Lid and grate temp question


 
B

Bill Rickert

TVWBB Fan
A little history with my Maverick. Mine had no distance originally. I sent it to Maverick and it came back working great. My first cook with it, I kinked the coil and ended up with the HHH problem. Called Maverick, they sent a new prob - it’s a food probe with the bigger coil, but they work the same. A day after the kinked coil, I tested that probe for kicks and got valid readings, so I thought maybe I would have a spare.

Now to last night. I did a temp check with the Maverick, using the original probes, my Taylor candy temp for the lid and my Taylor instant. All showed 210* or 211* at boiling, including the original grate probe, about perfect for this area. After getting the WSM loaded (4 pb) the smoker probe showed HHH again. So, I went with the lid temp again. Later I decided to try the new probe. Didn’t try to run it thru the eyelet, just under the lid. Appeared to work great, but here lies my confusion.

The taylor lid temp ran at 250 as always, I wanted 225-235 grate temp. When I got the new probe working, it showed 199. It also got there at a very slow pace, I expected a fairly rapid increase to true temp. After awhile, I checked it and the coil was laying on the meat and the probe was fairly close to the meat, so I moved the coil off the meat and and the probe farther from the meat. It then picked up quickly to 222* but the lid temp was 250*. Isn’t that a larger than expected difference? Right now, the lid temp is setting at 255* and the Maverick is reading 215* - 40* difference. A little wind has come up and I can see the maverick change every time a little gust comes, appears to be working really well.

Before I got the Maverick working, I was fat, dumb and happy. The lid said 250 almost constant and the meat was great. The cook is going as expected. The largest pb was 6lbs and the internal is 185 at 11.5 hrs – I need to check the others. It’s just that the added info of the Maverick confused me and made me a little anxious. One thing I will do in the future is not put the grate probe on until the temps have settled down. I will also run a probe verification on the new probe to insure it’s ok.

Sorry for the long post, but wanted to get some input on this. My unit wants to run at 250 lid temp and that’s fine. I just thought the grate temp would be around 235, not 215-220.
 
I don't see anything amiss necessarily. When you moved the probe farther away from the meat you had a rise I'd expect. If there's more room on the lower grate try your probe there. Grate level temps can be odd when a lot of meat is in the cooker. I tend to focus on lid temp in that scenario.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by K Kruger:
Grate level temps can be odd when a lot of meat is in the cooker. I tend to focus on lid temp in that scenario. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've got to agree with Kevin on that! On my last cook, I had 5 different temp sensors monitoring cooker temps, all calibrated. They were all over the map. What I found really interesting was that for most of the cook, grate temps were higher than the lid temp. Go figure.

The butts on the top cooked as expected. The brisket on the bottom could almost be used as charcoal. (Not really, but I did throw about 1/3 of it away)

JimT
 
I guess if I've got a full grate of meat, I'll stick with the lid temp and use both probes on meat with the Maverick. If there's room, I think the Maverick will work on the grate fine.

What do ya think, Jim? Did you have some heavy weather keeping the heat down? It sure makes things tuff if we can't rely on measuring the cooking temp. I'm not going to panic, tuff cooks make for a learning experience.
 
Bill
As Kevin said your readings were what you could expect. There are two easy fixes to the burned butt, rotate the butts 1/2 way through the cook or cook them both on the top grate.
Jim
 
Thanks Jim. I had 4 butts going so both grates were full. I had one butt that was hotter than I wanted but it was all my fault. Last night at midnight when I put them on, I somehow got one of the bigger ones on the bottom. So when 3 were done, I found the one still at 177*. Swapped to the top, didn't get the probe in a good position (I found out later), then the wind came up, had to add some fuel etc etc etc. Still tasted pretty good, only it was 200+ instead of the 190 I planned on.
 
Bill,

Another thing to keep in mind, you had 4 PB's in there probably close to 27-30lbs of meat. You didn't say if they were room temp or right from the fridge. It takes a while for the WSM to come up to temp with that mass of meat.

If the PB's were cool to cold and the probe set right amongst them, it could have picked up some of the cooler air around the meat.

It sounds like your cook went well, congratulations.
 
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