fifty dollars for a bare lightbulb, but is one lightbulb enough to swing a decision in purchasing a thousand-dollar item? This is the kind of question that product planners at Maytag and GE must contemplate.
Submitted by Thomas Ciampaglia of Hackensack, New Jersey.
Thanks also to Richie Edgar of Delmont, Pennsylvania; Barry Davis of Brooklyn, New York; Kristi Lingen, Nicole Fusaro, and Nick Tabia of Commack, New York; Bill Jelen of Akron, Ohio; Mike Rude of Irma, Wisconsin; Matt Savener of Wymore, Nebraska; Sarah Bresler of Bloomdale, Ohio; and Joseph Grabko of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and many others.
W hy Don’t Most Ovens and Refrigerators Have Thermometers?
As with the last Imponderable, money rears its ugly head. Most of us have plebeian controls on our appliances. Our ovens have temperature dials, of course, and when the oven reaches its appointed degree of heat, the oven clicks, or a light goes off. Our refrigerators have temperature controls, but they read from one to ten rather than in degrees.
But this is not so for the upper crust. If you want to spring $5,000 for a top-of-the-line Jenn-Air or Sub-Zero refrigerator, you can have precise temperature controls. We prefer to spend $4,000 less and be stuck with the 1–9/ “cold” to “coldest” controls on our humble GE.
Most of the appliance experts we spoke to thought putting in an expensive thermostat in an oven or refrigerator was much sillier than installing a lightbulb in the freezer. Dick Stilwill, of the National Appliance Parts Suppliers Association, observed:
When you set an oven or refrigerator to the proper temperature, the unit will maintain that temperature until turned off. Adding a thermometer is a placebo to tell the individual that “Yes, my unit is at the temperature I have specified.” On newer ovens, they even beep at you to tell you that the prescribed temperature has been reached. Oven thermometers serve the function of [soothing the owner who feels]: “I don’t trust my thermostat.”
More than a few bakers have good reason
not
to trust the accuracy of their thermostats, which is why most serious cooks own oven thermometers and instant-read thermometers to measure the internal temperature of food.
Unless there is an obvious malfunction, refrigerators are much less worrisome than ovens. Amana’s Ron Anderson points out that a “looser” control works almost as well as a thermostat in a refrigerator, as temperatures vary within the unit anyway: “It would be misleading to track the temperature in just one spot.”
While a ten-degree discrepancy in an oven might affect the results of a leg of lamb or a pastry, slight variations in temperature are unlikely to raise safety issues in a refrigerator or freezer. As Anderson puts it,
There’s enough thermal mass that the body of the food product will stay nearly the same temperature all the time. You might see short-term temperature swings in the refrigerator between the low thirties to forties. This really doesn’t make any difference to the inside of a watermelon or the jar of pickles, because their average temperature is going to be right where you want it. If you place the thermometer in the wrong spot, consumers might get nervous.
The consensus of our experts is that a more precise thermometer/thermostat is likely to be more of a “satisfier” than a “delighter.” The cheap dial on the lower-priced refrigerator is a mechanical connection instead of the much more costly line-voltage thermostat necessary for more precise temperature control. Frugal consumers are unlikely to want to pay up hundreds of dollars for built-in thermometer/thermostats when they can go to the hardware stores and buy stand-alone thermometers for a few bucks.
Submitted by Warren Harris of Carmichael, California.
D o Skunks Think Skunks Stink?
Skunks can dish out a foul scent. But can they take it?
If, like us, most of our education about skunks comes from animated cartoons, you
Submitted by Thomas Ciampaglia of Hackensack, New Jersey.
Thanks also to Richie Edgar of Delmont, Pennsylvania; Barry Davis of Brooklyn, New York; Kristi Lingen, Nicole Fusaro, and Nick Tabia of Commack, New York; Bill Jelen of Akron, Ohio; Mike Rude of Irma, Wisconsin; Matt Savener of Wymore, Nebraska; Sarah Bresler of Bloomdale, Ohio; and Joseph Grabko of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and many others.
W hy Don’t Most Ovens and Refrigerators Have Thermometers?
As with the last Imponderable, money rears its ugly head. Most of us have plebeian controls on our appliances. Our ovens have temperature dials, of course, and when the oven reaches its appointed degree of heat, the oven clicks, or a light goes off. Our refrigerators have temperature controls, but they read from one to ten rather than in degrees.
But this is not so for the upper crust. If you want to spring $5,000 for a top-of-the-line Jenn-Air or Sub-Zero refrigerator, you can have precise temperature controls. We prefer to spend $4,000 less and be stuck with the 1–9/ “cold” to “coldest” controls on our humble GE.
Most of the appliance experts we spoke to thought putting in an expensive thermostat in an oven or refrigerator was much sillier than installing a lightbulb in the freezer. Dick Stilwill, of the National Appliance Parts Suppliers Association, observed:
When you set an oven or refrigerator to the proper temperature, the unit will maintain that temperature until turned off. Adding a thermometer is a placebo to tell the individual that “Yes, my unit is at the temperature I have specified.” On newer ovens, they even beep at you to tell you that the prescribed temperature has been reached. Oven thermometers serve the function of [soothing the owner who feels]: “I don’t trust my thermostat.”
More than a few bakers have good reason
not
to trust the accuracy of their thermostats, which is why most serious cooks own oven thermometers and instant-read thermometers to measure the internal temperature of food.
Unless there is an obvious malfunction, refrigerators are much less worrisome than ovens. Amana’s Ron Anderson points out that a “looser” control works almost as well as a thermostat in a refrigerator, as temperatures vary within the unit anyway: “It would be misleading to track the temperature in just one spot.”
While a ten-degree discrepancy in an oven might affect the results of a leg of lamb or a pastry, slight variations in temperature are unlikely to raise safety issues in a refrigerator or freezer. As Anderson puts it,
There’s enough thermal mass that the body of the food product will stay nearly the same temperature all the time. You might see short-term temperature swings in the refrigerator between the low thirties to forties. This really doesn’t make any difference to the inside of a watermelon or the jar of pickles, because their average temperature is going to be right where you want it. If you place the thermometer in the wrong spot, consumers might get nervous.
The consensus of our experts is that a more precise thermometer/thermostat is likely to be more of a “satisfier” than a “delighter.” The cheap dial on the lower-priced refrigerator is a mechanical connection instead of the much more costly line-voltage thermostat necessary for more precise temperature control. Frugal consumers are unlikely to want to pay up hundreds of dollars for built-in thermometer/thermostats when they can go to the hardware stores and buy stand-alone thermometers for a few bucks.
Submitted by Warren Harris of Carmichael, California.
D o Skunks Think Skunks Stink?
Skunks can dish out a foul scent. But can they take it?
If, like us, most of our education about skunks comes from animated cartoons, you
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