As a born and bred Tennessean, my elementary-school food pyramid poster depicted pulled pork, baby-back ribs, smoked chicken thighs, and brisket for the “meat” section. Okay… smoked bologna was probably on there as well... aaannnd the meat section was like 80% of the diagram. Suffice it to say I cook outside regularly as an adult, and I respect the craft enough to use a proper probe thermometer.
I’ve bought exactly four wireless probe thermometers over the last decade or so, and not one of them is functional today. I use my ceramic egg smoker accompanied by a BBQ thermometer weekly in the Fall and Spring months. The replacement probes I’ve bought alone could have paid for a ThermoWorks Smoke, a $99 wireless dual-channel probe thermometer that has the chops to be your bbq buddy for years to come.
The core features you should expect from a wireless probe thermometer are all here, but with Thermoworks trademark, Co-Op award-winning quality. The Smoke uses two probes so you can monitor your meat and smoker temp, but unlike similar thermometers, these probes are commercial-grade for better accuracy, higher temperature resistance, faster read speed, and increased durability. The Smoke is also extendable and compatible with the myriad of other Pro-Series ThermoWorks probes. If you don’t want to monitor pit temperature (you savage!) you can monitor two meats. Need to monitor two cookers for some reason? Monitor sous-vide water? Oven-roast two Turduckens? Deep fry scotch-eggs? Whatever. The ThermoWorks Smoke doesn’t care what you poke its probes into.
The base’s 2.4GHz transmits your current temperatures up to 300 ft. away to the included wireless receiver (or multiple receivers, if you buy more separately), and an optional Smoke Gateway unit will even connect it to your Wi-Fi to unlock similar functionality via a mobile app. Typical high/low alarm programming for both probes is available, and the large backlit display and intuitive buttons make it easier to set, adjust, and manage than other thermometers I’ve owned. To top it off, the Smoke’s housing, available in nine colors, feels nice: hefty, solid, and with molded seals that grant the Smoke an IP65 splash-proof rating.
The Smoke and Smoke Receiver are paired and ready to go out of the box. There’s no setup at all. Pull the tiny piece of plastic next to the battery box, give the probes a quick wash, plug them in, and it’s ready to perform for up to 1,800 hours on just two AA batteries.
And perform it does.
So far I’ve used the Smoke to cook a pork loin roast and to smoke what my wife considers the best Boston butt I’ve produced to date. I’ve had countless successes in the past, and my wife is brutally critical of my cooking, so that’s no small praise. The Smoke lives up to everything I’ve grown to expect from and respect about ThermoWorks products. A brisket, ribs, sausage, and some whole chickens will benefit from it over the next couple weeks.
To put it plainly, it’d be positively ill-mannered for this Southern boy to ask the ThermoWorks Smoke to be any better.