Why the difference in temperature?

[cruzmisl]

Hi All,

I'm cooking 35lbs of butts for a big party and have my guru set at 270f for pit temp. I have the probe clipped to the top of the accessory grill since all the pork wouldn't fit on the main grill. Strange thing is the KK's analog temperature gauge indicates just over 200f. I'm not sure what to rely on. My gut says the guru but wanted some other opinions.

Thanks,

Joe

[jdbower]

Re: Why the difference in temperature?

First off, you can try recalibrating your KK thermometer - that never hurts but it probably won't get them to match. You can also boil the Guru probe just to see if it's accurate, but I don't know if you can recalibrate like you can on the Stoker.

It's often all about probe positioning. Placing your probe is an art form, especially in the beginning of the cook. You'll want to place the probe at the level of the meat, when cooking at multiple levels you may want to look into the Guru probe tree to split the different. If you place it in the center and it's surrounded by meat you may read lower since the meat will act as an insulator. If you place it too close to the edge (especially when cooking indirect) it may read too hot since that's where the updraft comes from. If you place it too close to the meat it will read colder, perhaps the KK thermometer is suffering like this now.

In short, if you're happy with your probe placement I'd probably trust the Guru since you have no control over the KK placement. For me the Tel-Tru is a trim piece, it nicely breaks up the look of the dome and identifies it as a cooker to others but I rarely use it to measure the temperature these days.

[bryan]

Re: Why the difference in temperature?

As Jeff I no longer use the Tru... I spread the roasts out for air circulation, scatter the Guru probes, and cook by internal temp. Trust the Guru.

[LarryR]

Re: Why the difference in temperature?

I've had similar situations and in my case the KK Therm was near a large chunk of cold meat and the Stoker probe was further away and near the edge of the grate where warmer are was rising. I agree, probe placement is an art when cooking with a full grate.

[cruzmisl]

Re: Why the difference in temperature?

Thanks all for the ideas. It all makes sense. The guru read higher because it was at the back of the grill where most of the warm air was rising. I was using indirect. The true temp was a lot lower than 270 though because even after 14hrs my butts weren't done. I moved the probe closer to the meat which was correspondingly over the deflector. I raised the guru temp to 290 which then indicated 250 on the analog gauge and voila it worked perfectly. BUtss were done on time.

THANKS!