What's the temp?

[Big Dawg]

Temp comparisons:

You know, we've always been told to cook this type of meant at that kind of temperature, and for a loooooong time, all we had to go on was that little thermometer in the lid of our kettle.  Accurate or not, it was all we had.

Well, I've often wondered how different the temps were between the little thermometer on the kettle lid and what it was on the grate.  So on my last cook, I installed one probe on a bracket just under the lid's handle and put another one on the cooking grate.

Below is a breakdown of the temps recorded in those locations.  Keep in mind that I was trying to maintain between 225º - 250º for this particular cook.







As you can see, after an initial spike, it was fairly consistent with the staying right at 70% or, or about 100º below, the dome.

Of course, one of my objectives was to see if there was a steady relationship so that I could have a consistent location for my grill probe. 

What do you think?





BD

[pbe gummi bear]

I think the data looks great! It shows a consistent delta of 95-105F across most of the cook. Any ideas why the temp difference is less between 3:15 and 3:45? What was your fire setup and ambient conditions? Was it in the sun at all?

What worries me about the lid temp is if a new griller sets the dial temp at 250 lid temp but the grate temp is actually only in the high 100's. An oem lid thermometer that consistently reads high could explain why most recommend smoking closer to 275-300f lid dial temp. My oem wsm lid thermometer reads 30F-40F low of grate temp so ymmv

[1buckie]

Finally, a clear representation for (mostly) new people who want to rely on the lid therm......

Thank you for this......I've always maintained that it was 25~40 degrees different, but this shows that, not only is it much more, but that it's consistently much more......

Like Gummi points out, WSM's are different..........

Is it OK to use this for demo purposes here & elsewhere?

[BBQFiend]

I found similar results when checking the lid thermometer from time to times and my digital. It seemed like the lid one was about 100degrees off. Any idea why your temp jumped almost 50 degrees in 15min from 3:45-4? Did you open the lid or vent at that time?

[MikeRocksTheRed]

This is really interesting.  I'm like @1buckie and always thought the thermo on my SS performer was always about 50 degrees hotter than the grate and the thermo on my 26 ran 25 hotter than the grate.  This test does show that it is pretty consistant within 10-15 degrees....so once you know in general how much hotter your lid thermo runs, you should be able to use the lid as a pretty accurate gauge of your cooking grate temp.  In the case of the grill used in this test, I'd call it safe to say the lid averages 100 degrees hotter than the cooking grate, which happens to make the math really easy if you want to do a cooking only using the lid thermo.

[1buckie]

@MikeRocksTheRed
@Big Dawg

.....this is why I try pretty hard to get folks to use something on the grate if they would......never into bashing folks about it, but time after time, I've seen (esp. people new to this) get going & can't understand why their food takes forever or comes out weird.....
"I cooked at a constant 225~235 degrees".....lid temp.....minus 90 degrees, puts you at 135~145....

This is really a great revelation here.....thought about breaking out the 733 to do something like this several times, but never quite got around to setting it up....

[MikeRocksTheRed]

@MikeRocksTheRed
@Big Dawg

.....this is why I try pretty hard to get folks to use something on the grate if they would......never into bashing folks about it, but time after time, I've seen (esp. people new to this) get going & can't understand why their food takes forever or comes out weird.....
"I cooked at a constant 225~235 degrees".....lid temp.....minus 90 degrees, puts you at 135~145....

This is really a great revelation here.....thought about breaking out the 733 to do something like this several times, but never quite got around to setting it up....

Exactly. 

Did your grill you used have a lid thermometer?  Curious to see how that read compared to the probe you affixed to the lid.  As I previously said, I've watched my lid thermometers on my performer and 26er and they seem to running 50 and 25 degrees hotter than the cooking grate respectively. 



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[kettlecook]

The issue with my kettle lid therms is that they're in THREE different spots. My Performer lid has a therm that runs under the handle with the tip right under the vent, my big kettle has one 90* off from the vent, and the silliest placement is on my new Premium 22, opposite the vent. But like with the Smoky Mt Cookers, sunlight vs wind/precip. will make any established differences in therm to grate temps fluctuate. So measuring grate temp is preferred, right? Well, there's variables at play there, as well, especially if you start with cold meat to help get a smoke ring. Biggest tip I can give is the obvious. Try to measure temp the same way, identifying and minimizing variables best you can.


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[SteveZ]

I built an Ugly Drum Smoker. I was tired of trying to extrapolate the correct temp with a thermometer with a two inch shaft located just below my grill height. I installed a nut and bolt in the thermometer hole, then drilled a hole in the bolt the size of the shaft on a 12 inch frying thermometer so I can slide it in and get center grill temperature accurately. Works Grate!

[kettlecook]

I built an Ugly Drum Smoker. I was tired of trying to extrapolate the correct temp with a thermometer with a two inch shaft located just below my grill height. I installed a nut and bolt in the thermometer hole, then drilled a hole in the bolt the size of the shaft on a 12 inch frying thermometer so I can slide it in and get center grill temperature accurately. Works Grate!

Yeah, those of us who've made one are amazed at how fast they cook until we find out just how how the center of the grate is.


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[Big Dawg]

@pbe gummi bear, Correct! 

@BBQFiend, Also, since the grate probe was in between the two chuck roasts (yes, I did this test during an actual cook), so the initial cool temp of the roasts may have been a factor.

@MikeRocksTheRed, I did not pay attention to the lid thermometer for two reason, (1) I was inside taking care of a few other projects, and (2) since I was using the SnS on this cook, the lid thermometer was almost directly over the coals.

@1buckie, that was one of the main reasons that I tried this.  Going to try it on my WSM at my next contest.  Let you know how it comes out.





BD

[kettlebb]

I'm new to the kettle so I find this very helpful. I'd be interested to know what the fire setup was and how this data will look with different fire configurations.

[RumBar]

I found this very interesting as I'm continually trying to perfect my cooks. Recently a friend of mine was smoking a shoulder and it went into a prolonged stall but he stuck with it with little frustration and it came out fine. I forwarded this thread to him to try to help him with his next cook and his reply gave me a kick in pants as to why I started grilling with a Weber and charcoal in the first place. His response was this:
"Every time I cook I think of ways to automate the process. A system of probes monitoring various temps, an actuator varying vent positions, a fan stoking the coals....all automatically. But that would ruin what I enjoy the most about the cook. Sitting out back and constantly monitoring my grill. Doing nothing all afternoon because I'm cooking (really drinking beer and smoking cigars but with a purpose). I'll just keep using my little digital candy thermometer, a lot of luck and the force."
While I'll continue to perfect what I can I think this is very thoughtful, I might drag a chair out to the grill this weekend and just sit there watching my cook.


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[addicted-to-smoke]

This is really interesting. My results from last year are different, http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/product-reviews/weber-3200-kettle-warming-rack-16593/msg165339/#msg165339

As part of my Warming Rack review we looked at temps, comparing what the lid thermo showed with the two probes from my Maverick. One probe stayed clipped to the grate and other stayed clipped the Warming Rack. The lid thermo had been recently replaced and tested OK in boiling water.

In the expected usage of *not* being right over the heat, the lid thermo read about 20-50 degrees higher than the grate, and much closer to what was happening up at the Warming Rack. But at lower grilling temperatures the lid and grate were much closer, especially given some more time.

I'm comfortable assuming the lid thermo is "off" by a good 50 or especially more at higher heat cooks. 100 degrees sounds odd though. I'll probably re-run a test with just the lid thermo, perhaps with a Maverick probe clipped up there, and one at the grate and the oven thermometer just for fun. It's good to keep getting data like this in.

[addicted-to-smoke]

I found this very interesting as I'm continually trying to perfect my cooks. Recently a friend of mine was smoking a shoulder and it went into a prolonged stall but he stuck with it with little frustration and it came out fine. I forwarded this thread to him to try to help him with his next cook and his reply gave me a kick in pants as to why I started grilling with a Weber and charcoal in the first place. His response was this:
"Every time I cook I think of ways to automate the process. A system of probes monitoring various temps, an actuator varying vent positions, a fan stoking the coals....all automatically. But that would ruin what I enjoy the most about the cook. Sitting out back and constantly monitoring my grill. Doing nothing all afternoon because I'm cooking (really drinking beer and smoking cigars but with a purpose). I'll just keep using my little digital candy thermometer, a lot of luck and the force."
While I'll continue to perfect what I can I think this is very thoughtful, I might drag a chair out to the grill this weekend and just sit there watching my cook.


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Although I don't have one, I wouldn't say there's anything *wrong* about regulating airflow/temps better such as by using a BBQ Guru device. Most of my cooks need to "just work" because I'm actually doing other stuff, either prepping other food or something. It's rare that I can spend all day doing nothing but watching the machine, and I don't really want to have to either.