After years and years of gas grills and a Pit Barrel Cooker decided to go with a pellet grill for the convenience and temperature control. Looked at all the high end grills and selected one (brand unnamed). Did some successful cooks then started having problems with not getting the food cooked in a reasonable time(both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were nearly ruined). The unit would not get up to the set temperature. After much testing, talking to the company, replacing circuit boards etc. Finally exchanged for a higher end model. Did some successful cooks but started measuring the actual grill temp with(used a calibrated digital commercial monitor) what the controller said and discovered that the actual grill temp was a consistently higher temp then what the controller read. Decided to do a real test with nothing in the chamber but the grill gates. Started at the 225° and worked my way up to 375°. The temp on the monitor was anywhere from 15% higher at 225 to 21% higher at 375 in a linear progression, obviously enough temperature difference to significantly affect the food. Contacted the company and they talked about all the testing they had done, probe placement, air flow and convection and said to just go with the controller temperature. Kind of afraid to do that since logic would be that actual grill temp is more important then controller temp and have had some very successful cooks adjusting the controller down to compensate for the higher grill temps. Wondering if anyone else has had this problem or if anyone else has actually measured the actual grill temp with the controller temp.
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First post from a Charter Member? There have been some other posts on this subject. My temperature probe in my pellet cooker is located on one of the side walls about midway up in the chamber. At that point I assume it is reading an average temperature at that end of the chamber. That, right off the bat, raised flags with me. The actual hotter end of the chamber turned out to be the other side of my cooker, therefore I have the exact opposite problem. If my PID is reading say 225* my grate temps vary from about that temp near the probe, to about 5% higher at the opposite end. That's why I use an external temp probe and set it at 2" above the grate area where I'm actually cooking at.
I've also done the "toast test" where you set various pieces of bread out in a pattern to cover your cooking grate and observe how well done each piece is to approximate the hot and cold zones. This gives you a general idea but using several temp probes does a much more accurate job obviously. Bottom line, I've learned what areas to cook in and the desired result by cooking in those areas, in other words I've gotten to know my machine.
The other factor may also be the type of cooker you are using. Most pellet cookers under say $1000 generally have the cooking chamber made out of material like 18 ga. sheet metal. Regardless of how much heat is being produced at the burn pot, if the chamber can't hold that heat then temp loss is going to occur. My cook chamber is 1/4" steel, once that baby gets up to temp it holds it for a long time.
Having said all that, running 15-20% higher is way too much. You may have a bad temperature probe. I would advise changing that out, it's just a plug and play item. You may also want to re-locate it by splicing in some longer leads on your wires. Trying to compensate for a 20% differential is too much guess work in my opinion.-
Thanks. Good info. My grill was in excess of $2000 so not a wall thickness problem. At the moment am managing the problem by just setting the controller temperature lower to compensate and monitoring the grill temp with an independent probe. Have a big gas grill so all my pellet cooking is low and slow.
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I have a Rec Tec and the grill grate level is usually 10-15 degrees hotter than the built in probe that measures the temp about 5 inches above the grate. Even with the quality of Rec Tec I have difficulty maintaining a solid 225 temp in the summer time where I live. This past Sunday I did beef ribs. I set the grill to 225 and the controller read between 230 and 245. The grate ran 250-260. Of course it was 105 degrees outside (cooker was in the shade). So I just used a foil ball to crack the lid 3/4" and that dropped the grate temp down to where I wanted.
For higher temps like 325, I have zero issues no matter what time of the year it is.
So for me I don't have the more extreme issues that you do except for the extreme summer time conditions where I live. There probably isn't a cooker out there that wouldn't struggle maintaining desired low temps in 100+ degree heat.Comment
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Remember grill probe temps displayed can be "averaged" so a spot check may indeed show variance, check the manual. Also be sure and clean the grills probe regularly with some wire wool.Comment
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Welcome to the active side of The Pit.Comment
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For my pellet grill I ran some tests and found the grate to be about 15 degrees hotter than what I set the controller at. With that said, if I want 225 at the grate I just set at 210, and so on. Also I know the center is hotter than that due to the fire. So I always cook around that or up on a shelf if I have to use the center area. Once I measure the ambient with my TP-20 then I just forget about it and use the probes for meat temp. It’s funny how people mention the probes use an "average" temp readout. I don’t quite understand this because if over a one hour period the unit sensor is 210 but the ambient probes remain solid at 225, how is that an average? That tells me the unit can hold a solid temp for long periods of time without a lot of variance but that I also need to adjust the unit controller accordingly.Comment
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You and I are on the same page here. Depending on the controller set temperature the grill temp runs from 35°-80° hotter at the grill. I do not understand the averaging argument either because the temperature in the grill is stable just different then what the controller says and if I want to cook at 225 and set the controller there the reading at the grill will be at 260 + or - 3-5 degrees.
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My pellet grill probe is not on any grates so I use my Smoke for actual temps cooking the meat.Comment
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