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Grilla RTD Offset

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    Grilla RTD Offset

    I was traveling some this summer, so I didn’t cook a lot on the new Grilla. I thought it was running hot, ribs cooking way too quick for the temp setting for example. I finally got around to checking the Grilla temp with my Chef Alarm. The ambient temp was 85, and they both read 85 when I started the OG. Once it got to temp, at low (200-250°) temps, the OG was 10-25° hotter on the Chef Alarm on the grate than it registered on the OG. It was very consistent, measured for over an hour a couple of times during cooks. It just seems that if you’re cooking at 225°, that’s what the temp should be at the grate, right? Yesterday I was smoking some rib trimmings for beans, so I played with the RTD to get the temp reading on the display to match the Chef Alarm. I finally got there with a 9% change. The chef alarm and the OG were tracking. Is this normal? Has anyone else had this problem? Did I do the right thing? Should I have changed the feed rate?

    #2
    The most common self inflicted problems I see people have with a pellet grill is trying to get the grate temp to be what the set temp is. It's never going to happen unless your grill has a roaming thermocouple like my MAK. And honestly I don't use that feature very often unless I'm baking something. I know that if I set my grill to 225, it's close enough + or - at the grate depending on the time of year and just let it ride.

    I would suggest that you set your RTD with your Chef Alarm in the same place as the Grilla thermocouple. Once that's set, then check your grate. If you want 225 at the grate, maybe you run the Grilla at 200 or maybe you run it at 240 to get that result. My opinion of course, but you'll be constantly fiddling with the RTD as the ambient temp changes, or you can just know the grilla is running at the correct temp wherever the probe is and adjust the set temp each time you cook for the result you want instead.

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      #3
      Are you running in pro mode or pid mode? Pro mode swings, pid mode is supposed to be stable. I run mostly in pro mode and the temp swings from -25 deg to +25 deg mostly. My set point is usually 225. When I first got it I used my xr50 to see how the temp controls compared - if I remember right the Chimp was within 5-10 deg of the xr50 probe when I put it adjacent to the Chimp probe. Since then I haven't checked again; I just depend on my meat probe or pullback/bend tests on spares.

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      • Soonerpop
        Soonerpop commented
        Editing a comment
        Pro. The fluctuations were never within the 5-10 range. It tracks now as described by
        MBMorgan below.

      #4
      Soonerpop - Relax. You did the right thing.

      Like you, I have an OG and when I upgraded the controller to the new version last year I ran one or two of my Thermoworks ChefAlarms and/or Smoke in parallel with the OG ambient and meat temp probes. Like you, I found a consistent difference between the Grilla and TW probes. Also like you, I chose to take the TW numbers as gospel and tweaked the OG controller offset a few percent (don't recall the exact number) until they agreed. Problem solved! They've tracked together (at least within a degree or two) consistently ever since.

      As far a fiddling with feed rate goes ... to me, that is going to remain a last-resort tweak ... and with luck, I won't need to worry about it.

      FWIW, everything I've found online about adjusting feed rates seems to focus on MINUMUM feed rate ... for when your cooker can't maintain its lowest specified temperature without wanting to flame out or when you live in such a hot climate (like Plano?) that it affects your cooker's ability to run cool enough.

      Comment


      • ItsAllGoneToTheDogs
        ItsAllGoneToTheDogs commented
        Editing a comment
        Soonerpop it's all good, I'm just making sure I understand what y'all are doing because I have a few friends with Grillas (though not the OG) and they usually reach out to me for troubleshooting and want to make sure I'm giving them good advice when they ask

      • MBMorgan
        MBMorgan commented
        Editing a comment
        ItsAllGoneToTheDogs - Both. Initially, I tweaked the offset(s) at the OG ambient probe and at the meat probe. Once I was happy that adjusting the offset would work properly, I then checked to see how close the grate and OG probe locations are ... and they are close enough (assuming I keep the lid closed and give it time to stabilize) that I didn't have to bother with "cheating" the offset so that the OG probe and TW grate probes matched.
        Last edited by MBMorgan; November 14, 2022, 12:12 PM.

      • MBMorgan
        MBMorgan commented
        Editing a comment
        ItsAllGoneToTheDogs - I should add that I initially used my Grilla meat probe as a grate probe instead (monitoring meat temp with either a ChefAlarm leave-in or just spot checking with my Thermapro). Eventually, I quit because (at least on the OG) the ambient and grate probe temps seem to stay pretty close together.

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