I give up

[Byrney]

so im onto my second cook. Chickens on my wood stick and this is what i see

My thermometre attachment - top left = left hand side grill level the top right = right hand side of smoker on grill level.

My thermometre that are sitting on the lid above centre read approx 300 on the left annnnd 400 on the right door.

?? What do i go by.

I also have baffke plates and still the left hand side smoker is much cooler than the right too

 

[Byrney]

Door on right photo

 

[JJS]

Pull the temp probes out and boil test them, that will answer your question

 

[Byrney]

Sorry boil the ones in the smoker lids or the ones that the maverick has that i put in the meat?

Why boil it? What do I do

 

[JJS]

Boil water and test all of them to see how close they are to 212, that will tell you how accurate they are.

The dial probes are notoriously inaccurate

 

[chopsaw]

testing it against something that you know the temp of . Boiling water , cup of ice . Just the probe in the water , not the cable .

 

[Byrney]

Dial probes are the ones in the lids of the smoker?

Sorry im aussie and we call things different

 

[JJS]

Yes

 

[Bearcarver]

I would test the Maverick probes first.
Then I would never go by any therm in a lid, door, or any place where there isn't any meat. I would put your Maverick "Smoker" probe about 3" from the meat in the smoker. 3" is close enough to measure the air temp near the meat, but far enough from the meat so the cold meat (in the beginning of the smoke) won't effect the reading.

Bear

 

[hardcookin]

I would make sure your gauges are accurate. Then see what the temp is on the rack your cooking your food on.

 

[daveomak]

You don't say if the FB is on the left or right side of the CC... Is it a reverse flow or a std. Side Fire Box...
I'm thinking the upper air inlet, on the FB, needs to be open more to move heat from the FB to the CC to even out the temps.....

 

[noboundaries]

Hey, Byrney, good to see you're still smoking away.

I know your rig is relatively new, so for argument's sake, lets say the gauges are accurate. Bottom line, trust your Maverick and find the sweet spot and desired temp area on your grate. You can always move the meat around to even out the exposure to higher and lower temps. Heck, even the guys at Franklin's BBQ in Austin know they have different grate temps in their offset smokers. They have a schedule for moving meat around to get the cook they desire.

It's called "The Art of Smoking" where you become a "Pit Master" for a reason. Keep up the good work, young Padawan.

 

[Byrney]

You don't say if the FB is on the left or right side of the CC... Is it a reverse flow or a std. Side Fire Box...
I'm thinking the upper air inlet, on the FB, needs to be open more to move heat from the FB to the CC to even out the temps.....

Just a standard

Hey, Byrney, good to see you're still smoking away.

I know your rig is relatively new, so for argument's sake, lets say the gauges are accurate. Bottom line, trust your Maverick and find the sweet spot and desired temp area on your grate. You can always move the meat around to even out the exposure to higher and lower temps. Heck, even the guys at Franklin's BBQ in Austin know they have different grate temps in their offset smokers. They have a schedule for moving meat around to get the cook they desire.

It's called "The Art of Smoking" where you become a "Pit Master" for a reason. Keep up the good work, young Padawan.

Thanks mate will do.

Im also presuming its hotter up the top on the smoker than on grate level and thats why my lid therms are hotter.

 

[noboundaries]

Im also presuming its hotter up the top on the smoker than on grate level and thats why my lid therms are hotter.

You are correct, my friend.

 

[Byrney]

Makes more sense then to put the dial therms down on the lid at grate level. Why on earth put them up so high

 

[GaryHibbert]

I never trust ANY therm that comes with a smoker. I put my faith in a remote digital therm. As said, I have my cook chamber therm situated a few inches from the meat, at grate level.
Boil test all the probes from your Mav and compensate for elevation (the higher you are, the lower the temp that water boils at. Where I live, water boils at 207 degrees F) You can find charts on the web that will give you the boil point of water at different elevations.
Gary

 

[sigmo]

Exactly. Always compensate for the variation in boiling point for your elevation.

Also, NIST has an interesting publication concerning the recalibration of mercury in glass thermometers, and among the interesting information it contains, is a section about how to prepare a proper ice slush bath for calibration at 0 degrees C.

The main takeaway from that is that you want to shave the ice into particles, as they say, "the consistency of a snowcone". That reference made me laugh the first time I read it. The world's premier authority on metrology actually found "the consistency of a snowcone" to be the best way to describe this highly technical parameter!

Also, they want you to use deionized or distilled water for both the ice and the water. And you should continually siphon off the water so that the water level is just below the top of the ice slush.

The idea is this:

When you freeze ice in your freezer, the freezer is well below freezing. And your ice cubes are, therefore, well below freezing temp. If your thermometer probe is in contact with an ice cube, it will likely be exposed to a temperature below freezing.

But if you've shaved the ice cubes into particles "the consistency of a snowcone", and have just enough water in the slush mix, these small particles will come to equilibrium with the temperature of the surrounding water very quickly.

So the whole works will be at the exact freeze-melt point for water, and not only that, the heat capacity and thermal conductivity of the slush is fantastic. A probe or thermometer inserted into such a slush will quickly and accurately come to 0 degrees C.

Properly prepared, such an ice slush is fantastically accurate.

I am not kidding that I actually bought several snow cone machines for the labs where I used to do thermometer calibrations. I also had a few small thermos units and even small styrofoam shipping boxes that I used to contain the ice slushes.

I never used boiling water baths, but instead used what amounts to the laboratory version of a Sous Vide heater-stirrer gadget along with a NIST-traceable reference thermometer for warmer temperatures, and a "dry block calibrator" that I built for higher temperatures.

But using distilled or deionized water, brought to a boil, and knowing your elevation and the boiling point at that elevation, is very good.

You want to use distilled or deionized water for both the ice bath and the boiling point calibrations because impurities in the water can decrease the melting point and increase the boiling point.

 

[Byrney]

Thanks for all the responses I will get it done