Different Way of Reading WSM Temperature - Worth a Try?

[Jerome D.]

Just wondering if anyone has tried this before. I have a Fluke infrared thermometer gun. A couple hours after starting a cook on the WSM, if I were to slightly crack open the lid and point the beam at the grates at various spots, would it give a somewhat representative reading of the actual smoker temperature, assuming that the grates are at some level of thermal equilibrium with the ambient smoker environment? I'm actually a little embarrassed to be asking this question, since I have a degree in physics, but all my knowledge of thermodynamics has been purged from my brain ever since I graduated from college back in the 90's.

 

[Larry D.]

I've had some experience with the Fluke IR guns. If I recall correctly, the emissivity of the surface has a bearing on your reading vs. the actual surface temperature. I don't know what value you'd use for a grate, and it would likely be different for a clean grate (anybody remember when their grates were shiny?) vs. a, shall we say, seasoned one. The degree of smoke inside the cooker also might interfere with the ability to read the IR off the grate (thermal imaging cameras used by fire fighters can "see" through smoke, but I don't know if you can get an accurate temperature reading through smoke). Finally, the grates are more empty space than actual metal, and depending on the size of the "target" I suspect you might be looking through the grate and reading more off the side of the cooker beyond the grate, than the grate itself. (If any or all of this is totally wrong, I'll use the excuse that I never studied thermodynamics and I graduated from college in 1972 so I knew less to begin with and have had a lot longer to forget it than you did.)

 

[Curt Davis]

I also studied thermodynamics but it was also back in the 90s. You need a "hard surface" to read with the fluke meter as Larry is stating. The tempt in the smoker is air temperature. The fluke is not capable of reading that. Now correct me if I am wrong but doesnt a multimeter contain probes that can also do temperature? That would work provided it was properly rated.