TaylorInstant Read Analog Meat Food Grill BBQ Cooking Kitchen Thermometer with Red Pocket Sleeve for Calibration, 1 inch dial, Stainless Steel

Every chef I have known has carried one of these instant thermometer's in the breast pocket of their chef coat. It hasn't changed in the 50 years since I was first introduced to them. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Pros:1) It can easily be recalibrated using the blue plastic carrying case/tool (test it using ice water, 32 F, or boiling water, 212 F at sea level). When that gets lost you can use a small wrench. Many other thermometers can't be calibrated and get tossed when they lose accuracy. The Taylor thermometer was accurate out of the box.2) It's simple and there is no battery that can die and can cost as much as the thermometer to replace.3) Excellent customer service. The first thermometer I received had an imperfection in the face and wasn't working properly after a month. I was ready to move on but thought I'd send them an e-mail to see if I could fix the problem, they responded and sent a replacement . All fine since then. Sure its only $6.39 but nice to find a company that stands behind their product. Another Taylor thermometer we have has lasted for years. I'll update if this one goes bad.Cons:1) Another customer commented the face is dime-size. It is somewhat small but not dime size, it's a quarter (see my photo), but easy enough to read to within a degree accuracy.2) It's a little slow to get a stable reading but I'm OK with that. Tested on a pan of hot water and at 10 sec it read 150F; 20 sec 160F; 30 sec 165F; 40 sec 167F and that's where it remained. So within 20-30 sec good enough for government work. I'd rather have it accurate than fast and wrong.3) It wasn't made for the oven (it has a hard plastic face), so you have to take the meat out and then take the temperature. I haven't found this a big problem.Overall: excellent value. Because they stood behind their product I bought a second thermometer -- so I can quickly get 2 temp. readings and make sure the whole meat is at the same temp.

Easy to use, accurate and generally the type of kitchen utensil that everyone should have.

Product works exactly as needed. The only reason for a star deduction is it does have a rattle if you tap it. The fact you can calibrate it is big for me because you can keep it accurate. Some comments mention it takes a long time, it does take longer than instant digital but it isn't that slow. Working in a kitchen dial is what I have dealt with and it's the same speed. I had to throw away 3 digital reads because they were all insanely inaccurate with no way to calibrate. The sleeve alows you to adjust as needed and also serves as a holder in your pocket when cooking. Dial is small as some have said but again nothing you wouldn't see in a kitchen and certainly is still easy to see the temperature to the degree.

**UPDATE** As you can see in the comments, Taylor reached out to me concerning my experience with their thermometer. The happily sent me a replacement, free of charge even though I threw out the first one. When I received it, I began with the ice water test and it was only 1 degree different (about 33 deg.) than my digital instant read. Awesome, no adjustment out of the box this time. Later that evening I was cooking chicken for dinner. Again, the thermometer match within 1-2 degrees of my digital. I guess the first one was defective. It happens. I hold Taylor in high regards because of this experience. It's refreshing to see that a company still cares about it's customers, even those who only purchased a $6 thermometer.I bought this as a supplement to my digital probe thermometer. I'm not sure if this was defective, but I could never get the temp adjusted correctly, or even close for that matter. I placed it in ice water, and adjusted the temp to 32. When I stuck it in some cooked chicken, it read wildly under compared to the digital that I have. So, I adjusted it to match the digital (165). The next time I cooked a mid rare steak, I checked it and compared it to my digital. This time it was way over in the well done range, even though the meat was mid rare. After dancing this dance for a few days, I gave up. I missed the return window, so it went into the trash.

Same problem as what another reviewer had seen. It reads 40 half-submerged in water and 200 in water at a roaring boil. I calibrated the thermometer to the ice water and, surprise, now it reads boiling water at 190. I wanted it to measure water temperature for french press, so i re-calibrated it for boiling water and it now reads ice water at 50.I think it will be accurate enough for measuring my boiling water, but if a product shows a dial ranging from 0F to 220F, it should be accurate in that range, no excuses! Sure it is cheap, but truth in advertising is important, because I would have just passed up this item if I knew it would not be accurate.You know, I could sell a wooden block with a dial painted on it pointed to 212F for $1 as a thermometer and say, "Hey! At least it accurately measures the temperature of boiling water, and look how cheap it is! Don't be so demanding of a cheap product." But it wouldn't be very useful and you'd be out that money. Sure it would be cheap, but if it doesn't do what should be expected of it, then it is still a waste of money.

Much slower than Comark. The storage sleeve did not have the adjustment wrench as advertised