Howdy folks, when I did some beef chuck ribs recently, they cooked super fast and one of the potential explanations was that because I had my cooking grate T probe clipped on to the underside of the grate, I was measuring a lower temp and the meat was seeing something hotter. Many posters recounted their view that one should expect a higher temp above the grate than below.
So to test this and measure the difference, I set up three pairs of probes, clipped at the same spot with one above and one below, and dumped in a lit chimney of Royal Oak Chef Select charcoal, what I happen to have on hand. Set the vents to what I have been using to achieve temps in the 250-275F/120-135C range, and let the Fireboard 2 log the data. After about 90 minutes the results are clear.
Here's where everything was set up. After about ten minutes, I closed the bottom vent fully.
Two things are clear. First, the temps are very similar to each other above & below the grate, very consistent. So the horizontal temperature gradient is very small. Second, sure enough, there is a difference ranging from 30 to 40 deg F between upper and lower probes at a given spot. Those deltas reached as high as 50F earlier in the test before things fully settled down.
Now, it's still a question whether temps 40-50F hotter (i.e. almost 300 instead of the 250 I was after) would be enough to make a rack of beef ribs that ought to take 8 hours to cook to get there in 2; I have a hard time believing that. But regardless, this is great info to understand and I won't be clipping my probes to the underside of the grate anymore, that's for sure.
It would have been ideal to have a piece of meat on the grate when I did this, but there really wasn't room with all those probes there. But I now have data... for SCIENCE!
So to test this and measure the difference, I set up three pairs of probes, clipped at the same spot with one above and one below, and dumped in a lit chimney of Royal Oak Chef Select charcoal, what I happen to have on hand. Set the vents to what I have been using to achieve temps in the 250-275F/120-135C range, and let the Fireboard 2 log the data. After about 90 minutes the results are clear.
Here's where everything was set up. After about ten minutes, I closed the bottom vent fully.
Two things are clear. First, the temps are very similar to each other above & below the grate, very consistent. So the horizontal temperature gradient is very small. Second, sure enough, there is a difference ranging from 30 to 40 deg F between upper and lower probes at a given spot. Those deltas reached as high as 50F earlier in the test before things fully settled down.
Now, it's still a question whether temps 40-50F hotter (i.e. almost 300 instead of the 250 I was after) would be enough to make a rack of beef ribs that ought to take 8 hours to cook to get there in 2; I have a hard time believing that. But regardless, this is great info to understand and I won't be clipping my probes to the underside of the grate anymore, that's for sure.
It would have been ideal to have a piece of meat on the grate when I did this, but there really wasn't room with all those probes there. But I now have data... for SCIENCE!
Comment