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The 14 hour number I ignored and ruined 2 pork butts on my first stick burner
Found an old pitmaster forum thread from 2015 where a guy in Waco said he never trusts the temp gauge that came welded on his offset smoker. He tested it with a $12 oven thermometer and found it was reading 75 degrees hotter than the actual grate temp. I blew this off for 3 months until my last cook where two 9 pound pork butts hit 205 way too fast and came out dry as cardboard. Pulled the stock gauge off my Oklahoma Joe and sure enough it was off by almost 60 degrees. Anyone else test their factory gauge or am I just late to this party?
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joseph_west591d ago
Check the gauge before you blame it. A welded-on factory gauge reads the air temp up near the lid, not the grate where your meat sits, so part of that 60 degree gap is just where the probe lives, not the gauge being broken. Stick a $10 oven thermometer on the grate next to a butt and compare it to the stock dial at the same time, then you know what you're actually dealing with. Mine ran about 30 off from the grate and the lid gauge also got worse once it was caked in soot, so a dirty dial can fake a drift too. Worth testing twice before you trust either number.
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