Taylor Dual Temp Infrared Thermocouple Thermometer, Multi-Functional Infrared Mode, Dual Line LCD, HOLD, Min/Max; Step Down Probe, Water Resistant, Black

This is the best I've ever used - stop looking cuz this has it all.And sadly (!!!) I've bought tons (here on Amazon) that I've had to throw out!! Seriously it sucks but not anymore.I've been cooking for over 4 decades and have dealt with many poor performing, poorly designed thermometers (old metal with glass top meat therm, several manual candy therms, and one electric therm).The meat therm is from decades ago and is there for nostalgia :-) the candy therms.. manual and elect were bought here on Amz recently.The manual therms are so-so and a pain to use with chocolate and make things worse. They hard to get an accurate temp because the clips that keep them attached to a double-boiler (for example) get in the way and cause chocolate to cool and harden around the bulb. BAD! So the temp is the chocolate cooled on the bulb and not what's melting (or not) in the cooking pan. Even stirring isn't enough. You have to rub off the bulb and this is beyond a pain.The other electric therm was an el-cheapo that was a metal probe only based unit that was inaccurate.This has both infrared checking and handy metal probe for insertion. You can use both and confirm. Both are very good and very close.The infrared detector is a LIFESAVER with chocolate in a double boiler!! Aim the thing for the surface of the melted chocolate and click the button and you can quickly aim the IR and the temp (C or F) is taken and held for a few seconds for you to read close up (bad eyes here).This is so awesome.. no chocolate wasted, accurate and quick as well.I've confirmed the probe too and they are really close. The nice thing about the probe is that it's slim and little food product is wasted so it's just an easy wipe down to clean (when you want to confirm with probe).I use the IR on everything now. Cool to see the temp of my bread as it's rising. I can confirm the correct temp for the yeast to grow. No disturbing the raising dough.. just aim, click and voila.

I bought the Taylor 9306 thermometer and a CDN analog thermocouple Turkey fryer thermometer at the same time from Amazon. Checked them both for correct measurement of BP of water, Taylor was right on both with probe and IR. Calibrated the CDN and set about to use it while making french fries. The CDN and Taylor both agreed when 250 deg F was attained which was the correct temp for the precook of the fries. Assuming (I recomend not making any assumptions concerning boiling oil!) everything was working with the CDN I set the Taylor aside and cranked up the heat to head for 350 deg to finish the fries. The CDN pointer stopped at about 290 deg so I thought I needed to turn the heat up, so I did, still no movement on the CDN pointer. Decided I had better check using the Taylor. Oil temp was 440 deg and rising! If nothing else, the Taylor saved my catfish and fries dinner from disaster. More importantly it may have saved me from a very dangerous kitchen situation.Moral of the story: It's worth the extra money to have at least one thermometer you can count on for being accurate. Having the dual mode gives even more confidence that you really do know what the temp is.I have but one `con' w/r to the Taylor. I wish the LCD display had a backlight. I was surprised at how many places in the kitchen it was a bit difficult to read the display. Could be a real problem for evening/night times at the grill.I have no experience with the Thermopen which apparently gives almost instantaneous readings but the Taylor is fast enough for me. I have seen it go from ambient room temp to 360 deg in 4 or 5 seconds. Getting to med rare steak temp is pretty fast.It's very easy to use, instruction manual is clear and easy to understand. Bottom line, I like it after just a few days I feel it was a very good investment.

I really like this product. It has a nice solid compact feel, the buttons are ambidextrous (though a little easier to use correctly in the right hand), its water proof, easy to clean, etc. The probe tip seems to be the same size as most of the other thermocouple thermometers (3mm diameter with a reduced 2mm tip that is 10mm long.It seems to be fairly accurate, the probe shows the temp of boiling water around 211 and took less then 2 seconds to go from 65 to 211 which is really fast. The infrared part of it is a little harder to gauge. I pointed it at a few things along with my MicroTemp Pro and the Pro normally showed a few deg hotter then the Taylor. Nether gauged boiling water very well since it is "clear". I can't really find anything else that I know should have a defined temp to test it on. But the infrared is really only useful for measuring things like frying pans and the inside of your oven, neither of which require single degree accuracy. The other really (ok relatively) cool thing is they included a built in led light along with the infrared thermometer, while meant for aiming, this is also nice for checking things in a dark oven.I have never used the Thermapen, which seems to be its chief competition. I could see where the Thermapen could be simpler to use since it is just a probe, and a little easier to read since it has just the temp on its display. But neither of those things seem to much of a draw back vs a built in infrared thermometer for about the same price.