For years, my wife has complained that her electric oven is too fierce.

Having just got an infra-red thermometer from Maplin ( partly because
of comments made on this group ), I thought it should be easy enough to
use it to check the actual oven temperature.

The obvious problem is what to use as a target.

The shelves are chrome, so are quite unsuitable, but although the side
walls are black, the heating elements might make them hotter than the
rest of the oven.

I do have some small black anodised aluminium heat sinks. I thought
that anything designed to disspate heat ought to do just as good a job
at absorbing heat, so I propose to use a small wire to suspendone from
the middle of the centre shelf and check it's temperature periodically.
Any obvious flaws with this idea ?

In article . com,
wrote:
For years, my wife has complained that her electric oven is too fierce.

Having just got an infra-red thermometer from Maplin ( partly because
of comments made on this group ), I thought it should be easy enough to
use it to check the actual oven temperature.

The obvious problem is what to use as a target.

I know this might sound too obvious, but all kitchen shops sell nice
little round oven thermometers for a couple of quid which you can place
on a shelf next to what you are cooking ...

Once you have that then you can use the dial marked Oven Temperature...

Gordon

In article . com,
Roly wrote:
Having just got an infra-red thermometer from Maplin ( partly because
of comments made on this group ), I thought it should be easy enough to
use it to check the actual oven temperature.

The obvious problem is what to use as a target.

I've got one oven which is miles out. I checked it intitally with a Fluke
DVM which has a temperature probe, with the probe at the top of the oven.
My Maplin infra red pointed at the top back which is black is as near as
dammit the same.

To get the usual 375F (190C) most 'quick' meals need, I have to set it at
475F. It's a wonder I never got food poisoning. ;-)

--
*Of course I'm against sin; I'm against anything that I'm too old to enjoy.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Gordon Henderson" wrote in message
...
In article . com,
wrote:
For years, my wife has complained that her electric oven is too fierce.

Having just got an infra-red thermometer from Maplin ( partly because
of comments made on this group ), I thought it should be easy enough to
use it to check the actual oven temperature.

The obvious problem is what to use as a target.

I know this might sound too obvious, but all kitchen shops sell nice
little round oven thermometers for a couple of quid which you can place
on a shelf next to what you are cooking ...

Once you have that then you can use the dial marked Oven Temperature...

Gordon

I used a simple mercury thermometer on a shelf - which is after all where
the cooking food goes - for our slow oven which only has an indicator
needle, no temperature markings.

I checked the reading then stuck small labels where the pointer was pointing
at that time.

It's not rocket science, it doesn't have to be to the nearest degree.

Mary

In article ,
Mary Fisher wrote:
It's not rocket science, it doesn't have to be to the nearest degree.

Which makes it all the worse that so many are miles out.

IMHO, many supermarket 'just heat' prepared foods err on the low side for
cooking times, so add in a lower than correct temperature makes for
possible health risks.

--
*My designated driver drove me to drink

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

wrote:
For years, my wife has complained that her electric oven is too fierce.

Having just got an infra-red thermometer from Maplin ( partly because
of comments made on this group ), I thought it should be easy enough to
use it to check the actual oven temperature.

The obvious problem is what to use as a target.

The shelves are chrome, so are quite unsuitable, but although the side
walls are black, the heating elements might make them hotter than the
rest of the oven.

I do have some small black anodised aluminium heat sinks. I thought
that anything designed to disspate heat ought to do just as good a job
at absorbing heat, so I propose to use a small wire to suspendone from
the middle of the centre shelf and check it's temperature periodically.
Any obvious flaws with this idea ?

I used my infra-red thermo to test the oven temperature, just out of
interest really. At 150 degrees C oven setting, the IR was showing way
above that (can't remember exactly, I think about 300 degrees) when
pointing at the oven floor (black), which is where one set of elements
are. It showed around 150 C when pointing at the sides (black) which
have no elements. Which all goes to prove that at one moment in time,
both IR thermo and the oven were in agreement. Your idea sounds spot on,
but you may get a decent reading off the top & bottom (average out?) if
the elements are in the sides.

Biggles

The small heatsinks that I have came in a bag of ten, five of them
remain unused, so I put three in the oven in different places and used
them as targets for the IR thermometer.

The oven is significantly hotter than it's temperature dial suggests,
so my wife was right in thinking it was rather fierce.

I was surprised to see just how even the temperature is when the oven
is fan assisted.

In the conventional mode, the temperature gradient is pretty much as
you might expect.

wrote:

For years, my wife has complained that her electric oven is too fierce.

Having just got an infra-red thermometer from Maplin ( partly because
of comments made on this group ), I thought it should be easy enough to
use it to check the actual oven temperature.

We always used a thermocouple set-up to check the stats approximate
accuracy, ovens usually go hotter due to loss of expansion fluid in the
capillary thermo-switch BTW, which you may be able to adjust out on the
stat.

Niel, former Belling Engineer.