Meater is a cooking thermometer that I had been keen on testing for some time. However, be careful of those who know better. I must admit I am an infrequent cook, and for my review, I pegged myself against my wife and mother-in-law. This review of the Meater Plus is what happened next.
Meater Plus with Bluetooth Repeater
| Price (RRP) | $199 |
| Website | Meater Australia |
| From | Meater |
| Warranty | 12 months |
| Manual or Support pages | User guide |
| Country of Manufacture | China |
| About | Apption Labs (Meater) is an innovative technology start-up dedicated to developing smarter consumer products connected to the Internet and controlled by mobile devices. The company is focused on leveraging cutting-edge technology to solve everyday consumer problems with smarter products. |
| Other | Read more appliance reviews on GadgetGuy |
What is a Meater?
A Meater is a wireless temperature probe that combines with an app to tell you when meat is cooked. It does this by measuring the surrounding and inside temperatures of the meat you cook. Alongside a smartphone app and some clever algorithms, it considers what you are cooking and how you want it cooked. You get a message when your perfectly cooked meat or fish (and large vegetables, in theory) is ready.
It’s designed to solve the age-old issue of cooking a perfect steak (or roast, etc.). Depending on thickness, cooking heat and time, you may ask for a medium-rare steak but often get it too rare or well-done.
With Meater, you take the guesswork out of the process with a target temperature that the meat needs to reach, so the meal is cooked just how you want it.
What are the Meater Plus features?
The Meater Plus comes in a bamboo box with a Bluetooth repeater and a battery to power the repeater and charge the probe. On the back of the box is a magnet, allowing easy attachment to a cool BBQ part. To work, the probe and box must be kept close together, while the Bluetooth repeater has a wireless range of up to 50m. Powering the Meater is a single AAA battery quoted as charging your probe 100 times. I would have liked to have seen a USB rechargeable solution.
The app is both Apple and Android compatible and will work on tablets and watches. You can customise settings on the app, including your preference for Fahrenheit or Celsius, screen and notification settings. There are also menu ideas and helpful instruction videos for beginners.
Impressively, the Meater and connected app’s meat choices are quite extensive, even including kangaroo. After selecting your meat, you choose the cut, and then how you would like to cook it (medium-rare, well-done, etc.).
By inserting the probe into your meat before placing it on the BBQ or oven, you can even monitor your cooking times and be alerted when it is ready to eat based on what type of meat you are cooking and how you like it cooked.
Using the Meater Plus
Usable in an oven, BBQ or smoker, you do need to be careful about the temperature you expose the Meater to. Specifically, the maximum temperature cannot exceed 100 degrees C within the meat and 275 degrees in the ambient air surrounding the meat.
To help you use the device, the Meater probe has a line marked on the shaft indicating how far it should go into the meat. Next, you open your app and select your meat type and how you want it cooked. Part of the recommendation is USDA (US Dept of Ag) standards around safe eating.
Now, back to my wife and mother-in-law. For every BBQ I cook, I get the cooking time wrong more often than I get it right. So surely this magical Meater tool was to solve all my problems.
Unfortunately, trouble started when I tested the Meater on a large turkey. Based on all my other testing, the Meater does a good job of getting the settings right. What I did not consider, however, was that the mother-in-law decided that she always cooked the bird for longer and had far more experience than the latest tech toy.
Guess what? We ate dried turkey that day.
You will be pleased to hear I did cook a lamb roast without any interference and received no complaints.
I really liked that you can monitor your cook process from a different room in the house, with the confidence that you are not incinerating your meal as you entertain guests.
On the smaller side, I have cooked sausages and steaks with the Meater, but note unless you have the multiple Meater pack (two or more probes), you can only monitor one piece of meat if you are cooking multiple steaks. It makes it an expensive exercise if you want to monitor multiple things at once, considering one probe already costs $199.
There is also a fair bit of variety in how you can use the Meater Plus. Suppose you wish to cook an item not listed in the extensive menu list. In that case, the manual mode lets you cook a large root vegetable like sweet potato, assuming you know your desired end temperature.
Cooking meat is not just about cooking, it is also about resting, which most of us neglect, taking the steak straight from the BBQ to the plate. Never fear, because Meater is here to also tell you the right amount of resting time before you put it on the plate.
Those of you who like to do the post-analysis can bring up previous cooks, including a fancy graph of cooking time and temperature as well as what you cooked and the date. You can even rate yourself out of five stars and add text notes.
GadgetGuy’s Take
The Meater Plus is a simple, smart meat probe that helps you cook the meat just how you like it. Once you start using it, you wonder if you can ever be trusted to cook meat without it.
Now I need an app to measure my wife’s mood and keep the mother-in-law from interfering with future cooks.
