CHEF iQ 2 Probes

Works great in a smoker, very accurate and helps you monitor where you’re at in the smoking process. You’ll need to ensure that foil is not covering the probes as it dampens the signal and also place the unit closer to your smoker to ensure the signal isn’t lost. The battery did good over a 14 hour cook. Much easier than using wired probes and easy to clean. The App is easy to use and lets you know when it’s close to the target temp and when the cook is finished. I also love the ability to dial in the resting period for brisket or other meats that require a rest period. Well worth the cost!

It's not cheap. But I finally bit the bullet and spent the money for this. There's no looking back, it's the best purchase I've made this year. Works super well and love that each probe measures meat temp and grill temp. Graphs it, talks to you (audibly), has wifi and bluetooth. I even learned my smoker runs about 25 degrees cooler than it says. It really is fantastic...wish I'd switched to it sooner.

I wish there were negative stars. I wish there was a way to express how absolutely awful this product is. And how awful yet somehow smugly self righteous the company behind the product is. Both of my probes were broken (as described below)The geniuses after weeks sent me 1 (one) probe. So. I’ve been down to 1. I simply don’t use it anymore. Stopped thinking about it because of how bad it is. I made the mistake of trying to use it today after months of ignoring it. Fully charged “replacement probe” base station and probe are connected so long as I don’t do something silly like stick the probe in a piece of meat. Then the connection is lost, base station within 1 foot of the probe. No connection. Super helpful. Into the garbage it goes. Avoid it at all costs. This was somehow highly recommended. I opted for it over the Meater because candidly it was cheaper, well reviewed etc. it was a mistake. When it first arrived it was great. Did a quick cook on my grill with it seemed to work well. The interface was clear if a bit too busy (I don’t need recipes from my thermometer thank you). A week later. I used it to reverse sear a 2.5” thick rib steak. It ruined the steak. Temp reading is easily 10-15% off. So I tried again. This time a brisket. Same result. So I sent a note to their customer service. Explaining the issue. Close to a month later I got a reply. To wit. “can you send a pic of it in boiling water along with what the app shows?” Those pics are attached to this review. Same issue with both probes. You’ll note if you look at the pics that the probe has water boiling at 184F, you’ll also note that the “ambient” sensor (a PId on the non meat side of the probe) sitting in the same boiling pot reads 189F… this is of course why my steaks were ruined. I sent the pics to customer service. A few weeks later a new probe arrived, not a replacement unit. One single solitary #1 probe arrived… it is similarly inaccurate. It also throws a huge amount of faults and warnings. Both probes tell me they’re either out of range or over temperature. I was attempting to use them this evening to roast chicken at 375. The probe struggled to connect to the base station 4 feet away and when it connected threw “over temp” warnings the entire time. I eventually just gave up. Complete trash. Backed by slow unhelpful customer service.

In the famous words of Shia LaBeouf, “JUST DO IT!” This is the #1 tool to have in your kitchen, grill, smoking, etc. kit period. I never really cared to have a thermometer/meat probe for my meats when I cook, but it makes life so much easier. Especially when I have to go take care of stuff and have to rely on someone else watching the cook. It will alert me through the app and it will also alert through the home base and tell you what to do. No guess work or anything. And when it comes to flipping steaks for a nice Maillard reaction or that perfect crust, this thing gets it right on the money. Still haven’t found any issues with it. And it even got me one of the best smoked turkeys I’ve ever had. This set was more expensive than the grill I used, so back to what I said earlier; it’s the #1 tool to have. Women, buy this for that special man in your life. Men, but this for yourselves and tell your wife and make them a 10/10 steak dinner so she doesn’t get mad about spending the money on these bad boys. Secondly, after a few months of putting these to work, I had one malfunction and it stopped working. I contacted Chef IQ and they worked with me to get the broken one replaced. Customer support from them is top, for sure.

I’ve used this to bake chicken and to cook steak. I’ve had 0 issues in with those types of dishes; however, when I tried using this to make a pot roast, it took me a dozen tries to place the probe in a position where it wouldn’t disconnect. The probe kept getting submerged in the cooking liquid and then the charging base would tell me the connection was lost. It was a bit frustrating. Overall, I’m still fairly happy with it. The battery lasted through all the various cook times without issues. I got juicy meat every time. My only annoyance was that it couldn’t handle being submerged in water during cooking. I thought this probe was supposed to also be good for deep frying? If it can’t handle being submerged in water without losing connecting, how can it handle being submerged in oil?