Best Kitchen Timers

[bleachboy]

...thermometers with probes that can be left in the oven and readouts that remain outside. A good thermometer of that sort is going to cost you $150.

Does anybody know of one of these that can stand up to the heat of, say, broiling? It would make lots of cooking chores much less of a headache, but mine says it's only oven-safe up to 400 degrees or something, and I haven't yet seen one that doesn't come with such warnings.

[bigwino]

I use my instant read thermometer for home cooking all the time. There are many times in a home environment when a probe doesn't work well. Bleachboy, unfortunately I think broiling is one of them. The probes fry pretty easily at very high temperatures. High temp grilling is another place where the probe is likely to die.

On the other hand, I think the Thermapen is too expensive for typical home cooking use. I have a digital one from Taylor that works fine. It's slower to come to a final reading than the Thermapen, but I'll keep the $60 or so difference and deal with the inaccuracy (which hasn't presented a problem for me yet) and the lack of speed.

[thursdaynext]

The Pyrex Digital Probe Oven Thermometer/Timer is the one I currently use, similar to the Taylor and Polder probe model others have mentioned. I've tested the probe against my hand-held meat thermometer and it has been consistently accurate within a degree or two.

Edited April 14, 2004 by thursdaynext (log)

[Dahomechef]

A good thermometer of that sort is going to cost you $150.

FG--good point. Supposing I had the 150 to spend, do you know any reputable brands, or is this a treasure hunt among scientific equipment manufacturers?

[Ruth]

When it comes to timers the multiple timers are my absolute nemesis. I had a West Bend dual timer for about fifteen years. It was simple to use and I should have looked for the same brand when it died. Alas, I bought a Polder dual timer, followed by a CDN. Both demand so many steps to go from one timer to the next that your food is half cooked before you figure it out correctly. However the Polder temperature probe is fairly reliable as long as it lasts (I am on my third). Still I never rely on one thermometer. I use a Thermopen (absolutely reliable) to check meats and fish and a Raytex infrared for oil, liquids and oven. I also recently bought an oven probe from Williams Sonoma - so far so good. It's not that I am so fanatical about one degree more or less but over-cooked anything reduces me to tears.

So now I have timers on my probes and no longer have to worry about setting "timer 2".

[Dahomechef]

I just had 2 timers go south. One was a triple timer and the other a quattro timer. These are a mixed blessing. When I have more than two things to time, you know I'm madly dashing around. At this point one of the timers goes off, stopping me in my tracks and, inevitably, leaving me staring at the damn thing, wondering "what the heck was that one for???" Gnash teeth, repeat.

[balmagowry]

I just had 2 timers go south.

Just goes to prove: you can't ever trust 2-timers.

[mamster]

I've been living with the Polder for a couple of weeks now, and I still like it, but it has one annoyance that hadn't occurred to me earlier: you can't add time to it. If the timer has five minues left on it and you want to add five more, you have to stop, clear, and enter ten minutes. You can't just stop it and hit the "minute" button a few times, because there is no minute button.

[Rachel Perlow]

I can do that with the Taylor, but the temp is off by a few degrees.

[Chad]

Damn, that Thermapen is just cool. I think I need one. Now, if these guys would just do a timer/probe thermometer like the Pyrex/Polders we'd be in business.

Chad

[laurel]

Damn, that Thermapen is just cool. I think I need one. Now, if these guys would just do a timer/probe thermometer like the Pyrex/Polders we'd be in business.

Chad

I noticed these on the same site as the thermapen: http://www.thermoworks.com/products/handheld/index.html

Anyone have an idea of whether they would work in a stick-it-in-the-oven-and-close-the-door way?

[rascal]

hey y'all...

i was wondering if anyone knows where i could buy a digital kitchen timer with a 10-minute button. ie, i would ideally like to have hour, 10-minute, and minute buttons. i poked around the net for a while and couldn't find something like that.

it seems like a miniscule detail but my old one kicked the bucket and i'd like to find one like that. i seem to make a lot of dishes requiring 30 to 45 minute cook times and i get irritated punching the minute button. heck, i'd even rather have a 10-minute than an hour...

thanks in advance for your help!

[Lori in PA]

This is my hands-down favorite timer -- I own two:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004S4U...glance&n=284507

[andiesenji]

hey y'all...

  i was wondering if anyone knows where i could buy a digital kitchen timer with a 10-minute button.  ie, i would ideally like to have hour, 10-minute, and minute buttons.  i poked around the net for a while and couldn't find something like that.

it seems like a miniscule detail but my old one kicked the bucket and i'd like to find one like that.  i seem to make a lot of dishes requiring 30 to 45 minute cook times and i get irritated punching the minute button.  heck, i'd even rather have a 10-minute than an hour...

thanks in advance for your help!

←

I have the CDN timer - fifth down on this page. that has a keypad so you can enter the exact time you want the timer to sound. It is easy to set and has a pretty loud signal. I have several timers and this one is used a great deal because I can hear it even when appliances are operating and making a fair amount of noise. At 20.00 it seems expensive but I have paid more for less useful timers.

CDN makes several - I think Fantes has an excellent selection.

[phatj]

I have one of these guys, although mine is unbranded, I think, and was cheaper. I think it cost about $5 at a Tuesday Morning store.

No buttons for setting the time, you just spin the dial. My only complaint is that if you want to set a large time, spinning the dial faster doesn't make the setting increase faster.

[Kent Wang]

The best are the Fisher Scientific ones that I used to order through a laboratory supply catalog. It makes you feel like a scientist! I have one that has a digital keypad, two timers (count-up or down) and a clock. I used to have one with four timers but no digital keypad. I think multiple timers are key for cooking.

The true timer aficianados (ok, nerds) are speech and debate competitors who have to time their speeches. It has to be light, fits nicely in your hand, have lots of features. Ask any debater (I was one in high school) and he'll tell you exactly which make and model he's got. He can probably even identify different models from the chimes.

[deltadoc]

Last weekend America's Test Kitchen tested kitchen timers. I believe the hands down favorite was the digital West Bend.

doc

[andiesenji]

Unless I misunderstood the first post, I believe she asked for a timer that one didn't have to push the minute button to get to the time she wanted by advancing it a minute at a time.

Most keypad, direct entry, timers are fairly expensive. The CDN timer is only $20.00

It takes a beating in my kitchen, has been dropped on the floor, shut in the freezer (I put it down in the freezer when juggling a couple of packages of frozen meat) and picked up and carried around by my dog. It still works.

[Chad]

hey y'all...

  i was wondering if anyone knows where i could buy a digital kitchen timer with a 10-minute button.  ie, i would ideally like to have hour, 10-minute, and minute buttons.  i poked around the net for a while and couldn't find something like that.

Rascal, despite having several timer/thermometers (whose probes seem to keep dying), I haven't found one that has a 10 minute button, though I agree that having to press 'n' hold for anything less than an hour is a PITA.

Be that as it may, welcome to eGullet, if no one has mentioned it so far. And that is a very nice scroll you're sporting in your avatar. If I had to guess, I'd say an early teens to mid 1920s F4. And if I were really to go out on a limb, I might guess it's from a mandola. Am I close?

Take care,

Chad

[scott123]

I've got 3 digital timers. A polder with 3 timers incorporated into it that all can be run simultaneously, a cheap super simple ekco that I got from walmart and a taylor probe thermometer w/ timer. None of them have a ten minute button. The taylor probe thermometer has one time setting feature that I like. If you hold down the minute button, the value increases- quickly. I just timed it. It takes about 7 seconds to go from 0 to 60 minutes. The ekco, on the other hand, takes 40 seconds. A 10 minute button would be great, though. It's amazing how many of the foods I cook/bake take 40 or 50 minutes.

[Toliver]

I have a simple timer (made by Barclay Geneve...I can't find a duplicate anywhere) that has only a minute button and an hour button, plus Start and Stop/Cancel.

The nice feature about it is that it beeps at the "10 minutes left" mark and again at the "5 minutes left" mark. I wish all my timers did that. It's spoiled me rotten. And when I need to time something for 50 minutes. I just hit the hour button once and when the first beep sounds, I know it's been 50 minutes.

I also have a Pampered Chef timer with a keypad so you can enter the exact time you need. The only problem with it is that it doesn't take "normal" batteries and it's a pain to have to make a special stop to try and find the replacement battery.

[eJulia]

My kitchen timer is a Sunbeam, which I couldn't find online, but it is very similar in function to this one:

Acurite kitchen timer

It lists itself as a BBQ timer, but if you read the description on this page, I think you'll find it works well as an all-purpose kitchen timer. I especially like that it has three ways to display it - magnet (for fridge or oven), clip (for clothing if you're going to be outside) and a little easel thing that works for the counter.

Note it counts up and down and can be used to count down increments of time (like every 15 minutes) for stirring or turning.

Please note, I am not advocating this website as the cheapest or best, I just thought it's description was most complete.

Hope this helps!

[Richard Kilgore]

My trusty kitchen timer has died and I am looking for a replacement. This was a really useful triple timer - small (about 2 1/2" square), sleek, with three timer buttons along the top, hour minute, second and start/stop/memory buttons along the bottom, and clock and clear buttons along the right hand side. Three digital displays stacked in a center square screen. Magnet/clip on back. I got it at Williams-Sonoma perhaps 10 years ago.

I would like to find something similar with three timers built in, but am open to other options. What's out there this year?

[Fat Guy]

My Polder timer/thermometer is on its last legs, so I'll be interested in the results here, though I think I'm committed to a unit with thermometer probe, which radically limits my choices.

Richard, one thing to be sure of is that whichever timer you get should have "count-up." I've seen ones that don't, which seems like a major design flaw to me. Count-up, meaning that after your 14 minutes or whatever have elapsed and the timer gets to 0:00 and beeps, it then starts counting up so you know how long past T you've gone.

[Richard Kilgore]

Yes, my old one has count up, also. That's important.

You may want to check out the various options from Maverick Industries for your probe thermometer/timer. Here's one clickety-click with two probes.