Just a followup on the thermometer: Got an oven thermometer and had it on the grate this weekend. Interesting observations:
- Not surprisingly, the lid meter will report dramatically different figures depending on the orientation of the lid, ie whether the meter is above the coal bed or not. I was doing a side-to-side layout yesterday and there was a good 50+ difference between the meter being over one of the beds vs. in between.
- Lid meter NOT over the coal bed is actually pretty close to the oven meter on the grate in roughly the same position. However....
- With vents all-open, the lid will still tend to read higher than the oven therm...but with vents partially closed, the oven therm actually reads equal or even slightly higher than the lid.