Rapid and dramatic heat loss

[Elaine]

After getting my KK up to the desired temp I find when I lift the lid to put food on.... turn food over......,,The heat falls far and fast. Am I not heat soaking it long enough or is that something that is unavoidable?

I am really enjoying the learning process but always appreciate any advise from the forum.

[Poochie]

Been there. Even with a CyberQ or Guru keeping your temperatures consistent, they WILL drop when you open the lid. However, if you've kept it at temperature for a while, it'll come right back up before you know it. Don't mess with the vents to try to bring the temps up faster if you already had them where you wanted them. "Chasing temperature" is a losing battle.  Just open the lid for the shortest amount of time possible. After you close it, grab a cool one, go in the house, come back and check on it in 5 minutes. I'll bet it's pretty close to where you had it before you opened it. 

  Good luck Elaine on all your future cooks!

[5698k]

Adding food especially will affect dome temp, the more you put on, the longer to come back up, and it will come back up. Let your grill stablize at your cook temp as long as you care to, if you're more pressed for time, just put your stuff on, it'll get there. Poochie's exactly right about chasing temps, that'll be way more of a problem.

Robert

[bryan]

After getting my KK up to the desired temp I find when I lift the lid to put food on.... turn food over......,,The heat falls far and fast. Am I not heat soaking it long enough or is that something that is unavoidable?

I am really enjoying the learning process but always appreciate any advise from the forum.

I don't do any turning. 90% of my cooks are low and slow. I use Ralph for low and slows plus oven type cooking.

A park/rest area open style grill is the tool used for my hot cooks.

My Komodo Kamado is always in the set it and forget it mode. As such I have had no problems in almost 8 years.

[CeramicChef]

I heat soak TheBeast, and whatever else I'll be using, i.e. deflectors or baking stone, for about an hour prior to actually the cook on. TheBeast recovers temps so quickly I don't even notice the temp transient. They are no big deal. As noted above, once heat soaked, you'll never have to chase a temp again. Set it and forget it! Life is good.

[wilburpan]

After getting my KK up to the desired temp I find when I lift the lid to put food on.... turn food over......,,The heat falls far and fast. Am I not heat soaking it long enough or is that something that is unavoidable?

 

 

Just reading between the lines, I’m guessing that you’re cooking something like steaks or burgers, where the fire is relatively hot and you’re direct grilling over the charcoal.

 

When I’ve done this, I’ll get the grill up to temperature as fast as I can, usually within 15 minutes or less. My dome thermometer is usually in the 600ºF range. If I open the lid to flip the burgers, and then close it, the thermometer can easily fall to the 200ºF range. The temperature does recover fairly quickly after I close the lid, getting back to 600ºF in about 15 seconds.

 

The ability of a KK grill to heat soak and then hold temperature is great, but I’m not sure it makes a huge difference in hot and fast cooks. Clearly, Smaug isn’t heat soaked after hitting 600ºF in 15 minutes, but then again, for steaks and burgers the main heat source is the fire itself, not the radiant heat coming from the walls of the grill.

 

I do heat soak as much as I can for low and slow cooks. I think that heat soaking is a bigger factor for that sort of cooking.

[mk1]

If you're looking you aint cookin'

[tony b]

Yah might wanna read this!

 

http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/mythbusting_lookin_aint_cookin.html

[mk1]

I have, and it is unclear that the myth was truly busted. Read the final paragraphs closely. Our cookers are nearly airtight. Especially for a low and slow. So while you are looking you are losing moisture. I have felt the humid hot air come up from my briskets. Also, it basically says while you are looking you are not cooking so keep it to a minimum. And if you are not fully heat soaked in a KK the return to temp can be very long. Much longer than those graphs indicate. It is very dependent on the amount of charcoal lit and airflow. That article over simplifies. As does the expression itself. But the fact remains, when the lid is up the temperature drops, and cooking slows.

 

IMHO....I like to think about these things a little

[Elaine]

Once again, I must thank all of you for the great info! I look forward to many years of cooking on my KK and hope I can be of help to new owners in the future.

[tony b]

Sorry, but I'm gonna have to disagree on this one, mk1. Although the writeup suffered a bit, if you look at the various case studies and their resulting data, the results were pretty clear. While there was a precipitous drop in air temperature, the meat temperature was hardly affected at all, as long as you didn't keep the lid open for extended periods or open too frequently (the exaggerated case). The thermal mass of the meat was insensitive to short drops in ambient temperature, i.e., the cooking didn't stop. Especially in cases where there was an adequate supply of fuel to facilitate a prompt recovery in air temperature. The point of the article was meant to say you didn't have to keep the lid closed the entire time and not open it until the meat was done - it's OK to look. 

[CeramicChef]

I'm in the boat with Tony on this one. To prove the point, all one has to do use a remote temp probe. Keep the probe in the meat, say a pork butt after you've pulled it and wrapped it in foil and a towel. The temperature will continue to climb for a period, i.e it's still cooking. The reason is thermal momentum. Temperature gradients seek to equilibrate over time. Outside layers of the cook are at higher temps than the deep interior. By definition, heat moves from higher concentrations to lower concentrations. This means the interior temps increase thus continuing the cooking process.

Finally, remember that on a sear we pull the cook prior to it hitting the target temp. The cook is tented under foil for a few minutes and the temp coasts up to the target. Again, thermal momentum at work.

This is really nothing more than simple principles of heat transfer at work.

[tony b]

Thanks, Ken! Couldn't have said it better myself! 

 

[CeramicChef]

Thanks, Ken! Couldn't have said it better myself! 

 

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