Temperature stability?


 

Timothy F. Lewis

TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
I’m pretty much a pilgrim,as far as gassers are concerned but, I see some amazing cooks coming out of some of you good people! I’m just wondering about how closely one can expect to hold a specific temperature?
I fully understand the foibles of ambient temperature and wind effect but, realistically, should I be able to honestly “bake” with this? My mind is heading toward a big appetizer party which will include things like “Gougere” that is a little more temperature sensitive than most things I generally do on a kettle.
Will a little experience allow me to do a full sheet pan of delicious cheesy poufs without firing the oven in the house when I have a backyard full of guests?
A solid 425* is what I will want (+/- 10*) for those. Roughly 20 minutes at a shot.
I’ll appreciate input one that
 
It's easy and works just fine. Really the biggest factor to holding a temp in them is if you get a flare up or small fire under some dripping grease. Otherwise you can pretty much get a temp and walk away. My wife has baked bread in our old Genesis and in our Summit. I regularly bake pizza in my Wolf also
 
Timothy: I have cooked a lot of stuff in my grill with very steady temps. It takes a while to get the temp dialed in and steady, but once you do, it is very even. I just did a rotisserie chicken at 325. The only time it went up or down more than about 15 degrees was when the wood in the smoker box caught fire and then it went up to 350.

But, I will caution you that the lid thermometer should really only be used as a guide. While it will detect rise and falls in temps pretty well, it probably isn't going to give you a real accurate temp of what is down by the food. You should really invest in a remote thermometer if you want to do something like you are planning. The probe can be put right at grate level next to the food and they are extremely accurate. I have a Thermoworks Smoke and it is great. It has a second probe that you can put in the food to measure the internal temp, such as chicken or steak and you don't have to keep opening the lid to check it that way. You know what happens when you keep opening the oven door????
You also want to consider indirect vs direct heat when cooking things like you are talking about. In your case, I am guessing you would be best off with indirect heat which is achieved by using a burner or burners away from the food that you are cooking. For instance, if you want to cook some sweet corn with indirect heat, you would put the corn in the front of the grill and only use the rear burner or you could put it in the middle and use the front and rear burners to get the temp you desire.

Lots and lots of things you can do with a genesis grill. Especially the older ones. You just have to take the time to learn. Also, consider a rotisserie if you like to BBQ meat.

Good luck.
 
Once it heats up I'd assume it's fairly stable, but I'd preheat for ~30-45 minutes.

Watch it the first time, maybe check it at 5 minute intervals with the burners all set at medium. You could set them all to high for the first ~8 minutes & drop to medium & start logging the temp at that time.

I think HD grates like my porcelain enameled cast iron would help, as would lifting the lid for as little time as possible. Since you got the 13 FB model I'm expecting it will have even fewer hot spots and more even heating than the 5 fb models, but you might want to try rotating your cheesy poofs halfway through on the first time.

The thermal mass of what you're cooking is going to affect it - unlike your oven which modulates the valves, yours will just be set to a specific level and as the item heats up in your grill, I'd expect the grill temp to increase. So get your temp stable, set your product on, & then trust it'll return to your desired temp as moisture evaporates & the food temp rises
 
One thing I'd add is an extension to direct vs indirect heat. If cooking something on a sheet pan or the like, you might want to put a couple of bricks or something down on the grates to act as spacers to elevate higher above the burners.

As for stability, it's gas. Once you set the flow, it will burn at a pretty stable constant temp, especially cooking something with little thermal mass over a short period.
 
I was thinking about the addition of pizza stone type material for thermal mass to more evenly distribute the heat,on the sheet pan too, I think my instincts on this are pretty good, I can see the use of the gasser as an oven as well as grilling platform, the rest of the parts should arrive today, if I can get more gunk off the grates, I might even use it tonight!
 
Well,the igniter came today but, bars might be Wednesday or Thursday yet. Since there’s several more hours to be invested in cleaning the burnt crud off the grates, I have time to finish some more tinkering. Installed the igniter and test fired, works a charm as TonyUK might say. Control panel re installed, all burners nice blue flame, I’m pretty happy!
 

 

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