Tyler Florence Calls This Tool His ‘Best Friend’ for Cooking Steak

Chef Tyler Florence isn’t guessing when it comes to steaks. In fact, Florence recently debuted his next American Grill: 125 Recipes for Mastering Live Fire, which features tips on how to char a steak to perfection. So while we were probably overcooking the protein in our backyard for the umpteenth time, the Food Network personality was spending his years toiling over a hot grill — fine-tuning a tender steak with one trusty kitchen tool that you’ll want to snag yourself. 

The Typhur Digital Meat Thermometer is the product Florence relies on for nailing the temperature of a steak (and P.S., it’s currently on sale). An instant read thermometer is “like my best friend,” the cookbook author tells Food & Wine on a sweltering day at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival in Miami. “It's honestly something you use in the kitchen every day.”

Typhur Digital Meat Thermometer

Now, purchasing a meat thermometer may not sound like breaking news when it comes to cooking meat. However, it is important to have one that you can rely on for ensuring food safety and optimum doneness. Florence says this particular thermometer — composed of acrylic, aluminum, and stainless steel — works well for a good steak “because not only is it super accurate, [but it’s also] lightning fast at gauging the exact temperature.” Useful for grilling, barbecue, the smoker, or regular old cooking, the thermometer also helpfully switches itself off automatically. 

The sleek black probe is waterproof (so don’t be afraid to get it wet when you hand-wash it), reads the temperature in under 0.6 seconds, and offers a bright OLED display in large fonts. “The speed and precision of this thermometer are unrivaled,” one Amazon reviewer said. Others have claimed that their “ribeye steaks came out perfect” and highlighted the thermometer’s magnetic backing, which allows you to stick it right on your fridge or oven.  

One customer even tested Typhur’s InstaProbe — which has received more than 300 five-star reviews on Amazon and ranks in the retailer’s top-100 Meat Thermometers & Timers — in a bowl of ice water before using it during the cooking process and raved that it offered an “accurate, large clear reading within an instant.”

Chef Florence emphasizes the importance of knowing your temperatures, advising that “depending on how hot your grill is, you usually want to pull your steak off about 10 to 12 degrees cooler than you want it to get to.” This is the stage at which carryover cooking occurs, as the meat will continue cooking to reach its target temperature even after it’s taken off of the grill. 

As far as seasoning a steak goes, The Great Food Truck Race host sprinkles on salt before cooking and ground pepper after it’s off the grill. (Remember, pepper can burn.) With Florences’ go-to digital meat thermometer in your hand, your steak will come off the grill perfectly cooked — with those enviable char marks on the outside and tender beef within. As a bonus, the probe also comes with an extended ten-year warranty, so your grilling needs will be fulfilled for quite a while. 

More Steak Essentials to Shop:

Lodge 10.25-Inch Cast Iron Skillet

OXO Good Grips 12-Inch Tongs

Messermeister Steak Knife Set

Latent Epicure Battery-Operated Grinder Set