The Hamilton Beach #33967 comes with a probe and a black spoon which fits into the lid's handle for easy transport. The locking lid is fantastic but the clip hooks get in the way when removing the crock. For a power interruption of 5 seconds or less, the slow cooker will remember its programmed heat & time settings. It's easy to program, but I always refer to the manual so I don't make a mistake.
I've used the slow cooker 4 times now. 1st time: I used Manual Mode & made some applesauce. 2nd time: I used Probe Mode and cooked a meatloaf. 3rd time: I used Probe Mode and cooked a whole chicken, best chicken ever, very moist. The slow cooker went to Warm when the temp. reached 180 (it didn't overcook the chicken at the warm temp). 4th time: I slow cooked a beef roast, started out using Probe Mode, moved on to Program and finally Manual Mode. (I had to turn the slow cooker off then back on each time I changed the settings)
I don't agree with the user guide's desired temperature of 145 degrees for the beef roast I made. You might want to use your own judgment when cooking beef in your slow cooker. My roast was done to my family's liking at 170 degrees. I was home when it was cooking so I set the probe again for 160 because it wouldn't let me set it for 170. When the temp reached 160, my roast still wasn't done, so I used Program mode and set it for two hours. After about 1 1/2 hours, it still wasn't done so I used Manual mode to finish it. I wasn't frustrated during all this because I wanted to test all three modes...I wanted to find out if my slow cooker would turn itself off (it didn't). It worked in all 3 modes, except for the 2nd time I tried setting the Probe Mode for my roast. It wouldn't let me set it above 160 degrees.
I've had a good experience so far & will update my review if I have any problems.
