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**FCDank** · October 15, 2024, 07:46 PM

My GMG Daniel Boone holds 10 deg on a regular. Unless its windy, then its a battle.
Smoker_Boy agree on the quality pellets. Kirkland brand never fails!

**MBMorgan** · October 15, 2024, 08:28 PM

My Grilla OG controller has two modes of operation:

"Pro Mode" - the Grilla original that is designed to maximize smoke by allowing the temperature to swing roughly +- 30 to 40ºF. It seems to work as advertised.
PID ("Alpha Connect") Mode - It's your typical PID mode that will hold temps within a couple of degrees F ... at the expense of maxmizing smoke, of course. It also works as advertised.

As others have already said, using perfectly dry, high-quality pellets is crucial. In my case, that means either Grilla Grills Brand (made by Lumberjack, I believe) or BBQR's Delight (now owned by Yoder ... or maybe RecTec?). There are other equally excellent options out there.

A couple of random points:

"Set and forget"? - I hate that term. You can certainly set a good pellet smoker ... and expect it to behave precisely and accurately as set. Should you forget it, you're just asking for trouble.
"Easy Bake Oven"? - If you think I hate the term "Set and forget", you can imagine how I feel about "Easy Bake Oven". That's just insulting ...

Finally, you mention wanting to hold overnight at 160ºF. If you decide to try that, just be aware that depending on the quality of the smoker, the quality and condition of the pellets, and the weather (esp. wind), pellet smokers (ALL brands) can be susceptible to flaming out at "low" temps (below about 225ºF). When (not if) that happens, you'll need to be well acquainted with your smoker's procedure for recovering and restarting safely. Oh ... and if you chose to just set and forget it, you will almost certainly have to contend with a ruined meal that sat overnight in the so-called food safety "danger zone".

All that said, I'm a huge fan of pellet rigs and I'm wishing you all the luck in the world as you find the best smoker for your needs and get to know it well ...

**briano52** · October 16, 2024, 12:44 AM

I have a MAK grill that I like a lot. It produces light to moderate smoked meats that I like and are well received by guests. If I just looked at the readout on the MAK controller, I would think that I hover around 10 degrees of my set target temp. However, I usually put one or two Thermoworks ambient air probes in the cooker to monitor the real temps (Thermoworks probes are extremely accurate and sensitive). According to my probes, the temps in the cooker fluctuate 30-45 degrees over course of the cook. More so in the first hour and a little bit less as the cook progresses.

What I have concluded from this data is two things. First, the MAK controller appears to have an algorithm that minimizes (e.g. misstates) the temp variations shown on the readout. I have noticed this phenomenon on other brands of pellet grills as well. Secondly. I was initially alarmed at these wide temperature swings, but I realized over successive cooks that it didn't seem to affect my cook much, if at all. Maybe we should not sweat so much about temperatures going up and down in our pellet cookers? As long as the highs and lows don't last too long, it seems that holding a constant temp doesn't matter too much.

In contrast, if I hit a temp 40 degrees over target in my vault smoker, it is a real issue because that cooker holds heat so well that it can take 90 minutes or more to come back down to target range after cutting down the air flow. That will definitely affect the overall time to cook and, if not accounted for, can lead to drying out the meat and other over-cooking problems.

I would be interested to know if others have checked on their pellet grill readout with independent temp monitoring. And what did you see?

**Rod** · October 16, 2024, 11:50 AM

When I used to own a pellet grill (Traeger Texas then ReqTec RT600), I couldn't keep either of them from pushing 300 when set at 225. The problem is I live in the desert where outside temps can regularly push 120 in the summer. Both grills were never in direct sunlight either. The only way in the summer time to keep it from overshooting that much was to ball up a piece of foil and use it to vent the door. Outside of the brutal summers, they both maintained temps well. Also consider where the built in probes are located. Some are several inches above where your food is actually cooking which will read hotter than the grate temp.

**Caffeine88** · October 17, 2024, 08:05 AM

I've got a RecTeq Dualfire, and I've noticed that it depends on both the pellets and the target temp. The DualFire has a typical low-n-slow side, and a high fire 'sear' side with independent fireboxes and independent feeds. I can run different pellets on each side. ReqTec recommends their own pellets (of course) , but adds the use caveat that they get best results from most any pellet that is less than 1/2" long.

I happen to be a cheapskate on some things, and prefer to run the $13 for 40lb bag of Costco Kirkland pellets instead of the $35 for 40 lb bag from RecTeq. Sure enough, RT pellets are all <1/2" long, and the Kirkland pellets are 1/2" - 1.5" or more long, and are noticeably harder to break with your fingers.

On the low side, I've found that the Kirkland pellets are terrrrrribbbllle for holding temp. If I'm trying to hold 225F, it is not uncommon to seee 25-35F swings and sometimes more. If I'm running the RT pellets, I'm generally able to hold +/-3-4 degrees and I don't think I've ever seen an excursion of more than 7 or 8. This is running at ambient temps of 50F in March to 95F in the summer in Georgia. It gets a little worse when running higher temps, but I've only done a couple cooks at 350F. RT pellets are +/- 5-6, and Kirkland 35-40F.

On the sear side, the highest controlled temp is 500F and then MAX. It will flat out scream with heat (still not as good as charcoal, but hot enough to genuinely sear). I pretty much only use this side for really hot, but assume it would be similar at low temps. The RT pellets hold +/-10F or so at really hot temps, and I've never had a burn back. The Kirkland pellets are much worse, with swings that can go as high as 75-100F. This is exacerbated by opening the lid, etc, which isn't the pellets fault, but it still happens. This weekend I was trying to get it hot and keep it that way for pizza and experienced the first burn back. It got really hot, and then cooled off and couldn't catch up. The pellets had ignited back into the auger and burned back faster than they could be pushed into the firebox, causing the temp to drop in the cook chamber. I was fortuntate that they didn't keep going but quit when I killed the fan. Cheapskate or no, I think I've bought my last bag of Kirkland pellets. I did not enjoy that feeling...

All that to say - pellet size and quality matter to temp control, even if you have a really good machine. The higher the target operating temperature, the larger the temp swings seem to be. YMMV....

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Do pellet grills hold temp pretty constant or do they vary quite a bit?

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