Love to BBQ? Get a Meater Pro — cook your meat perfectly every time

It’s just about summer in Australia, which means it’s BBQ time, and for some of us, it also means burning the Barbie meat.  It can be a fine line between a succulently cooked piece of steak and an overcooked, chewy piece of wasted meat.

Now, all the guesswork can be taken out using a digital meat thermometer.  Sure, we’ve always had an analogue meat thermometer that you could use, but now digital thermometers offer the ability to set just how you want your steak cooked and notifications of where it is at with its cooking.  

Meater sent me their new Meater Pro (formerly known as Meater 2 Plus) to test out with my BBQ-cooking skills, which unfortunately often leave a fair bit to be desired.  The main problem with my cooking is that I’ve always got so much to do so when I’m cooking, I don’t stand next to the BBQ and then accidentally forget about it and end up flipping the meat too late and/or cooking it far too long.

The Meater Pro is a stainless steel thermometer/probe which is waterproof allowing it to be easily cleaned in the dishwasher if you wish and can handle temperatures up to 550°C.  Inside, the Meater Pro features Smart Temp Multisensor technology for accurate cooking, giving the lowest temperature of the meat.

It includes Bluetooth 5.2 Coded PHY Long Range connectivity to connect to the bamboo case/charger which is powered by a replaceable AAA battery that will last up to two years.  The bamboo case then connects to your phone from up to 75 metres away (with a direct line of sight)!  I had no issues connecting to the thermometer/case with the barbie lid closed and upstairs at the other end of the house.

The thermometer is stored in the bamboo case, which also has Bluetooth connectivity, with the Bluetooth in it turned off when the thermometer is in place in it.  The case is the charger of the thermometer, which has just 5 minutes of charging and provides for a 2-hour cook. 30 minutes will give you over 24 hours of cooking.

So how did it perform?

First, I tested it out on a nice thick piece of porterhouse steak.  These are notoriously difficult to cook on a BBQ.  I seasoned the steak first, then stuck the thermometer in and chose the type of cook I wanted – medium rare.  I popped the steak on the barbie where it cooked.  

After it got to just over half of the target temperature, I turned the steak (not how I’d usually cook steak, but…) and cooked it until the app said to remove the steak from the BBQ.  It then had a timer for how long I needed to let it sit until plating it.  This is also essential.  The end result was magnificent!  Perfectly cooked piece of steak that was tender and moist.

Next up was chicken.  Same process, same result, although this time the thinner ends of the chicken breast were slightly overcooked, given the thermometer was in the thick part of the breast.  The best solution I think it to cut the chicken breast up into two pieces so each piece is of equal thickness.  

The main part of the chicken breast, though, was perfectly cooked, which was really easy to do on this occasion.  It is normally notoriously difficult for me because the last thing I want to do is serve my wife undercooked chicken and make her sick.

One last test was on a hamburger because … why not?  Sometimes we overcook our burgers but it’s not a huge deal given the large amounts of fat in it.  This time I cooked it to medium and the burger was perfectly cooked and tasted fantastic.

All along, the app helps you with not just the timing of the cook but also how to cook with certain meats to get different results.  

Final thoughts

Everyone who likes to cook their meats well, accurately a vast majority of the time will want this and they all SHOULD have this.  It takes all the guesswork out of cooking.  The app even tells you what temperatures you need to cook it to get the end result you desire.

The Meater Pro is a must-have for every single chef, especially BBQ chefs Australia-wide.  Get serious, get a Meater Pro and get perfectly cooked meat.

The Meater Pro is available for $249 from the Meater website.  Grab one if you value a great BBQ.