YS640 temperature management

[newvasmoke]

Hello everyone, a complete newbie to smoking.  Bought a YS640 a couple weeks ago and have had great results so far.  Today I am smoking a pair of boneless pork shoulders for what will be my longest cook to date.  

My question is, if my target smoker temperature is 225*, do I set it on the temp controller and ignore what the Maverick grate probe says, which is positioned at the center of the grill between the shoulders?  Or should I bump up the temperature on the controller until I average a grate temperature closer to my target?  Right now the grate probe is reading a solid 207* for the last few hours, and I assume the meat is probably evening it out.  I can understand manipulating the controller if the weather conditions are especially cold but it is a pretty mild day today.  

Any help is appreciated. 

 

[mossymo]

I just set the controller on the YS640 to my desired temp and let it take care of things, works well for me anyways!

 

[bgray]

If your probe is in between the two shoulders, the meat could be absorbing some heat, giving you a false reading.

I would make sure that there's decent space between the two pieces of meat if you want to ensure a good reading.

Better yet, I would recommend a test run with no meat for the future.  Set the cooker to 225, and then start putting your probe in different locations to see how the cooker runs, or use multiple probes for this.  Play with the damper to see how to even out the heat across the entire cooker for low and slow at 225.  For most 640's, this is about 5-6 inches in on the damper.

Once you have this set up well, then you'll know how to repeat it.  So if you have this set up dialed in and your probe is reading low in the future, then you can be sure that the meat is probably absorbing the heat, and not allowing a good reading.

But in the end, Pork Shoulder is pretty forgiving.  You could be anywhere between around 200-275 and still get awesome results. 

 

[show me smoke]

I set mine and forget it ..I did a biscuit test and it cooked pretty evenly was hotter on the damper side.  That being said I do not worry about the temp.