Losing LOTs of temp when opening

[AC16]

MES Pro 20072415 30in

Howdy y’all. Lately I’ve been having some issues with losing temp (and lots of it) when I open the door. Way more than I ever remember. So I’ve been compensating by pre-heating to a higher temp but even that doesn’t seem to be helping much.

Example: Wanting to smoke at 225, I pre-heat to 260. Obviously have to open the door to put meat in. Temp will drop over 100 degrees to around 155 or so before starting to come back up.

This can’t be right... right? Is it possible something is wrong with my internal thermometer and I’m not losing that kind of heat in 10-20 seconds of the door being open?

Thanks!

 

[radio]

Never, ever trust the factory thermometers! Buy a decent dual probe remote unit like the Maverick or similar. One probe to monitor the cooking chamber temps, and the other the internal temp of the meat. Just be sure to insert the probe in the meat after it has been in the smoker a while and over 140° or so to the prevent the probe from picking up any bacteria from the surface of the meat and transporting it to the center.
It *might* be possible the smoker it's self is malfunctioning, but a remote thermometer will tell the story

 

[smokerjim]

it will lose temp, remember you are putting cold meat in so it will probably take a bit to get back up to temp, as radio said don't trust the mes thermometer

 

[dward51]

And only open to put meat in, rotate meat around, baste, or take the meat out. All other times keep it buttoned up (this advice is really for any type of smoker, but a smoker with a full front "door" will dump all the heat as soon as you open it, but it will recover).