In 2021, I hit a Thanksgiving home run.
After deciding to grill the turkey for the first time, the results were much better than expected. The guests were happy, it was recommended, and when I heard that we had a host again last year, I knew that it would be easy to repeat the juicy, delicious result.
But I was wrong. Last year’s turkey was a disaster, so overcooked that the thing was an inedible piece of gristle.
What’s going on? After reviewing the steps and comparing them to last year, I realized that I just left the turkey in my old oven too long without taking the temperature of the bird. When I took it out to test it with my old school thermometer, it had an internal temperature of 200 degrees and was rising fast. Experienced hands will know that it is WAY too hot – more than 35 degrees of heat than the suggested cooking temperatures – and the results were what you would expect: the turkey was overcooked and inedible.
Needless to say, this year, I wasn’t taking any chances. I would invest in a smart thermometer and track the bird’s temperature in real time.
Where is it? I decided I wanted to go with the Combustion because I liked the idea of keeping an accurate reading of the bird’s temperature from the center to the top (and the surrounding temperature) with the eight thermometer sensors. I also wanted to take advantage of Combustion’s predictive technology, which would give me a countdown and let me know when it would reach the target temperature.
I took the Combustion thermometer out of its bright yellow box on Thanksgiving morning. I had downloaded the app to my phone the day before, enabled it to connect via Bluetooth through the Combustion app, and made sure the thermometer was fully charged. I estimated that the turkey would take about four hours to cook at 300 degrees (that’s with convection – if I hadn’t used convection, I would have cooked it at 325). I set a target temperature of 160 degrees, knowing that the bird’s temperature would continue to rise after removing it from the oven and waited.
After about 30 minutes, Combustion gave me an estimate of when the turkey would reach my target temperature. Unsurprisingly, it cooked faster than my initial estimates, but I was prepared because I had a fire.
I looked down at the timer, and when it reached 160 degrees, the app told me it was time to remove the turkey. I double checked the temperature with my old school thermometer and it matched the temperature reading on my Fire thermometer. I put foil over the bird and let it sit for about 45 minutes before carving.
The result? Juicy turkey, right.
You’re probably asking why I haven’t used a smart thermometer before, and it’s a good question. The answer is that I should have, but I thought at the time I could do the math myself. Well, as it turns out, old ovens can be unpredictable (as it is possible to cook the turkey cooking time), and now Combustion will be a permanent thing for cooking the turkey cooking time.
Can I use another thermometer? Maybe, as long as it has enough sensors to measure indoor, outdoor, and ambient temperature. Although the original Meater had two sensors, it was unable to measure average, ambient, and surface temperatures. However, Meater’s latest thermometer, the Meater 2 Plus, has five internal sensors and an ambient sensor, so I thought that would work best.
But after my experience, I recommend a thermometer for predicting Combustion. The company is trying to get you to buy a thermometer and a yellow kitchen clock, but I’ve found the app to work with finding (and it meant a little mess on my counter). You can buy the thermometer by itself right now for $119, or buy the thermometer and watch for $159.