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Appreciation post: the $12 probe thermometer beat my 20 years of touch checks
I used to test steaks by poking the palm of my hand, same as my old chef at a spot in Boise taught me back in 2003. Last month I grabbed a cheap digital probe for a catering gig and started logging temps next to my hand checks. My palm was reading medium rare at 138 internal, which is basically rare, and I sent out 14 plates that were under before I caught on. Nobody complained, but that is worse, because they just quietly ate it. Anyone else find out the hard way that their hands were lying?
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king.val13h ago
Poking your palm tells you nothing at all, it just tells you the meat feels firm, not what the inside is doing. Ran into the same thing years back with chicken, kept swearing it was done and a buddy stuck a probe in and it was 20 degrees off what my fingers said. Long story short every hand check is just a guess dressed up as skill, and the worst part is when nobody sends it back you never learn. Cheap probe saved me more embarrassment than any chef yelling ever did.
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