need help !

[smokenmyeyes]

started my fire in my cg pro in the sfd. I have taked a chimmney full of charcoal & still having trouble getting the temp down below 250

before i put the meat on. any ideas ?

 

[travcoman45]

Yall usin a digital thermo at yer grate? Don't even look at the temp gauge that comes with them units, most er off at least 25* er more. Figurine that might be yer problem.

 

[smokenmyeyes]

using a digtal gauge

 

[travcoman45]

Not real familliar with yer rig, but a fire is a fire. Run yer stack wide open and choke off yer fire box, Make sure yer lid is closed as tight as ya can get it. Otherwise I aint sure which way ta send ya.

 

[erodinamik]

I found I get some fluctuations in temp on my CG so once I get it started I put the meat on and let it get going.  After an hour or so I go see how the temps are doing and usually it'll come down.  I've installed some thermo's in the lid near the grill surface and it's amazing the temp diff from one end to the other and from those to the one that came with the grill.  I also put an over thermo on the grill inside and it usually is a little higher than the ones on the lid.  I'm no expert but I'm slowly getting the hang of this grill and can start to get ball park temp guesses by looking at the three gages outside.  On my first smoke I tried real hard to keep the stock gage right around 250 and I used A LOT of charcoal to keep the temps up.  Everything worked out fine but having these other thermometers helps a lot for very little cost.  Hope that helps.

http://assets.smokingmeatforums.com/a/a5/a508fac8_1stMods.jpg

 

[eman]

A buddy of mine just bought the CG and the first thing we had to do was a door gasket.

 Had up to 3/8" gaps around the door.Temps were all over the place because he could not controll the air flow.

 High temp silicone and plastic wrap does the trick.

 

[erodinamik]

I've noticed that too.  My ash pan door doesn't close all the way.  Maybe I can find some stuff at Lowes when I go to get the other stuff to mod my grill to seal it up.

 

[jirodriguez]

Once you toss the meat on you will get an instant 10-15° drop from the added thermal mass of the meat (generaly). Other than that just close down your intake vent, should slow it down a bit.