Where to Put a Meat Thermometer in a Turkey

Bone conducts heat faster than meat. A probe resting against bone is reading the hottest thing inside the bird, not the coolest — and the coolest is what determines whether it is safe.

That means the error runs in the dangerous direction. It tells you the bird has reached 165F when the meat around it has not, so you pull it early and serve undercooked poultry believing you checked.

If the probe slides in and hits something hard, back it out and come in at a different angle. A reading that seems surprisingly high compared with another spot is usually bone.

Enter from the side of the bird, not from the top. A probe pushed straight down from above usually ends up against the breastbone or out through the cavity.

1. Find the thickest part of one breast lobe, roughly halfway along and toward the wing end.
2. Insert horizontally from the side, angling slightly toward the center of that lobe.
3. Go about two inches in, or to the center of the muscle.
4. If you feel resistance, you have found bone. Withdraw slightly and change angle.
5. Read. Then repeat on the other breast.

The inner thigh is the slowest part of the bird to come up to temperature, which makes it the one that decides when you are finished.

1. Find the crease where the thigh meets the body.
2. Insert into the thickest part of the thigh muscle, angling away from the thigh bone.
3. Go in until you feel you are in the middle of the muscle.
4. Read, then check the other thigh.

If the thigh is lagging well behind the breast — which is common — tent the breast with foil and keep cooking. That protects the part that is already done while the part that is not catches up.

A leave-in probe sits in the bird for the whole cook, so placement matters even more — you only get one chance to put it in the right place.

• Put it in the breast, from the side, before the bird goes into the oven or roaster.
• With two probes, put the second in the inner thigh. That is the whole reason to own a dual-probe unit.
• Route the cable out of the oven door seal, or use a wireless probe if you are cooking in a roaster oven, where a cable breaks the lid seal.
• Set the alarm to about 160F rather than 165F — the bird carries on rising a few degrees while it rests.
• Confirm with an instant-read in two or three places before you commit.

The plastic pop-up in a supermarket turkey is calibrated conservatively so that a manufacturer never gets blamed for an undercooked bird. In practice they frequently trigger well past 165F, by which point the breast is dry.

Leave it in if you like — it does no harm — and ignore it. Your thermometer is the instrument.

Two minutes, and it removes a whole category of doubt.

1. Ice water: crushed ice topped with water, stirred, probe in without touching the sides. Should read 32F.
2. Boiling water: rapidly boiling, probe in without touching the pan. Should read 212F at sea level, lower at altitude.

Some thermometers can be recalibrated; the rest should be replaced if they are off by more than a degree or two. Our thermometer roundup covers what to buy.