Preston Davenport
TVWBB Fan
Brian,
You might try with the Taylor as they are a specified thermistor in their probe. They are $5 from Taylor and that includes shipping at last notice.
Now to everyone else...in regards to accuracy, remember folks these are all not precision instruments. For example the range is supposedly 32 F to 400 F. Thats a 368 F span. You want 1% accuracy? That's +/-3.68 F. Very very difficult to get that sort of actual accuracy and precision in any type of instrument. Whats your calibration source? Boiling water? What altitude? How pure the water? Whats the atmospheric pressure in the home (is the furnace or a/c on?). Whats the humidity in the home when the test was performed. All these things are just some of the parameters considered in calibration and testing of instruments and the home test is only a rough estimate in terms of instrumentation and calibration.
Check out the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) or Instrumentation Society of America (ISA) and look at their documentation regarding metrology and measurement and accuracy.
In short what I am saying is...if you are getting close to +/- 5 F (1.5% accuracy) or even +/- 10 F (thats about 3% accuracy) with the Polder or Taylor units thats actually quite good.
I think the best way to use these instruments is to make sure they will allow you repeatability of product. Like last time I cooked brisket to what the probe said was 190 F temperature and it looked good and poked good and tasted perfect when I took it off the smoker. Next time I am going to try and repeat that...whether the probe is accurate or not I will take the brisket off when it meets the criteria of 190 F and it looks good and pokes good. I think that is the best way to use the probe.
So keep measuring it the same way in the home calibration test (ice water then boiling water) and just make sure it does not deviate from the previous test by much. Remember the whole idea is to record in your log (you ARE using a log book of your cooks aren't you?) what you did and use the probes as a tool to help in the repeatability of good product.
Hope this helps and sorry for the long post...I use to be a design engineer for control and instrumentation systems at Kennedy Space Center in Florida so this stuff...is a geeky kinda fun for me...
Merry Christmas...my wife is going to kill me for being on the computer.. /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
But tomorrow the whole Christmas dinner on the WSM and she does not have to cook in the kitchen at all!
PrestonD
You might try with the Taylor as they are a specified thermistor in their probe. They are $5 from Taylor and that includes shipping at last notice.
Now to everyone else...in regards to accuracy, remember folks these are all not precision instruments. For example the range is supposedly 32 F to 400 F. Thats a 368 F span. You want 1% accuracy? That's +/-3.68 F. Very very difficult to get that sort of actual accuracy and precision in any type of instrument. Whats your calibration source? Boiling water? What altitude? How pure the water? Whats the atmospheric pressure in the home (is the furnace or a/c on?). Whats the humidity in the home when the test was performed. All these things are just some of the parameters considered in calibration and testing of instruments and the home test is only a rough estimate in terms of instrumentation and calibration.
Check out the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) or Instrumentation Society of America (ISA) and look at their documentation regarding metrology and measurement and accuracy.
In short what I am saying is...if you are getting close to +/- 5 F (1.5% accuracy) or even +/- 10 F (thats about 3% accuracy) with the Polder or Taylor units thats actually quite good.
I think the best way to use these instruments is to make sure they will allow you repeatability of product. Like last time I cooked brisket to what the probe said was 190 F temperature and it looked good and poked good and tasted perfect when I took it off the smoker. Next time I am going to try and repeat that...whether the probe is accurate or not I will take the brisket off when it meets the criteria of 190 F and it looks good and pokes good. I think that is the best way to use the probe.
So keep measuring it the same way in the home calibration test (ice water then boiling water) and just make sure it does not deviate from the previous test by much. Remember the whole idea is to record in your log (you ARE using a log book of your cooks aren't you?) what you did and use the probes as a tool to help in the repeatability of good product.
Hope this helps and sorry for the long post...I use to be a design engineer for control and instrumentation systems at Kennedy Space Center in Florida so this stuff...is a geeky kinda fun for me...
Merry Christmas...my wife is going to kill me for being on the computer.. /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
But tomorrow the whole Christmas dinner on the WSM and she does not have to cook in the kitchen at all!
PrestonD
