adjust for outside temperature?

misu

I'm getting ready for an all nighter pork butt tonight and I was wondering if I should adjust the grill for the 35F outside temp overnight.

How is the stock thermometer affected by this, any thoughts? I figured if my reading is 250 is it way hotter in there because of the outside metal piece being cold?

I did a turkey for thanksgiving in similar outside temps and I thought it was done way to fast.



thanks

Carolina Q

Make sure your temp gauge is calibrated. Place the probe in boiling water, adjust to 212* (or whatever's correct for your altitude above sea level). Adjust with the nut on the back.

Once the dome temp is stabilized at 250* for 30-45 minutes, it will stay there thru the cook. It will drop when you put the meat on, but don't fiddle with it; it will come back up if you had it stable in the first place.

Be sure to fill the firebox with lump (maybe even higher, though I haven't found higher to be necessary) and clean out the holes in the grate below so you have good air flow.

Oh, and 35* is balmy. Egg doesn't care anyway. Welcome to the forum.

Eggsakley

Temperature of the dial portion should have no bearing on the reading of the thermometer. The probe is reading the internal dome temp. Unless you have a large portion of the probe outside the dome insertion hole to accomodate for large pieces of meat, the probe will be mostly inside the dome and should provide an accurate reading regardless of the external (air) temp. Best of luck and Merry Christmas.

civil eggineer

The egg doesn't know if it is 70 or -20 outside and essentially cooks the same regardless of outside temps. In regards to your turkey cooking too fast: the egg cooks like a convection oven meaning shorter cook times. I cook 14 lb turkeys at 375 dome temp and they are done in 2 hours. Plan ahead and use your meat resting times to balance out the actual cooking time variation. Hot meat when foiled and placed in a cooler will remain very hot for a looooong time.

Fidel

The part of the thermometer that actually reads the temperature is about 1/4" from the tip end of the probe.

Ambient temperature outside the egg should have no effect on the reading inside the egg.

Grandpas Grub

 
Make sure you calibrate your thermometer.

The only precaution you need to take is to make sure you have enough lump in the egg and to keep the cook warm when lighting the egg.

Egged in -20° much more than once.

GG

misu

thanks for all the good advice, the butts are in since 2 hours ago and everything looks stable, I'm going to bed.

Merry Christmas