Thermaworks Smoke – Review by Marcus Bawdon

The Thermoworks Smoke is recently available in the UK. It is a definite upgrade for those looking for something a bit more substantial and easier to use than a maverick.

The main screen is a great size with large numbers…meaning a glance at the temperatures are often enough. But if you are moving further away from the bbq…then the range is impressive…easily a few hundred feet. The length of our garden and inside the kitchen. At £78 delivered it’s a real contender.

The portable receiver unit is well designed easy to read and solid. The whole thing reeks of reliability and long use. It’s a 2 probe thermometer. Ideally the option for a third or fourth probe would make a good upgrade. The probes themselves are robust and come with one ambient and one for the food. Alarms are easy to set and very loud.

This is my favourite thermometer at the moment and has been well thought through for the bbq market. A WiFi bridge is soon to be available here in the UK which will mean you’ll be able to monitor your cooking from down the pub…

02/07/201803/02/2022

Meater Wireless Thermometer – Review by Paul Niland

When Matt from Meater approached UK BBQ week and asked if anyone would like to try the product I wanted to give it a go.

With the rotisserie, consistency in the setup; the fuel and the weather conditions are all factors that can make or break your Sunday roast or your game changing Turkey during the holidays. When you first start using the rotisserie you tend to increase your cook times or affect the temperature by lifting the lid of your BBQ. What I really needed was a probe with no wires! In comes the Meater “The First Wireless Smart Meat Thermometer”

So how did I get on with it? Overall I liked the product. I have been watching it for a while with anticipation that it would be great for the rotisserie and it was. I found the temperature accuracy to be good, sometimes the same as my Thermapen or 1-2 degrees different. The app was very clear and simple to use and consistent between Apple and Android devices. I found the setup simple (maybe because I work in technology) and using the combination of Bluetooth, WIFI and the Meater Cloud Feature, I found syncing devices worked very well. I did see a few tweets about range so for my setup I used an old IPAD approx. 2m away from the BBQ. My shack is more than 10m from my house, so I knew it would be outside of the Bluetooth range and may have problems if I tried without it. In the future, the mini block should certainly act as the bridge.

Setting up the cooks was very good and simple, though the presets were aimed towards the US market based on USDA guidelines. There were a great deal of support videos on their youtube channel that helped you get started with examples of how to use the product. Being from the UK, I did find these quite Americanised. Also as a BBQ fanatic, I tend to avoid using the oven at all costs so some of these videos did not appeal to me.

Monitoring the cook was very good, I tried a combination of Apple and Android devices and found them to be consistent. Randomly the connection would drop, I could not explain this though it was not frequent enough to affect my cook.

The bit that let me down was the battery, I cooked a whole chicken with some serious smoke and after washing the probe it did not charge too well. You have to give it a serious scrub between cooks to get enough contact for it to charge. There is a little LED battery indicator though I think this was just for the batteries in the block and not relevant to the probe. Also the app does not currently give an indication of how much life is left so if you like your low and slow it can be quite worrying. This in fact did happen to me and I was surprised after a quick 30 min charge I could not resume where I left off.

There has been some concerns in the UK BBQ community regarding the range, and temperature accuracy. I did not see these problems during my cooks though knowing the people who had these problems I believe them to be genuine and I have discussed these with the Meater team.

Overall, would I buy the probe? The short answer is yes. Is it the finished product for the general BBQ market? I will let the community decide as Its possible there are some factors that may affect your experience of using the product. Will there be some improvements? Certainly, speaking with Matt at length about the team, their vision and their approach to improvement, I see this being very good in the future as more people start using it for BBQ and provide their feedback.

If you would like to know more, you can find more information about the probe from the official website https://meater.com

What’s Good

What could be improved

Estimated cook time feature – A game changer
Temperature accuracy is good
Meater Cloud option for syncing devices and viewing temps on the move works well
Support for Apple/Android devices
Presentation of the app looks great and is simple to use.
Combination of Bluetooth and WIFI setup is simple to do.
Setting up the cook, naming them and changing temps during was easy to do
Customising your preferred settings such as C/F was easy to do.
The email, asking for your feedback after each cook is very innovative and great service.

Need for an intermediate device for this to be great for BBQ. – This should be the small block.
Connections to the device can drop intermittently.
If smoke is not scrubbed of the end it does not change too well.
The LED Charge light not relevant to the probe, so your not sure if it is charged well enough
With no battery life indicator in the app, long cooks are also a bit worrying.
When the battery runs out it does not preserve progress especially when the cook was on the cloud.
App use quite a lot of battery
Although I really like it, the estimated cook time takes a while to show. So you cant really leave a short cook.
Alerts can be annoying and re-appear after acknowledging them.
Temperate presets are US based
Product support videos are US based

13/08/201703/02/2022

Controlling the Temperature of your BBQ

Learning to cook different food on your BBQ means controlling the temperature is key so we’ve put together some tips to help you add the right amount of fuel and maintain that temperature using your vents.

Why controlling the temperature of your BBQ is important

It may be easy to fall under the illusion that cooking at a higher temperature will result in your food being cooked faster and as long as you turn it regularly it will be fine however this isn’t the case.

By dialing your temperature back a little and cooking over a controlled heat, the experience is a little more relaxed, your food will cook more evenly and you won’t have to turn or move your food around so much to avoid it burning. Every time you turn or move your food, you will lose a little bit of the natural juices. Turning something like a burger once or twice during cooking will avoid this however turning it 10-15 times to avoid it burning on the outside will result in them drying out.

I’m not going to pretend that temperature control is easy to master, it can take some practice to get right, however there are a few simple principles that will make it easier for you.

Controlling the temperature on your gas BBQ

Controlling the temperature on your Gas BBQ is simple as it is similar to the conventional oven in your kitchen. You can easily control the amount of gas being supplied to each burner using the controls on the front of your BBQ and therefore decide how high or low the temperature is. After pre-heating your BBQ, you can adjust the valves up or down to increase or reduce the temperature.

The basic principle of controlling heat is this:

More fuel = More heat

It is really easy to demonstrate this on a gas BBQ. Opening the valve more provides more gas to the the burner giving you more heat. Opening the valve less will provide less gas to the burner and therefore less heat.

These same rules apply to a charcoal BBQ. The key to hitting the right temperature is by using the correct amount of fuel.

Using the right amount of fuel in your charcoal BBQ

A charcoal BBQ can be a little intimidating when it comes to temperature control as there can be a lot of guess work involved when you are getting started. A recipe will always give you a guide temperature to cook your food at but converting that over to the right amount of charcoal to add can be tricky so here I’ve always found that this is a great place to start.

If you are using a Weber chimney starter to light your coals, and using a long lasting briquette, the following measurements should allow you to hit some key target temperatures. These measurements are based on a 47cm and 57cm kettle BBQ.

Lumpwood Charcoal can vary due to it’s irregular size but keeping notes on measurements and the resulting temperature will soon give you your go to levels.

Controlling the temperature on your BBQ can be a stumbling point for beginners so here are some tips to help you get to grips with it.

Hitting the exact temperature isn’t essential

One of the first hurdles I had to overcome was to think of BBQ temperatures in ranges rather than an exact temperature. I wasted a lot of time agonising over getting the temperature to exactly what the recipe stated but the great thing about BBQ is that it isn’t an exact science. Let me give you an example.

If I was setting my BBQ up for low and slow cooking and the recipe stated that I should be cooking at 110 C, I would light the charcoal and bring the BBQ up to temperature. I would adjust the vents, remove a few coals or add a few more until the temperature was exactly 110C. It took a lot of time to get this just right and I now realise that it wasn’t completely necessary.

Getting your temperature within a range is absolutely fine, the important thing is to maintain a consistent temperature. So if a recipe states 110C, as long as you are in the range of 105C to 120C then you won’t go far wrong.

Allow the temperature to settle before putting your food on the grill.

After you have lit your coals in your chimney starter and poured them into the BBQ, put the lid on and leave the temperature to settle. It can take a little time for the coals to finish lighting and reach their peak temperature. If your temperature is running a little high, you can remove some of the charcoal or adjust your vents a little (which we will discuss in the second half of this article) to even out your temperature. Once your temperature is sitting steady, you can add your food.

Keep a note of how much charcoal you are adding each time you cook and what temperature it resulted in.

You don’t have to count the number of briquettes or weigh your lumpwood but simply keeping a note of ‘½ Chimney starter, ⅓ Chimney starter’ etc and the resulting temperature will allow you to refer back to it at a later date.

Controlling the temperature using your vents

Airflow through your BBQ is important to keep your coals burning and your vents can be used to control the heat being produced by your coals. With the lid closed and both top and bottom vents fully open, air will be drawn through the bottom vent and exhausted through the top vent creating an airflow through your BBQ.

Closing both vents completely will result in your charcoal extinguishing as you have removed the oxygen supply needed for fire to burn. Using this theory, it is possible to restrict the amount of air flowing through your BBQ by adjusting the top and bottom vents.

I highly recommend adjusting the amount of fuel added to achieve your desired temperature rather than relying on the vents to manage your temperature. Vents are great for fine tuning your temperature and finding the ideal vent setup will allow you to maintain a steady temperature however if you have added too much fuel you will struggle to keep the temperature down using vents alone.

The smallest of adjustments to your vents can have a dramatic impact on the temperature of your BBQ but remember that closing them off too much can result in your coals going out. If you find your temperature is running a little high or is starting to climb, closing the top and bottom vents by a few millimetres can be enough to steady the temperature. If your temperature is well above your target range, I would remove some of the lit coals to bring it down then fine tune with the vents.

While you are recording the amount of charcoal used in your BBQ journal, make a few notes about the final vent setup used to achieve your temperature. You will then begin to learn your go to vent settings for specific temperature zones.

Fire management can be tricky to master and maintaining a steady temperature for the duration of a long cook is something that will get easier with experience so don’t be disheartened if you struggle the first few times you do it.

Remember that it is easier to add a little charcoal to your BBQ if your temperature is low than to bring down a high temperature. Having the right size of fire at the start will make keeping the temperature consistent a lot easier with your vents.

Sign up for our FREE Newsletter

Keep up to date with all the latest news on UK BBQ Week by entering your name and email address below. We will send you our latest recipes, helpful articles and details on our latest competitions.