Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I am always amazed by the wide range of readings I get when I insert my beloved Thermapen into cook meat. Tonight, I cooked a couple of boneless ribeye steaks (actually 1 steak cut into two, about 1.5-1.75" thick) and the temperature range was wacky. For the record, the steaks were cooked in a very hot pan on side 1 for 3-4 minutes and then (('m guessing here) for about 6 minutes on the other side.

I'm assuming that some of the high readings were fat deposits but still - the range was considerable when I moved the tip of the thermometerup and down just a little. I tried a couple of other places and got the same variability. In the end, I made a judgement call and thankfully it worked out. But I still think that taking the temperature is not nearly as straightforward as what you see on ATK!

Any thoughts on how to get an accurate read or what constitutes an accurate read when using an instant thermometer? Also, I always take the temperature by poking the meat from the top and going down to the middle of the chop/steak. But I think it is sometimes/often recommended to poke the thermometer in via the side. If this is a better method, why is that the case?

Thanks!
Gerard

I poke in from the side when I'm thinking about it. There's less variation with probe distance because you'd have to go all the way to the other side of the piece of meat to get to the other side of the rare section, but with up & down you could have variation within an eighth of an inch.

I put the thermapen in at an angle. No reason why. I also get varying temps which isn't a big deal for steaks as we like ours very rare. For other meats I just keep penning it until I get a variety of temps which are closely consistent, and that seems to work.

For steaks, I always take the lowest reading. If it seems too high, I move up and down a little (usually up is the way to go). If the temps are fighting me a little and I can't seem to get a sane reading, I do it from the side. The worse case I think is when you just flipped, and then it seems that hot fat runs into the hole you made to take the temp. Very careful insertion helps. This used to happen to me a lot, but hardly ever now, I think you just subconsciously develop 'technique'.