Troubleshooting last weekend temp problems

[BrianGSDTexoma]

So you remember on my first run this weekend fought temp lot lower than what smoker said. I am trying to figure it out now. Put one probe next to smoker probe and other on rack above. Fired up empty smoker. Temp matched pretty close on all but the smoker meat probe which is all over the place. Put my foil drip pans in and my readings on my maverick where off quite a bit like I was getting this weekend. Pulled pans out and back to normal. Tried turning pans and moved more toward center and temps off again. Here is a picture how I first had them. Using the foil pans seem to make smoker run cold. I heard meat probe is junk. Boy that the truth.



Guess need leave pans out and foil water pan. Would not want to leave pellet tray on bottom where could catch grease on fire that drips down there. Try move on bottom shelf but need cover with something to keep drippings off still.

 

[dr k]

Big pans. The rims look like they could touch side walls, back and maybe door. It doesn't look like you need the water pan. Maybe remove that and see. I use 11x15 disposable baking sheets from the dollar tree. Two as an insulator for the one ontop as the drip pan. Slide it around to get your heat rising evenly up all walls and put pans in the middle of the racks with smaller cooling racks on the pans or in the bottom for meat. After heat hits the roof it cascades down.

 

[BrianGSDTexoma]

I will give that a shot. Things have not gone well for the last year with my smoking. I had bought used WSM. My old one is 20 years old but still a good smoker. The newer one I bought I could not keep the temp under 300 and ended up putting in a gasket kit and then could not get the temp hardly to 200. Should of just went back to old one which is rock steady where ever I put the temp. I thought going electric would make things easy.

 

[PAS]

I found that when I put my aluminum pans next to the sensor it would cause problems. MES 30

 

[zwiller]

Makes sense the heat could deflect onto the sensor. I have same smoker. I put my tray on bottom rack and foiled drip tray/water pan on 3rd rack and works great. Never even used the MES meat probe once.

 

[BrianGSDTexoma]

Got those pans from Dollar Tree. Trying now. Looks to be good. I know where TC is now and will keep things away from it. Why bother putting in a meat probe if they dont work? Mine about 40 degrees off! There is always a learning curve on new grills. Got a new Weber E410 last year. Took a while to learn it. I think i still like my 20 yo silver B better though. I dedicating it to a griddle now.