kl8ton said:

Great company and good price

http://www.thermoworks.com/products/ir/irgun.html

What he said...

I've got an earlier version of this one when it was on sale for like $59, but they also threw in a probe with wire which makes it act like a Thermapen as well. I use my IR for checking my pizza stone, but also like today I was re-seasoning a CI skillet and I check the temperature so as to not burn the oil.
http://www.thermoworks.com/products/ir/irfs.html
These are also handy tools if you have a cat! Chasing that red laser dot gives your cat a real work out!

I like my Fluke personally.   Thermoworks is a great company too.

Be aware that certain surface types can be very misleading on IR temperatures. Generally dark, matte surfaces give fairly accurate readings but highly polished light colored ones can be quite a way off. Most of our grill stuff will be close enough if it has been used a while but a brand new white pizza stone might be off a little. Shiny metallic objects  are an issue, think one of those highly finished All Clad stainless steel frying pans. I recently purchased a new espresso machine and the copper boiler is giving false readings on the IR. Better quality guns have a correction factor that can be plugged in as emissivity to compensate for these factors but most times it is not a big deal unless you put your fingers on the frying pan that reads much cooler than it actually is.

I bought this one from Lowes a couple of years ago.



It has worked very well but as @bettysnephew mentioned, it doesn't work well on light smooth reflective surfaces like a stainless griddle.  Honestly I don't use it much for grilling other than out of curiosity. I'm not using it like a dome or grate level thermometer to guide my cooking. 

I use the Thermoworks IR GUN.


I only use it to temp my pizza stones or to temp my Grill Grates. 

They are on sale right now too. 
http://thermoworks.com/products/ir/irgun.html

HeavyG said:

Jeepster47 said:

@Toxarch ... I bought a Costco inexpensive IR gun.  The offset readings would have been acceptable, but the scatter caused me great pain.  When I started to think about taking three readings in a row and averaging the results, the gun went back to Costco.  Bought a Fluke IR gun and have never looked back ... love repeatably ... it's a very calming attribute.  And, as bettysnephew points out, emissivity can be dialed in for different surfaces to increase the accuracy.

Realistically, how useful is the ability to vary the emissivity setting?

I have a Fluke that is about 10 years old and does not have that feature so I have never actually played with one that does.

If one takes a reading on a surface using the "lowest" emissivity setting and then reads the same surface at the "highest" emissivity setting how many degrees difference will there likely be?

Also, if one looks at the tables of emissivity of various surfaces those factors also vary on expected target temperature.

For instance, cast iron with an oxidized surface at 200°C has a emissivity factor of 0.64 while at an expected surface temperature of 600°C the emissivity factor is 0.78. Unoxidized cast iron at an expected temperature of 100*C has an emissivity factor of 0.21.

My guess is that trying to correct for the "real" emissivity factor for most surfaces/uses becomes a fools errand absent any ability to actually use a contact surface probe to provide some confirmation of any applied factor.

i use one at work with the settings, i could be checking temps on black iron pipe one day and shiny stainless tanks the next. if i need to get exact temps i have to heat a similar piece to a known temp and adjust settings from that i dont see a need for it for cooking though

Great company and good price

http://www.thermoworks.com/products/ir/irgun.html

What they said. I don't use it a lot, but it's nice to have when I need it.

nolaegghead said:

I have a few of them, my favorite is the Dewalt.  You can dial in the coefficient of emmissivity, I don't.  They're best for relative temp measurements. 

For example, after running your car at the track, look at the temp across the tread.  If the center is hotter than the edges, you have too much air pressure.  The opposite, not enough air pressure.  Or look at your griddle or CI pan.  Find the hot spots.  Cool spots. 

That's pretty much what I use mine for - relative differences.

I've got a few of these things and they all read within a few degrees of each other. I have no idea which one is "spot on". If I need the "real" temperature I'll get a surface contact thermocouple.

For home users trying to find the correct emissivity setting to get a "real" temp is going to be like a dog chasing its tail.

Something else folks should keep in mind is that the area of the surface being measured varies greatly on the distance from the surface. The IR thermometer is not taking a tiny spot reading on what the laser (if you even have on on your unit) is hitting. The laser is just showing the likely center of a circle in which the unit is deriving an average temp. Some units are more tightly focused than others. Many units will have that ratio printed somewhere on them (10:1, 12:1, 20:1, whatever).

Given all the variables involved in trying to obtain an "exact" temp reading I think I'd be content if a unit just would say "Cold, Not so Cold, Warmish, Warm, Really Warm, Getting Hot, Hot, Very Hot, Really Effing Hot, Lava".

@NPHuskerFL I've actually considered getting a nitrogen (N2) generator for tires, but the damn things are so expensive I'm just gonna live with regular air.  I'm a nut job about tire pressure.  I have a real time display of it in my car....notice stuff like tires on the east side are higher from the sun, etc. 

Pure nitrogen is dry nitrogen.  O2 degrades and leaks through the rubber faster than N2.  You get less pressure change with temp with N2 vs air.

pretty sure this would hook up to a guinness tap and also used to nitropurge an ipa

@NPHuskerFL Why do you have NO2 tanks?  I can't imagine what you'd use that for....

@NPHuskerFL oh, gotchya.  I was confused because I call it N2.  NO2 in my circles is very poisonous.

Yeah, when I installed my HVAC at the house I ran nitrogen through the lines as I silver solder braising.  Keeps that carbon soot out.  Although I did, just to play it safe, put oversized filters on the high and low lines.

nolaegghead said:

Pure nitrogen is dry nitrogen.  O2 degrades and leaks through the rubber faster than N2.  You get less pressure change with temp with N2 vs air.

Consumer Reports did a test a while back and found that tires filled with air only lost about 1 psi more than the same tires filled with nitrogen over the course of one year. I don't find that to be significant but I'm sure there are some folks that would.

The Ideal Gas Law would disagree about the differences in the change of pressure vis a vis temps between nitrogen and air.

For 99.9% of car drivers nitrogen has no significant advantages in tires over air.

Nitrogen does offer some small advantages and if you can get your tires filled for free (like I can at Costco and my dealer)  then why not. If one has to pay extra for it like a lot of places try to charge then...