The brilliant Meater wireless thermometer makes it almost impossible to overcook meat

published 20 February 2019

Meater meat thermometer, by Apption Labs, may have one of the worst punning names of any product in the history of commerce, but it's also one of the best things I've ever been sent. And I am jaded as hell, so that is considerable praise.

It's of no use to vegans, and minimal use to fish eaters, but if you regularly enjoy large portions of expensive meat, and want to do justice to all the effort that has gone into rearing, butchering and delivering it to you, Meater is a revelation. Even if you're already in the habit of using a meat thermometer, it will probably teach you new things about cooking meat. It certainly did for me.

The Meater and Meater+ tell you how long to cook your meat for and, *crucially*, how long to rest it for before eating, via a simple app. The Meater+ has a longer wireless range.

Obviously there are plenty of other meat thermometers, and plenty of ways to carefully calculate your cooking times. There are even a few other wireless thermometers. None I've seen is as compact or as simple as Meater.

It works like this. Download the iOS or Android app, charge the Meater on its little wooden charging block – powered, weirdly but conveniently, by a AAA battery rather than a plug and wire – then plunge it into your chosen meat. I practiced on a couple of cheap cuts before doing a Waitrose côte de bouef.

The app connects to the Meater via Bluetooth, with a range of 10m, which I think is generally fine. I just used an old iPad with it rather than my phone, since I tend to meander about my extensive estate with my phone, running the risk of going out of range.

Oh! You can also get the Meater+, which adds an extender for up to 50 meaters – sorry, metres – of range. You can meander where you like, with that.

Meater smart meat thermometer — The Meater app in action

You select your chosen meaty supper from a long list and then, where appropriate, select your cooking preference from rare to well done – obviously this option is not available with chicken. You can also just ignore that and dial in your favoured internal temperature for whatever you're frying, roasting, grilling or barbecuing.

And that's pretty much where your involvement ends. The timer begins – first counting up then, when it's been cooking long enough to estimate the finished time – counting down.

The important bit, I've found is that it also calculates resting time. This really makes all the difference to the flavour and texture of meat. Even if you're familiar with the importance of resting meat, the way Meater shows you the temperature at all times is highly educational at this stage.

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Gratuitous photos of meat cooking

Meater can also be used for fish, and even large vegetables in theory, but as the name suggests, it is mainly for meat.

It will tell you to take the meat out when it's well below your chosen cooked temperature, which did initially cause some consternation. Meat continues to cook after being removed from a heat source but it's still a worry when you have selected 55º for a medium rare bit of beef, and the Meater app tells you to pull it out at a barely legal 43º or so.

However, sure enough, with Meater does calculate the right duration of resting, and you see the internal temp gradually tick up to your chosen level, or a bit above, depending on whether you keep it in the pan or roaster but off the heat, or transfer it to a warm plate with a bit of foil plonked on top.

Even with resting time, you may be surprised at how much quicker this is than what the ultra-safe cooking times printed on supermarket meat suggest. It also allows for pro-grade results such as having meat that is seared and charred on the outside but still tender and pink on the inside. It's not really a product for people who like their steaks well done.

The Meater's size and lack of any wires mean it can be used in any form of cooker apart from a microwave – because it's metal, and that is not good news in a microwave.

In summary, Meater is among the best purchases the advanced student of meat studies can make. It's basically cheating.

• Amazon has a variety of multi-Meater bundles available

• Direct from the manufacturer you can also get a four-Meater block

Duncan is the former lifestyle editor of T3 and has been writing about tech for almost 15 years. He has covered everything from smartphones to headphones, TV to AC and air fryers to the movies of James Bond and obscure anime. His current brief is everything to do with the home and kitchen, which is good because he is an excellent cook, if he says so himself. He also covers cycling and ebikes – like over-using italics, this is another passion of his. In his long and varied lifestyle-tech career he is one of the few people to have been a fitness editor despite being unfit and a cars editor for not one but two websites, despite being unable to drive. He also has about 400 vacuum cleaners, and is possibly the UK's leading expert on cordless vacuum cleaners, despite being decidedly messy. A cricket fan for over 30 years, he also recently become T3's cricket editor, writing about how to stream obscure T20 tournaments, and turning out some typically no-nonsense opinions on the world's top teams and players.

Before T3, Duncan was a music and film reviewer, worked for a magazine about gambling that employed a surprisingly large number of convicted criminals, and then a magazine called Bizarre that was essentially like a cross between Reddit and DeviantArt, before the invention of the internet. There was also a lengthy period where he essentially wrote all of T3 magazine every month for about 3 years.

A broadcaster, raconteur and public speaker, Duncan used to be on telly loads, but an unfortunate incident put a stop to that, so he now largely contents himself with telling people, "I used to be on the TV, you know."

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Gratuitous photos of meat cooking