Well now! According to my Meater probe, my Butterball Frozen Turkey Roast, which I'd thawed a few days in the refrigerator before cooking, hit an internal temperature of 168° and then Meater told me to remove it from the heat and let it rest ten minutes before cutting into it. I checked it with another thermometer which said it was at 163° so I took it out and rested it for the prescribed time. At the end of the ten minutes, both thermometers told me I was at 170°.
The turkey came out great. Then I mixed the drippings with the little gravy packet that was included with my bird and that came out pretty good. I added chicken stock instead of water and tossed in a tablespoon of flour and I'd give the resultant gravy a B+. I am enormously impressed with both the Meater probe and the Butterball product. Total cooking time was three hours and eleven minutes.
I phoned the Butterball Hot-Line, told a nice lady what I'd done and asked her, "Aren't these supposed to take seven hours?" She said, "You must have a newer slow cooker. Their low temperatures all seem to be higher." My Rival Slow Cooker is about eight years old and the Meater probe, which measures the internal temperature of the oven along with what you cook in it, said the temps inside the cooker got up to 210° near the end…but for most of the cooking time, it was below 190°
So I don't know what to think except that I'm going to do this again. You don't get golden, crispy skin in a slow cooker but the meat itself would not be outta place in a fine restaurant…or at least the kind I go to. If you wanna try it, check your local market for Butterball items and you can pick up a Meater over at their website — and apparently nowhere else. They have oodles of videos there explaining how the thing works.
In my first experience, it worked exactly the way they said it would so I'm going to give it a try soon on steak. If that comes out as well as this did, Amber may never get her Benihana Fried Rice again.