Stoker Probe calibration guide addendum


 

RMongeon

New member
Hey guys,

It's been a while since I've posted mainly because I stopped doing BBQ contests due to a divorce with my sous chef. Anyway, I found a new sous chef and signed up for the state comp in Waterbury VT. Knowing that I thought I'd take the time to calibrate my stoker probes and what I found might be helpful to you. This is just an addendum to the sticky I posted about the UTube setup guides years ago.

Stoker Calibration April 2016:

Method: Take the stoker temp probes along with 2 analog probes tie them together and immerse them in the same pot of hot water. They should all read the same and if not adjust the CAL setting on the probes until they match your known reference. In my case it's 2 analog probes (not charted)

The below graph shows what I did to calibrate my setup for Pit1 which has 1 fire probe and 2 meat probes and a large fan.

..... well can't post the graph at the moment but I highlighted 4 different time sections in sequence and this is how it went....

Section1: This is me adjusting the cal values on the probes to synch them up with the analog probes which I trust because they are consistently 1 degree apart.

Section2: This is what you want. All probes in the same pot reading the same thing as the analog probes. Note that the temp that I got this stability was maybe 180F.

Section3: I pulled the probes out and they went to ambient temp. I didn't change any CAL settings. The curious thing to look at was one of probes was way off and it was still physically the same temp as the rest of them.

Section4: I heated up the pot again to boiling and put the probes in back in section 3 and still had not touched the CAL values. I reached "harmonic convergence" with the analog probes at about 187.

If you look what happens after section4 you can see that 1 probe still not tracing with the others. Since I know that probe is Pit1BMeat I know it's only accurate when the other probes are about 175 -200.

The final CAL settings for pit1 are based on a convergence I need at 180 - 190 because that is really the critical time for meat doneness.
What to take from this is that probes should be calibrated at boiling rather than at freezing because the only thing you should care about is the doneness of your meat and that range from 175 - 200 and it just so happens to be the probes most accurate range.
-rob
 
I agree that probe calibration should be done at the boiling point as opposed to in an ice bath for the very reasons you outlined above.
 

 

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