Food temperature probes should be made of food grade stainless steel - Stainless steel has a coding system to differentiate between the various grades that are available. Food grade is considered to be at least 316 Stainless.
When you choose a food probe, it is worth remembering that it is made of metal, which itself needs to heat up, or cool down, before the sensor within the metal can read the food temperature. If you want a fast responding thermometer, then you need as thin a stainless steel probe as possible - however, if it is too thin, it will bend when pushed into the food product. So, you will generally find that the thinnest food probes are around 3.2mm diameter, as that has been found to be the best compromise between strength and speed of response.
If a standard 3.2mm probe proves too weak for your application, then it is easy to specify probes which are thicker and therefore much stronger, for example, we manufacture probes to push into the tarmac of road surfaces which are 12mm thick! However, the thicker the probe body, the slower it will be when used to measure the temperature of the food.
