Temp Calibration - off or issue?

[Tandjmei8]

Hi,

I’ve had my Bull since July and use it 3-4 times per week, but over the past couple weeks I’ve had a few cooks that went really fast for the temp and I thought my temps might be running a little high. Burnt some STL spare ribs 2 weeks ago, had a pork butt blast through with no stall(temp set at 225), and tonight had STL spare ribs that were almost done in 2.5 hours at 225.

I put my 2 RT probes thru a potato, so they were open air about 2-4” off the grates and they were running about 35-40 degrees higher than what the app said. I had the Bull set at 200 at this point and they were reading 235-242. I watched the video, maxed out the offset to 20% and they were within +4-9 degrees at 250 and -2 to +2 AT 225, so that worked.

My question - does this indicate something is wrong or do I just run with the 20% offset and watch? My original pellets were the Rec Teq pack that came with it and I have been using Lumberjack and Bear Mountain, but I don’t think that coincides with when the temps started spiking…but, could different pellets be a possible cause?

Thanks!

 

[Waterboy]

One thing to do would be check your RTD probe in the cooker. It should be standing straight up. It get’s sometimes and will make temps suddenly go wonky.

 

[Bytor]

Where did you place the probes at? These things, as other pellet smokers, do tend to run hotter on the right (discharge side) . Mine runs 30+- hot on the right side too. Most of the times I will try to rotate my meat around to compensate. Which, probably isn't a bad thing to do anyways.

 

[Tandjmei8]

Thanks, @Bytor - I had them on the far left side, about 2-4” off the grates. I typically move the food around to compensate, but my observations of the food over the past couple weeks is that it is cooking super fast. Next time I fire it up, I’ll check the right side and middle too - good point.

@Waterboy - thanks, I’ll look for the probe and check it out.

 

[BradBQ]

If I remember correctly the 2 rectec probes are not accurate enough to measure air temps. I feel like I read that somewhere on here... You may want to use a different probe to measure air temps before changing your settings too much based off the RT probe readings. Just my .02.

 

[C. Keeper]

If I remember correctly the 2 rectec probes are not accurate enough to measure air temps. I feel like I read that somewhere on here... You may want to use a different probe to measure air temps before changing your settings too much based off the RT probe readings. Just my .02.

They're also not linear, temps seem to correct out at about 175 and higher.

 

[Tandjmei8]

@BradBQ @Psycho - good points on their accuracy. The variance from RT temp to probe temps seemed fairly consistent when I checked at 200, 225, and 250, but will check again. My Meater+ was reading about an additional 30 degrees on it’s ambient reading, which I have read reads higher than most. I do know the food is cooking really fast.