- Jul 7, 2012
- 24
- 10
I kind of gave up trying after having three heavy offset smokers similar to this one. All different brands, all of them have exactly the same problem. I don’t even know that it is a problem. I attached a picture of my temperature probes. I cannot get this smoker or any of my smokers much closer than about 100° apart between the left and the right side. These two probes are no more than 12 inches apart. That’s a huge temperature gradient. I’ve tried tuning plates and all that and never had any success whatsoever. Now I need to put on two pork butts, and I’m not sure how to manage this with temperatures that are 100 200° difference between these two points.
What the heck is the trick on these things? I’ve been smoking meats on these for a couple decades and never really figured it out.
I’ve gone through homemade tuning plates, commercial, tuning plates, controlling temps with wood, using both the damper and the stack and fiddling with that in all manner of configurations, and I might be able to get 50° difference between these two points, but it’s gonna be pretty much impossible to even that out anymore. I always see pictures of people that have 10° differences between both sides of the pit, and my engineering and physics brain tells me that is physically impossible, considering where the fire box is, but it seems to be possible, but I don’t know how to do it.
I just put a third probe in between these two and the temperature is going from left to right over 14 inches is 205° 235° 265°.
That seems pretty extreme over less than 2 feet which kind of sucks because this is a 40 inch long tube. I wish I could use a lot more of it.
What the heck is the trick on these things? I’ve been smoking meats on these for a couple decades and never really figured it out.
I’ve gone through homemade tuning plates, commercial, tuning plates, controlling temps with wood, using both the damper and the stack and fiddling with that in all manner of configurations, and I might be able to get 50° difference between these two points, but it’s gonna be pretty much impossible to even that out anymore. I always see pictures of people that have 10° differences between both sides of the pit, and my engineering and physics brain tells me that is physically impossible, considering where the fire box is, but it seems to be possible, but I don’t know how to do it.
I just put a third probe in between these two and the temperature is going from left to right over 14 inches is 205° 235° 265°.
That seems pretty extreme over less than 2 feet which kind of sucks because this is a 40 inch long tube. I wish I could use a lot more of it.
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