First Cook Tip - Use CHEAP Meat!

[JBooker]

It depends on what your goal is for your first cook. I you wanting to season the smoker or learn temp control?

A couple of chickens or a turkey are great seasoning meats. Do a high temp cook with an empty water pan an no foil. Those fat and moisture drippings hit the hot pan and splatter making a nice coat of smoke and grease seasoning on the inside.

 

[Roger R.]

Third cook was yesterday - pork butt. First long cook. Lid temp stayed 225-250 for 11 hours, and it came out really good as well. I would like to have given it a little longer (some parts weren't as tender), as well as a longer rest (only rested about 15 minutes), but the family was getting ugly with me about it being so late already.

Jason,
Are you relying on the lid thermometer that came with your WSM?
Typically that thermometer is only an "indication" of how you are cooking.
It is usually, by no means, accurate.

Do you have a method of watching the cooker temp and the meat temp - like
a Maverick or iGrill?

 

[Jason Paul]

Jason,
Are you relying on the lid thermometer that came with your WSM?
Typically that thermometer is only an "indication" of how you are cooking.
It is usually, by no means, accurate.

Do you have a method of watching the cooker temp and the meat temp - like
a Maverick or iGrill?

Yes, I'm currently using only the lid thermometer. I know they're generally inaccurate. I also have a cheap oven thermometer that I've set on the grill a couple of times, and comparing the two it seems the lid thermometer is 25-50 degrees lower than the oven thermometer on the grill. It was closer to 25 degrees off when I did the pork butt on Sunday, so I figured it wasn't enough to make much of a difference in this case.

I don't have anything else. I've looked at the Mavericks but don't know if I'm ready to put down $70 on a thermometer right now. Honestly, even my meat thermometer is a cheapie dial-style. So, I think my first thermometer-related purchase will probably be a Thermopop. Still not sure though.

Thanks,
Jason

 

[Roger R.]

Yes, I'm currently using only the lid thermometer. I know they're generally inaccurate. I've looked at the Mavericks but don't know if I'm ready to put down $70 on a thermometer right now. Honestly, even my meat thermometer is a cheapie dial-style.

I get it. When you are ready to take the leap, you will never look back once you've used a Maverick. There are a number of these types of thermometers out there, but Maverick is low priced and you get good results without a lot of messing around.

 

[Petroni North]

They say there is no such thing as a stupid question, unless its one you should have asked but didn't, so here goes. I looked at the Maverick 733 and it could handle 2 x grills or 2 x meats or 1 of each, all good. Cost here about £120. I checked out the Maverick 732 at a third of the price of the 733 which can handle 1 x grill and 1 x meat. So I have three questions

- if the grill probe on the 732 is pushed into a piece of meat (even though it is blunt ended which would make it a little harder to do) would this not act as a second meat probe?

- if I bought 2 x 732 at £80 total, would the combination not be just as good (or even more flexible) than one 733?

- is the 733 really focussing on its preprogrammed temperature settings as its main 'unique selling feature'?

I feel I am not seeing something but struggling to work out what it is. The 732 has worked really well but I would be happy to buy the 733 if I could see what the added value was. Anyone explain? Cheers