Difference in temp is unbelievable

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jblud1986

Newbie
Original poster
Jun 29, 2017
12
40
So I'm new to smoking and the last time I tried smoking a set of ribs it was a absolute disaster. The ribs came out raw and tough but a great learning experience through meatless burns and this forum after asking for your help. Many if not all of you told me that your lid thermo is notoriously off, which is what I was using to smoke my ribs. Well today I was grilling some bratwurst and decided to get my old lid themo off my old grill and place it inside the cooking chamber where the meat would sit (About in the middle). Whoa what a huge difference!!! Could it REALLY be a difference of close to 100°?? According to my old themo it is apparently. The photo on the left is on the cooking grate and to the right is my lid thermo. I can't wait until my maverick 732 comes in so I can get to smoking! Thanks for all of y'alls help, I really appreciate it!!!

 
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Lid thermometers are usually horrible. Stock ones that is. You can buy after market ones that are just fine. I don't even bother looking at mine anymore. I always just use the temp probe I have at grill level.

Sent from my LG-H812 using Tapatalk
 
Yep I agree. That's the factory lid thermo on a cheap $300 smoker I got from a wholesale club.
 
Yes, stock thermometers are rubbish, but you're not exactly comparing apples to apples.

Lid probe is measuring the air at the point the probe stops. The other one is on the cooking grill measuring the air around the meat. They are always going to give different readings, potentially significantly (i.e. if the meat is cold, it would push the temp of the second probe down).

The bizarre thing about your situation, is that the grill temp should almost always be higher than the lid.

Whilst most people just ignore the lid probe, I like to use it as well (even though I use a Tappecue) and also have another probe in the firebox of my offset.

But if you're going to do that, you need a quality probe like the Tel-Tru ones. There is a whole range of dial and stem sizes, temp ranges, even glow in the dark faces. They are much more expensive than the cheapo ones, but not that bad in the scheme of things. This one is under $30. 
They only start to get truly expensive when you start trying to get one that goes over 1000F (like the one I wanted for my firebox).

I've never used a maverick, but i suspect its similar to the Tappecue, and I can say that when I have done some testing, the Tel-Tru in my offset's cooking chamber lid, the tappecue probe sitting just above the cooking grate (on a little stand), and my Taylor Thermocouple thermometer all read "about" the same. I say "about" because its impossible to measure the same piece of air with 3 thermometers at once so some very minor variance is expected.
 
I see what you mean about the thermo reading the air inside the cooking chamber, makes sense. What doesn't is why its such a huge difference in temp change from lid to grate. (Main heat source coming from the firebox on my off-set smoker) There's only one explanation though to why the ribs were tough and raw. Anyways im excited for my Mav 732 which is digital so we'll see.
 
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