Maverick thermometer reading 80-100 degrees high

[Jay in Ames]

I've been using my Maverick ET-732 thermometer for a couple of years now. I've bought a new probe for food, but it's been steady for me. This weekend it started reading 80-100 degrees high, just out of the blue. I always check it before putting food on.

I have an older Maverick that I switched to. Anyone else ever have this issue?

I saw another post on another forum that suggested baking the probes (plug in end out of the oven) at 350 for a couple of hours. I will try that, along with cleaning the plugs. I'll update with the results from baking the probes.

[CurlingDog]

bad probe. if water gets by the cable into the probe itself (typically when cleaning it) it will impact the reading. You are not the first one that it's happen to, but i'm interested in what results you have with the bake off. keep us posted please!

[Jay in Ames]

I've had a bad probe, but that read HHH or LLL, not off by 80 degrees. Hadn't run into this one yet, and that other forum was the only place i'd seen it mentioned.

I'm going to get another backup probe, but that's what this one is, pretty new in fact.

[Huskee]

I've had the exact same thing with two mavericks. My last brisket cook that happened- two maverick and 4 probes, all read about 120 high, I was perplexed. Why would all 4 be that high together? I assumed it was something to do with it being very very humid that night and morning. I opted to just put them in the cooker and in the meat as planned. Once the temp went above the 180ish they were all reading, they worked fine. It's as if their low threshold was temporally raised, assuming humidity was the cause. They work fine now. I lad this happen occasionally before, but never that high. It can freak a person out that's for sure

[Ray]

Seems to me that Maverick needs to incorporate a high temp sealing technology in their probes. It isn't as though that doesn't exist!

[DWCowles]

I don't have that problem no more since I put the heat strink tubes on.

[DWCowles]

oldsteve yes I did but it started to pull away from the probe so I try the heat shrink tubes and so far it's working great.

[Dr ROK]

DWCowles, did you use a "high temp" shrink tube? I used some shrink tube I had in the garage and it isn't holding up very well. Could be abuse on my end, but was curious as to whether there was a high temp version shrink tube.

[DWCowles]

Dr ROK I don't know if it was high temp or not. I got a pack of them from Amazon that were different colors and sizes. I used the smallest size on the probes.

[Jay in Ames]

I tried the baking trick (putting the probes in a 350 oven for an hour) and it worked! Probes snapped back to reading properly! I left the plug in out of the oven.

Try it, before giving up on a probe.

[Huskee]

I though I'd update this thread with some more 'weird Maverick probe' activity, and what I did about it.

The story:

Earlier in the year 3 of my Mav probes went 'bad' and I'd given up on them, they were always reading wonky- all high and all different levels of high. They've sat all summer outside rolled up (in the weather) waiting for me to toss them out. Out of forgetfulness I just hadn't yet.

Today I set up 4 of my other probes, my existing 'good' ones, for a cook. All 4 of them were reading different levels of crazy high. Ambient temp was 38, the probes in open air read things like 148, 118, 208, 244, give or take. What the???

So I decided to use them as I have before, hoping they'd pop back into shape once they warmed up. Fast forward a couple hours, they did! When I felt they had popped back up to the realms of normalcy, I pulled them out of the meat and brought them inside to do a boiling water calibration. They all read with 4 degrees of each other. A couple deg below and a couple deg above my boiling point. Yay! Problem solved for today's cook.

Then I decided to finally toss those old 3 probes that I hadn't used all year. My hand was nearly in the trash bag with them, then I had a change of heart. "No" I thought, "I'll bake them one more time, like I urge everyone else to do, before I actually toss them for good".

I heated my oven up to 400F and placed the probe ends toward the center of the rack. I let them bake dry for nearly 2 hrs at 400. Then I hooked up a transmitter to the plugs. At 400, they each read: 399, 403, 404. I took them out, let them cool, and in my 68 degree house they read 68, 70, 70.

Color me impressed.

Moral:
PLEASE, don't toss your probes when they begin reading weird. Bake them, dry them out, and see if you can't restore some life to them. I just saved 3 probes (~$40-45) by giving 'em another chance.

And make sure to store them indoors where it's dry if at all possible when not in use.

[David Parrish]

Great post!