Will cooking meat with the thermometer in affect the cooking time?

Question

Last night I cooked 3 pounds of chicken breast tenders using my preferred "set it and forget it" method:

Preheat the oven to ~350°F
Lay out tenders in an oiled baking dish & season as desired
Insert meat thermometer probe into side of thickest piece
Stick in the oven and set the meat thermometer to beep when internal temperature hits 165°F (15 minutes or so, depending on the size of the pieces)

I like this method, especially when I'm cooking for leftover purposes and not a meal, because it saves me the trouble of the "timer beeps > check temp > reset timer" song and dance. But last night I got to thinking: Does keeping the probe in the meat throughout the cooking process affect the cooking time of that piece? I imagine the probe would conduct more heat into the center of the meat, cooking that piece faster than the others around it.

If it does, the effect is negligible at short cooking times and relatively low temperatures like this. All of my chicken pieces come out perfectly done through this method. But I would imagine the effect could be much more pronounced at a longer cooking time, or with smaller cuts of meat.

mjobrien · Answer

There are "potato nails" marketed for speeding up cooking of baked potatoes by conducting heat into the center of the potato. This testing showed about a 10% reduction in cooking time. Cooks's Illustrated also tested potato nails, and showed a 7-minute reduction over a 75-minute control. They also tested a potato with five potato nails, which reduced cooking time by 11 minutes.

Obviously potatoes aren't meat, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to extrapolate.

Steve · Answer

I believe in the heat conduction theory.  How could it not be?  I will not probe until the last 1/3 of the cook for that reasoning.

Michael · Answer

When oven roasting a 9 pound prime rib, I want to remove it from the oven at 120
I used a leave in thermometer from start to finish.  When it 120, I removed it from the oven and took a second reading with my deadly accurate instant read Thermopen.  And it was no where near 120.  I moved the leave-in probe to a different spot on the roast and it settled on the same reading as the Thermopen.
So here's my new theory.  Once my leave-in, hits the desired temperature, I move the probe to another spot in the meat.  The longer the probe has been in the meat, in the same spot, the more of an impact it has on the meat around it.  So moving the probe towards the end of the cook time will deliver better results.
Last, you'll never regret investing in a good instant read thermometer for cooking purposes.  You may regret not investing in spare batteries.

Will cooking meat with the thermometer in affect the cooking time?

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