Measuring the internal temperature or the doneness of any product as it travels through a continuous cooking system is not an easy task. But if you’re designing a new and innovative, garnished soup, knowing the temperature of, for example, potato or meat chunks at any given location in the process is an absolute must.
While humans can’t navigate a 270°F cooking process like the miniaturized submarine navigated a human circulatory system in the film, “Fantastic Voyage,” there must be another way. Why not send a surrogate—a robotic-like temperature probe—through the process that could radio its temperature to outside equipment? And why not make the probe with a mass consistent with the chunks to be cooked?