisfying, non-dry texture when the chicken is done. However, we are trying to cut calories, so do what you like.
  
  
• THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP FOR COOKING JUICY, SATISFYING CHICKEN BREASTS --> Buy your goddamned self a thermometer. Said thermometer should have a digital read-out with in-oven probe so that you can monitor the internal temperature of the chicken while it's cooking.
  
  
• NOTE: Everyone who has my baked chicken always asks the same questions: "Where'd you buy the chicken? Is it gourmet? How did you marinate it? It's so juicy, are you sure it's not undercooked?" I'm 28, and I'm convinced that the old-wives tales and paranoia about disease-laden meat from the 60's and 70's has created a generation of parents who were so worried about getting sick that they were willing to forgo the natural juiciness and tender texture of chicken for assurance that they had cooked the chicken enough to not get sick. Well I'm sick of it. By a thermometer. End of dry chicken forever.
  
  
• Pre-heat oven to 425 and bake the four breasts (@ dead center of your oven) for about 22-27 minutes, or until an internal temperature of 165-170° F (remember, ovens vary. the thermometer takes out all of the guesswork). Also, make sure your thermometer probe is inserted into the largest breast at its thickets point, and don't let the tip of the probe be pushed in so far that it touches the bottom of the baking dish (you will get false readings).
  
  
• Next, when the chicken is DONE (see note #3 below), take it out of the oven, place it on a heat-safe surface, and cover with heavy-duty tin foil for at least 10 minutes. This step is important. It allows the juices that were pushed out of the breast muscle fiber during the cooking process to be re-absorbed into the meat. If you're a paranoid individual who needs their chicken to hit a minimum internal temperature of 180°F because the USDA tells you, do not worry. During the resting phase of the chicken, the residual heat in the dish and external flesh of the chicken breast will continue to "cook" the chicken, allowing it to coast up to about 180°F. Go ahead, try me. Temp the chicken through the tin foil right after you pull the chicken. I dare you.
  
  Additional Notes:
  
  

1. Acidic marinades will dry out your chicken. I don't like them, but if you must, don't marinate for too long (maybe 30 minutes to an hour . . . use good judgement).
   
   
2. Brining your chicken prior to cooking will increase flavor and juiciness.
   
   
3. Remember, time is not your master, you are time's master. Clocks, pendulums, hourglasses and the like have no place telling you when to eat your chicken. That's your thermometer's job. My favorite culinary saying is "It's done when it's done".
   
   
   TL;DR -- Buy one of THESE. You're welcome.
   
   
   Edit: Formatting
   

> How do I learn heat levels?

You can't trust the heat settings on your stove, as they can vary alot among different models. For example, 5 on my stove is a little cooler than what most would consider "medium heat".

You have to play it by ear and adjust. Practice something simple like just dicing and sauteing an onion. Watch how it reacts to different levels of heat. Don't even worry about the final product, just throw it away when you're done. Onions are cheap, and if you're learning from it then it's not a waste of food. Pay attention to the moisture levels in the pan, which is one of the key things you need to control as a cook.

> Does it really matter what size a pan is?

Sometimes. The pan should be big enough to comfortably hold all the food you're cooking, and also the right shape for the job. More surface area = more evaporation. I once messed up a Filipino adobo by using a dutch oven instead of a regular saute pan (the liquid couldn't evaporate fast enough and it tasted gross until I removed all the meat and reduced the sauce down—definitely wasn't as tasty as it could have been).

> Another thing is storing and taste. Lets say I make fries, how should I keep them from being soggy the next day?

Fries are just never going to be as good the next day, but it's mostly how you reheat things that matters. You could bake em in the oven and they'd retain at least some crispiness. Most important thing in food storage is to keep things out of the "danger zone" (40°F-140°F) for any longer than necessary—especially if the food is low-salt and low-acid (like homemade stock). Almost everything can safely be covered in plastic film and refrigerated for up to a week, or frozen for many months. Tight wrapping/tightly lidded tupperware will prevent weird flavors from seeping in/out of your leftovers.

As far as which hardware you need, I'd suggest the following, which should allow you to make basically anything:

• 12" stainless steel saute pan (curved or straight side) WITH A TIGHT LID
  
  
• 8-10" nonstick teflon frying pan
  
  
• A saucepot or two. I'd suggest one steel and one nonstick between 6"-8".
  
  
• A stockpot as large as you can comfortably fit in your kitchen. Bigger the better imo.
  
  
• 3 knives: 8" chef's, 10" serrated and a small paring knife. Make sure these are extremely sharp at all times.
  
  
• Mesh strainer
  
  
• THERMOMETER!!! Seriously man, this shit takes so much guesswork out of cooking. I have two, a probe style like this and an instant-read.
  
  
• Steamer basket
  
  > I could learn some healthy stuff
  
  Buy veggie, steam it. Buy meat, sear it on high til the outside is brown, then bake it until your thermom says it's done. If you wanna get real fance, make a pan sauce. I can have this weeknight dinner cooked, eaten and cleaned up in under an hour.
  
  

Sorry for another essay, but I'm trying to help you out so you avoid spending money twice.

10 gallon batches offer a number of unique challenges, outside of the obvious need for larger equipment.

Firstly, you don't need to buy Blichmann to make quality brew. It certainly is high quality, and I would venture to say it is top-of-the-line when it comes to brewing equipment. However, a kettle is a kettle, is a kettle. There's no reason to spend $400 on a 15G kettle, when you can get one off Amazon for $150.

In addition, for the brew kettle you don't really need a thermometer and a sight glass. You'll find lots of fancy expensive kettles with extra bells and whistles, but more expensive doesn't mean better. Typically you'll find these options:

Sight Glass: Let's you see the volume of water/wort in the kettle, the Blichmann boilermakers have markings so you can get a good idea just from looking on the side. It's a nice to have, but not really necessary if you measure properly. If you really want one, you can install one onto a vanilla kettle by purchasing a kit from Bobby @ brewhardware.com - still cheaper than a boilermaker. You can also just mark up a piece of wood, or a mash paddle, then use it as a dip tube to get your volumes.

Thermometer: This is nice to have on a mash tun, if you are mashing in a kettle. I wouldn't recommend it, however, as the thermometers are all analog and don't react quite as quickly. You are typically going to want to double check your readings with a digital thermometer like a thermapen, or something like this. Especially when it comes to a boil kettle - the only thing you're doing in it is boiling. You don't need a thermometer to tell you when your wort is boiling.

Ball Valve: With 5 gallon batches, this is optional. With 10G+ batches, this is more of a necessity in my opinion. Water/wort weighs 8-10# per gallon. When you are working with a 10G batch, you are looking at lugging around 85-100# of liquid at any given time. You don't want to be lifting 90# of boiling hot wort, unless you're itchin to send yourself to the hospital.

This leads me to the challenges I referenced... It's a little harder to move 10G of water/wort around than it is to move 5. Lots of folks with 10G systems use some kind of brew stand, or a system of pumps and hoses to pump water and wort from vessel to vessel. (Good) pumps, either March or Chugger, are about $125/each. You can buy pre-fab brewstands from morebeer.com but that would put you out of your $2-$3k budget. I think their cheapest 10G system is $2,900 - and that's without kegging equipment. You don't need all that, but if you're brewing alone you're going to run into some problems just lifting, dumping, transferring etc...

Then you have to look at the mash tun. The systems you linked, if you'll notice, are using kettles as mash tuns. That's all well and good because it's certainly easier to find a 15G kettle than it is to find a 15G cylindrical cooler (they don't exist, as far as I'm aware). The problem with that is temperature control. For the mash, you want to keep it at a specific temperature - within a degree or two - for an hour. A kettle is not inherently insulated, so you'll need to do something to maintain temperatures. Not that this will be hard, you can do something as simple as throwing a blanket over the kettle during the mash, but it's just an additional challenge. It would be better if you have some kind of regulated temperature control, like a RIMS or HERMS, but that offers a whole other level of complexity.

Your other option, which doesn't really fit into your "no-DIY" requirements, would be to build a mash tun. If you want to make 10G batches, the highest OG you can probably go with a 10G mash tun is about 1.060 according to this chart. The OG of that recipe you linked is 1.090 - there's no way that grain bill would fit in a 10G mash tun. You would need a 15-20G mash tun to do this. So I mentioned the issues with using a kettle already. Your alternative is using a cooler, but as far as I'm aware, no one sells a pre-made 15-20G cooler mash tun. You'll have to build one using a rectangular cooler, and then building a copper or CPVC manifold, or using stainless steel braiding.

I don't think you necessarily need to go lower than 275, but you definitely can if you want. That being said, I would never wing it by trying to time the temperature. Pick up a probe thermometer, they're cheap and take all the guessing out of the reverse sear (and any cooking of meat in the oven), here's the one I have. I was freaked out to have that cord in the oven while it was on, but trust me, that's what they're made to do.

I do mine in the oven at 275 until the inside temp is about 125 for medium rare or about 135 for medium. Once it's at my desired temp, I pull it out of the oven and let is sit for 15 minutes. At 12 minutes, I start to heat a pan to get it as hot as possible. Any pan should work, but I like to use a cast iron skillet. I sear each side for about a minute and a half, then serve that sucker piping hot.

I know you didn't ask for this, but thought it might be helpful.

a simple analog probe thermometer is usually $5 or less.

You can also spring for a nicer one that has a cable so that you can leave it in the oven, it'll start to beep once the temp hits your desired setting.

I use something like this when cooking things in the oven: http://www.amazon.com/CDN-DTP482-Programmable-Probe-Thermometer/dp/B00046YFHE

I just bought this one for brewing and frying. I really like it.

A Probe thermometer is one of the best purchases for your kitchen you can make.

Would you recommend this for use with an air popper? I currently have [this guy](CDN DTP482 Programmable Probe Thermometer/Timer
http://amzn.com/B00046YFHE) sitting in my Amazon cart, but if I would actually benefit from running an actual chart versus just a spreadsheet of manually recorded times and temps (me roasting, wife recording), then it may be worth the cost of an actually air roaster to get a thermometer.

1. Buy this.
   
   
2. Never worry about undercooking meat again.

Cabled puncture probe thermometer connected to a display outside of the oven. Test the recipe a few times in the oven (different times and temperature settings) with the probe stuck in the centre of the meat, and observe the temperature dynamic and end temperature. Then record what works and what doesn't. Repeat as necessary until archiving perfection.

Edit: like this http://www.amazon.com/CDN-DTP482-Programmable-Probe-Thermometer/dp/B00046YFHE

Not sure what your budget is like, but you can get inexpensive meat thermometers for $10+. Many people overcook their meats without realizing it. A thermometer allows even a n00b to cook meat perfectly. When baking or roasting meats, I use something similar to this because the probe stays in the meat while cooking so I don't need to keep opening the oven, plus I can estimate how much longer the meat will need to cook (so I can time the side dishes to finish at the same time).