With Memorial Day coming up in the next few weeks, one thing is for certain, everyone will be out grilling. If you’re not grilling steaks, vegetables, chicken, you name it, I’m sure you know someone that will be. But obviously there’s a lot to perfecting your favorite meals and making sure that NY Strip is actually cooked to order.
Luckily the iGrill Mini is a way to take the guesswork out of cooking your meats properly. And guess who had a chance to review it?
The iGrill Mini Bluetooth Smart Meat Thermometer is a gadget that’s name speaks for itself. It’s a compact probe that at $39.99 through their online site it’s a steal. You can pair the gadget to your Apple smartphone or tablet through Bluetooth and simply watch your meats cook themselves and be alerted when they are finished. This is especially good for a person like me who is not a chef by trade, but a self-proclaimed “damn-good cook”.
“But how can you be a good cook if you can’t tell if your steaks are properly cooked evenly”? This is a good question that I can honestly only answer by saying I like my meals cooked properly. And the iGrill is there to help me cook to temperature, rather than trying to cut open my meats, and flipping them over excessively. Everyone knows that person in particular. I used to be that person until I got this.
The iGrill comes complete with everything you see here, without needing AA batteries like the first version of the iGrill did, which is a huge bonus. The module itself is only about an inch and a half in depth, sporting a silver plastic right and a black face. After initially pressing the console, you’ll see a glowing square in the middle which changes colors according to how close your food is to being finished.
In unison with the iDevices app, which already works for the company’s devices, you can connect multiple devices, including more than one iGrill mini, for those times you might be cooking more than one piece of meat. Once you’ve actually placed the prong into the meat, the app picks up here, and shows you a timeline of the temperature over the course of minutes, via histogram.
iGrill was so nice to have it even includes a coin-cell battery which has a 150 hour life, which you can easily replace for about $2.99 at your local store.
The nifty thing that I liked about the iGrill is the fact they offer you up a magnetic disk that can be placed onto the grill or stove/oven that works in unison with the meat prong to tell you the temperature of the meat. The prong itself has an input at the bottom, which connects to the module at the bottom of the base. I personally wish that there were more than one input so I could take the temperature for two products at once, but maybe in a later model. The prong is about four feet long, which was enough for me to sit on the outside of my grill and cook thoroughly.
But back to the app, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Upon opening and activating via Bluetooth, you are met with a menu that has not only recipes but preset temperature alarms for different meals and levels. For example, I cooked a steak medium well in about 12-14 minutes thanks to both the iGrill and the iDevice companion app. I like my steaks pink but not bloody, so it told me that 150° would be more than enough. So once I set the steaks on the grill, and allowed for the heat to rise into the steak and cook properly I was presented with a beautifully cooked and seasoned medium well steak, pink on the inside, without an ounce of blood. Would you like some?
Overall I really enjoy the iGrill mini, and this for me is ideal for my steaks and poultry that might be a bit thick to actually tell if it’s cooked all the way through. For Memorial day weekend I plan on cooking grilled chicken in large quantities and they will be rather thick in size. iGrill recommends putting the thermometer into the bottom ends of the meat to receive an accurate measure.
I tried that with my NY strip steak and although accurate, the little red grip that goes around the thermometer seems to get burned a little. And beware because the prong/thermometer itself will be hot to the touch. You can just sit it in water right after because it is indeed waterproof.
Just typing this up now, I’m ready to grill out some more. If you plan on being in the kitchen, or out at the grill, and want perfectly seared meats, the iGrill mini is portable and gets it done more efficiently than your standard over the counter meat thermometer.
Source: Manufacturer supplied review model
What I Like: the size and portability is amazing, and the iDevices recipes option has me wishing I went to culinary school!
What Needs Improvement: Maybe included a few more grips for the thermometer prong, since these will tend to be worn out quickly.
