When you submerge the thermometer in the freezing water bowl, the temperature should read 0C or 32F. Let the thermometer come back to room temperature on its own so you don’t “shock” the metal before then placing it in the ice bath. When you submerge the thermometer into the boiling water (be careful not to touch the bottom of the pot with the thermometer as it will have a higher surface temperature than the boiling water) the thermometer should read 100C or 212F, if it doesn’t wait for the dial to stabilize and then adjust the nut to 100C(212F). To make an ice bath to help calibrate a food thermometer, crush up ice cubes and place them in water until the whole bowl Is filled with an icy slush mixture… you want to get the temperature as close to 0C(32F) as possible. To begin, you will need a pot of boiling water with at least 4 inches of water in it, and an ice bath. Since we know that at sea level, water boils at 100C or 212F and freezes at 0C or 32F, we can use this information to help re-calibrate the thermometer to these pre-set temperature points. Ideally, you would want to be at, or near sea level so that the pressure from the atmosphere doesn’t change the boiling point of water. Re-calibrating these types of thermometers usually involves a two-step process. This nut can be tightened to adjust the bimetallic strip to the right tension in order to keep expanding and contracting at the proper rate when heated and cooled. You will notice a small nut usually at the base of the thermometer dial itself. This requires the thermometer to be re-calibrated in order to stay accurate. The down side to these thermometers is that over time the bimetallic strip slightly bends and warps due to the constant changes in temperature. As you take the temperature of an item with one of these thermometers, the bimetallic strip expands or contracts as the temperature changes, moving the dial or pointer up and down the temperature dial. Mechanical Food Thermometers (affiliate link) use a bimetallic strip which is a very thin coil of metal (imagine a spring) on which the dial or pointer that you see is attached to. Most people I have met, assume once a food thermometer starts giving wonky readings that it is broken, and time to go buy a new one! Before you do, keep reading! Most food thermometers are able to be re-calibrated from home. There are various different types of thermometers available to the home chef, which also include sugar thermometers, but for now I will concentrate on the two most common thermometers that would be used by at home cooks.
#Candy thermometer how to
Using a food thermometer is an important part of practicing food safety at home! That’s why it’s important to know how to calibrate a thermometer, instead of buying a new one each time yours starts to give weird readings. Food thermometers help measure the internal temperatures of food and determine how far the food has been cooked, and whether it’s safe to eat or not. As I had previously talked about in my Kitchen Tools 102 post, food thermometers can play a crucial role in cooking.