Curious what you guys think. I’m having some issues with a new Broil King Pellet grill. I asked a few questions on a BK group and they seemed to think I was overthinking things.
Background: I’Ve been cooking on an XL BGE for 12 years, last summer I bought a used Traeger 22 to dip my toes in the pellet world. I enjoyed the simplicity but needed something bigger. But I’ve got years of tried and true cooking recipes, time and temps.
I was about to get a Recteq 590 but found a great deal on a Broil King Crown 500.
The thing is built like a tank compared to the T22. I like some of the features and the max temp of ‘600’ the T22 couldn’t get north of 400. Initial burn in at ‘500’ was easy. I was pleased and threw away the box...
Until i tried to cook some chicken thighs. My usual 375 for 45 minutes turned into 375 for 2+ hours. The next night was chicken wings, set the grill to ‘425’ and still took 90 minutes. Normally it’s an hour to crispy wings after a 15 min smoke and finished at 375.
So I ran some tests with my calibrated (boil test) Fireboard probes. The temp at the grate never gets within 80 degrees of the set temp. I will say it’s rock solid steady, just low. 350 is really 270. 450 is really 325. I have to set it to 550 to get above 375 I had 4 probes across the grate- none of them ever sniffed the set temp. At the higher temps the right side is 80+ hotter than the middle but I think that’s with a rolling fire.
I’d be happy +/-30 degrees- I get it, not going to get surgical precision. But I’m going to have to create some kind of graph/cheat sheet and adjust all my cooks. I’ll have to smoke at ‘325’ to get 225. I’m going to have to cook chicken/burgers at ‘550’. It obvious BK is using fuzzy math to get that 600 degree max.
Is 80-175 degree discrepancy acceptable? Granted, Amazon has offered a decent discount for me to keep it on top of the discount I already had...
Background: I’Ve been cooking on an XL BGE for 12 years, last summer I bought a used Traeger 22 to dip my toes in the pellet world. I enjoyed the simplicity but needed something bigger. But I’ve got years of tried and true cooking recipes, time and temps.
I was about to get a Recteq 590 but found a great deal on a Broil King Crown 500.
The thing is built like a tank compared to the T22. I like some of the features and the max temp of ‘600’ the T22 couldn’t get north of 400. Initial burn in at ‘500’ was easy. I was pleased and threw away the box...
Until i tried to cook some chicken thighs. My usual 375 for 45 minutes turned into 375 for 2+ hours. The next night was chicken wings, set the grill to ‘425’ and still took 90 minutes. Normally it’s an hour to crispy wings after a 15 min smoke and finished at 375.
So I ran some tests with my calibrated (boil test) Fireboard probes. The temp at the grate never gets within 80 degrees of the set temp. I will say it’s rock solid steady, just low. 350 is really 270. 450 is really 325. I have to set it to 550 to get above 375 I had 4 probes across the grate- none of them ever sniffed the set temp. At the higher temps the right side is 80+ hotter than the middle but I think that’s with a rolling fire.
I’d be happy +/-30 degrees- I get it, not going to get surgical precision. But I’m going to have to create some kind of graph/cheat sheet and adjust all my cooks. I’ll have to smoke at ‘325’ to get 225. I’m going to have to cook chicken/burgers at ‘550’. It obvious BK is using fuzzy math to get that 600 degree max.
Is 80-175 degree discrepancy acceptable? Granted, Amazon has offered a decent discount for me to keep it on top of the discount I already had...