ND cold weather and not reaching temp

Skyler1101

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Grill(s) owned
  1. Bull
Hey guys new here I recently purchased the rec tec 700 bull around 3 months ago I live in ND where it gets pretty cold here . I have been having issues recently when it got cold here anything under 30 degrees and I can’t reach temp and even trying to reach say 350 f takes hours I ordered a blanket for it in hopes it will help but I can’t imagine after 2 hours run time it should hit 400 or above 360 is about her max does anyone have any suggestions for me ?? .... running rec tec brand pellets that the grill came with thanks
 

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This is my first winter with my RT-590, and so far I've found 350 is about the most I can expect when temps are around 20. It can hit 400 in those temps, but recovering after opening the lid is another thing. Wind makes a big difference. It still smokes fine, but I probably won't be doing much grilling. A blanket will help, but I'm not sure it would enable you to get up over 400 in sub zero temps.

I'll be trying to do some ribs tomorrow or Sunday, looks like it will be right around 0. I have found I don't really like grilling when it gets that cold anyway, anything spilled freezes almost instantly.
 
New guy here looking for this cold weather info. I live in the hills of north central PA and am researching to see how well a pellet grill performs in freezing winter weather, primarily for smoking. Currently use a small Weber Smokey Mountain but occasionally have trouble maintaining temperature with temps in the 20s or lower. Will a Rectec do the job ?
 
I have posted this before:

When I lived in Spokane, I put fire brick in my Treager. It gave it some thermal mass and kept the temp regulated much better in the cold and wind. Would help my grill to get and maintain a higher temperature in the winter. I am now in Arizona with a much better RecTec Stampede. Still gets a bit cold here in the winter (40’s) ? so I will be placing some fire bricks in it. I find that it is hard to get to above 450 degrees when the temperatures get into the 50’s. As a bonus, the fire brick helps reduce my pellet consumption.

As a added bonus, it provides some weight which makes it more stable. You can get fire brick from Home Depot.
 
I've given up for the winter. Just not worth the extra effort, fuel, and time. I'll hit er hard come the end of March...unless we have a heat wave before that.
 
Just an update, did some ribs today. 3 degrees when I started, warmed up to about 10. 590 had no problem holding 180 and then 230, however the ribs were done quite a bit earlier than I was expecting. I think the temp over the firepot where I had the ribs was hotter than at the probe.

I also didn't know if it was going to start. It was completely silent when I turned it on. Took several minutes before I could hear the fan going, and several minutes more after that to get up to speed. Probably 7-8 minutes total before it started sounding somewhat normal.
 
Thats why I keep a Big Green Egg around... Did pizza at 650 when it was -14 outside.... no problems.
 

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