Pellet smoker and dry meat

[briano52]

I cook on a MAK pellet grill and I have not had issues with dry meat. I do use a Thermowerks ambient air probe to check my cooking temps, which do vary from the MAK digital readout. I usually, but not always, use a water pan.

I learned from Harry Soo to check meat doneness with a toothpick or probe and not rely solely on a temp probe in the meat. This is helpful because meat can be done (fully cooked and tender) at a temp less than what a given recipe may call for as the final meat temp. Lots of variables, too many to mention here. But try checking your meat for doneness by a manual toothpick or probe and maybe you can improve results. Hope this helps.

[Jfrosty27]

+1 on the probing method. Especially for the big cuts like brisket, plate ribs, chuck roast, pork butt, etc that need low and slow for a long time.

[yakima]

briano52, do you just put the water pan on the grilling grate?
Not much room elsewhere.

[briano52]

To answer yakima"s question about the water pan in the pellet grill: I use an oversize flat roasting pan. I just put it on the bottom rack with about 1 1/2" of water in it. My cooker has multiple racks so I always have an extra. Using the large pan under my meat has the added benefit of catching drippings and making it easier to clean up the grill.

[DaveD]

Lots of experience using a vertical pellet smoker (Pit Boss Copperhead), and never experienced anything systemic leading to dry meat. I've had several cuts turn out dry, but I put that down to the variability of the meat itself since the cooking process is the same each time, and I get those dry outcomes only very rarely. I can't see any reason why this would be a function of using a pellet rig per se, and there is a lot of good input here already. I'll echo the call for full details on one cook that ended up this way for you, start to finish, and let the Pit Nerds loose!

[briano52]

Me too. I have not experienced routine dryness with my MAK pellet grill. A tough and dry piece of meat can happen on rare occasions but not often.

As for theories that could cause dryness, I have seen comments suggesting that the fan action in pellet grills creates constant air movement that dries out meat more so than in other cookers. Personally, I don't accept that, as a general rule, pellet grills dry out meat more than other cookers. This is because my experience has been that my pellet grill turns out moist meat nearly all of the time. Most pellet grills run their fans most of the time. If the fan is excessively drying out meat, we would certainly hear about that a lot more than we do.

[Mike981]

Thank you all for you help.

I have been slow to respond because I am also dealing with a new WiFi router that for some reason I can't get setup. I do apologize.

I do try to pull meat out about 10 degrees early, from my preferred temp. I will do another test on my meat probes and then temp the internal temp of the smoker.

[Sweaty Paul]

One other random thought that maybe someone already said - check your thermometers to make sure they are reading accurately. I boil water and check to see what temperature the thermometer shows and then put it in an ice water bath. I do this periodically because I'm paranoid because my home ovens have had multiple control board issues with weird temps. Subsequently, I double check the the probes I use to double check the oven! Shake my head!

[Sweaty Paul]

Could also try cooking some pre-packaged biscuits to check for hotspots if you don't have more than an extra temp probe or two.

[Mike981]

I was able to test my temp probes and that isn't the problem. I have several probes that I use with my Fireboard, two were about five degrees off (running warm) and the other probes were within a degree or two.

Next I will compare my tested probes with the smokers internal temperature that is controlled with the software.

[Mike981]

Sorry for the delay in my update.

I did a test with one of the Fireboard probes vs the smokers probe and that is not the problem, until...

Interestingly when I cranked up the heat to 450 degrees the Fireboard probe registered 450, but the smoker registered 412 degrees.

Now on a happy note. I did some baby back ribs this past week. I dry brined over night and then cooked at 225-250 for two hours and then spritzed with 60/40 apple juice to apple cider vinegar a few times before they were done. I forgot to put any rub on and just added a small coating of sweat baby rays and they were very good.

Thank you again for all of your suggestions and help.