Home : Oven thermometer - How to know the temperature of your oven

Oven thermometer - How to know the temperature of your oven

Submitted by Richard

You can check your oven's temperature with this simple test. After preheating it, lay a sheet of plain white paper on the centre rack and leave it for five minutes. The paper's colour will tell you the oven's temperature:

pale biscuit, 150°C/300°F or less
light brown, 180°- 200°C/350°-400°F
golden brown, 200°- 230°C/400°-450°F
dark brown, 230°- 260°C/450°-500°F
black, over 260°C/500°F

To determine the temperature in a wood-burning oven by the same method, let the fire burn for 20 minutes to preheat the oven.

This tip has 9 comments shown below

Simple, but effective

Comments by: Jimmy Faratwo from Wedged between a big rock and a very hard place Feb 09, 2011

I havn't tried it yet, but it sounds right.
Perhaps when I bake my next loaf.

My bread ain't been that good and being a guy I just thought that being male was the problem. But now I hope it's the oven. I always just thought the oven would be bang-on correct but now you have given me somthing to concider,

Genius!

Comments by: Hums from UAE Dec 30, 2010

i cant and just dnt want to purchase an oven thermometer rite now. period. no other site was as helpful as this one .. thnxxx

Thanks

Comments by: Cheah of ' No-Frills Recipes' from Malaysia Aug 07, 2010

So glad to stumble upon your page. I find this tip very useful and I've read reviews about oven thermometers, although cheap but some don't work well at all. This may be an old fashioned tip but reliable. Will place this in my food blog (No-Frills Recipes) as a 'useful link'. May come in useful to my readers. Thanks a lot.

thanks

Comments by: Crystal from Seattle, WA, USA Jan 05, 2010

this is the real old fashioned way to tell the temperature of the oven, before thermomiters were readily available. I needed this information!

Old Timer

Comments by: D Brumley from USA, Denver, CO Dec 25, 2009

Just what I was looking for! This is how I always used to check
my oven 'trueness' and it worked great. Thanks for posting as I
couldn't remember.

Not sure

Comments by: Steak Anderson from UK Sep 19, 2008

An alternative way might be to put your hand in and feel how warm it is.

...

Comments by: ron from USA Sep 09, 2008

not gd

just what I was looking for...

Comments by: Jill from country Victoria, Australia Mar 25, 2008

a cheap thermometer is a good idea, but I'm 20 km from town, the shops are shut anyway, the pizza oven is smoking, and I just want to know how hot it really is in there!

alternatively...

Comments by: GD from UK Feb 19, 2008

you could purchase an oven thermometer (they are very cheap), place it in the oven and read off the dial. It has the added benefit of not combusting during use.