Thermocouple clips

[Greg Powers]

Hopefully this is the best place for this, and it may already be known by many but I just found out.
2" Alligator Clips item # 270-346B from Radio Shack are a near perfect fit for the ET73 pit probes, and will work with the Party Q probe.
8 clips for under $4.

 

[Russ Sylvester]

I tried something like this a long time ago and to be honest, I wasn't a big fan. My theory is that clipping onto a grate will thermally couple the heat level of that grate right into the probe. I prefer to have the probe out in the ambient air inside the cooker. That's what the meat is getting after all.

I made a simple wooden block out of 1x2 with a hole drilled through it that the probe fits into. The width of the block is about half the length of the probe so the probe end extends out past the block by a couple inches. Then I put two screw hooks into the top of the block and I simply hook the block to the underside of the WSM top rack.

I'm probably being overly paranoid about it and the clip idea might be just fine. I don't have any hard data either way.

Russ

 

[Greg Powers]

Russ you may be right. I based my purchase on this type of clip coming with the Party Q.
I will try to make a wood block similar to yours and put them side by side to see if there is a difference.

 

[Gary S]

Greg, not sure either but I do agree with Russ about the direct contact with the cooking grate. I will often take a small potato and spear it with the probe. I was connecting the probe to the underside at first too but sometimes it gets pretty greasy and I try to be very gentle with it so the less cleaning the better. The potato idea came from some of the members here on this site and it seems to work for me. I just set it on the grill and the location depends on what I'm cooking and the setup when and if I use it.
Maybe it's experience or just being comfortable with what's going on but I don't get too hung up over grill temp. I do monitor internal temp and the lid thermometers in my kettle and WSM are accurate enough for what I need. There is always somebody saying how far out they are but as has been mentioned recently on this site sometimes the thermal mass of the meat affects how they read as well. That can affect the grill probe too depending how close it is.
FYI

 

[Greg Powers]

Oh, I am a member of the "close is good enough" club when it comes to cooking temp.
But I do like my ATCs when I'm sleeping and using the ET73 alarms to wake me up is something should go wrong.

 

[Larry D.]

I use a wooden clothespin. The probe goes thorough the hole in the spring, and the pin clips on top of the rack, next to the meat. Unfortunately many clothespins have small springs that won't accommodate the probe, but I have a few old ones left that fit just about perfectly.

 

[George C]

After reading these responses, I must remark that this problem is similar to my trials of finding a really good way to use a thermocouple in a kitchen oven.

I have a kitchen oven that checks out O.K. with any thermometer that one would want to try: electric, NFS certified, etc. Yet, the stinking thing cooks slow, no matter what.

During all of my trials, I found that there was a normal temperature swing and that it was the average temperature for a sizable mass that made a difference. However, I have a real K-type thermocouple temperature probe for my Fluke digital meter and I tried it. The meter is too responsive and goes up and down too fast to give an average reading.

At that point, I decided to place the thermocouple in a mass, to act as a ballast, as it were. I think that the slow response of the clip or the clip attached to the grate may be an advantage towards providing accurate food temperature, since the food is a sizable mass, too. Maybe, but I gotta test this first and am out of energy right now for that project.

The oven still cooks slow, so maybe it is an air circulation problem--but turning on the oven fan does not help much.

 

[M. Ray Wilburn]

I use a wooden clothespin. The probe goes thorough the hole in the spring, and the pin clips on top of the rack, next to the meat. Unfortunately many clothespins have small springs that won't accommodate the probe, but I have a few old ones left that fit just about perfectly.

Great idea,so simple!