Raytek MT4U MiniTemp No-Contact Thermometer with Laser Sighting

I was looking earlier today for a no-contact thermometer for the kitchen.

My quest started when I was ready to work with a free sample of ShapeLock that arrived a while back.

The instructions said to heat water containing the ShapeLock pellets to 150°.

OK.

But what if you don't cook much beyond your microwave, and don't have a kitchen thermometer?

I used to have a meat thermometer but that disappeared and anyway I don't think it's meant to measure how hot a pot of water is.

So I went all over the virtual place, Kitchen.com and Cooks.com and suchlike, but could not find a no-touch thermometer.

Hmmph.

Then the UPS guy arrived with my Knipex Cobra pliers.

Wow, are they beautiful. But I digress.

I looked through the catalog from Tooltopia that came with the pliers and lo and behold, there on page 73 were not one but seven no-contact infrared thermometers, ranging in price from $57.33 to $313.18.

Talk about finding the mother lode.

The catalog's aimed at people in the automotive repair business: these thermometers are used by auto technicians to measure the temperature of engine blocks and suchlike.

That's why the most expensive one goes up to 1100°F.

I got news: if things in my kitchen get that hot, I'll be long since outa there.

Anyway.

I settled on the spiffy Raytek ($71.84) pictured at the beginning of this post.

It's got a backlit display in Celsius or Fahrenheit, measures from 0° to 500°F (18°–260°C), and has a laser pointer to show just where it's measuring.

Way cool.

Or hot.

Once it arrives I'll get down to some serious ShapeLock experimentation.