Frustrating Temp/Time Question

ThunderBunny · February 2010

Here it is 8:00 Mountain Time and I had the cooker all stabilized at 350*. The 5lb free-range Hutterite all natural chicken is butterfltied, fridge-aged, buttered and seasoned.
Perfect, right?
I put the pretty bird on the grill and the temp drops 50*. That's fine - cold mass and all. I get it. But it's taking an awfully long time to gain back those 50*.
Here I am 20 minutes into the skin side and it's still not back up. Why? The recipe tells me to flip now. How do you guys deal with that? Do I factor that into the cook time - meaning, even though it's not an honest 350* for 20 minutes, do I go ahead and fliper-oo?

WessB · February 2010

Is the dome thermometer really close to the meat????

AZRP · February 2010

If you had the cooker at 350 for at least 30 minutes don't worry about it. -RP

Roll Tide · February 2010

Sunday I cooked Spatchcocked chicken and I wanted to get an idea of the grate temp versus dome temp so I used my maverick to test it out. I was using the raised grid direct method and before the bird went on things were pretty close, but after placing the bird on the temp below the food at grate level was right at 350*, but dome temp was reading about 325*. Since using the direct and raised method, I could only deduce that the bird was acting as a heat shield so to speak, thus the dome thermometer read low. Over the cook the dome temp rose close to 350 by the end of cook and when I removed bird completely things leveled back out. Saying all that, I think your fine and would continue with the cook as planned. Hope this helps,

Rolling Egg · February 2010

If you really want to hold a certain temp like 350 on a quick cook like a chicken, try to stabilize you egg about 40 or so over. If you want 350 try to stabilize at 390. When you throw the bird on, it should drop it right on your target temp. I normally dont worry about it but If I really want to nail a temp thats what I do.

rzrrob · February 2010

open the vents up some more

Grandpas Grub · February 2010

Love ya man, but I wouldn't do that.

GG

Grandpas Grub · February 2010

You can drive yourself nuts with some of this stuff. There area a lot of variables, some mentioned in the first 2 posts.

Just opening the dome will drop the temperature.

I generally don't flip a whole or spatchcocked chicken. There was a post last week about someone cooking a spactchcock skin down for 20 minutes then they flipped over.

The chicken can be cooked from very low temperature to 500° and on a raised grid it comes out great as long as you cook the bird to temperature. Most people cook the breast to 165°. I think it was AZRP who did a cook to about 200° and said it was really good.

I tried it last night. Parts were 197° and other were 185° and that was one of the best chicken cooks I have done on the egg (Thanks Randy).

Back to your temperature. On most cooks, once you have the egg stable at your cook temperature, don't play with the vents and don't worry all that much about the dome temperature's ups & downs.

I realize 50° seems a little nerve racking but if you play with the vents you will most likely be chasing the temperatures all the way through the cook.

GG
GG

The

fishlessman · February 2010

next time leave the watch in the house

i always start chicken skin side down. when the skin starts to brown up i flip. you will get crispier skin that way and its easier to finish the chicken up to a chosen internal temp that way instead of panicking because the chicken skin isnt crisp but the chicken is done. trust your instincts and temps, how does your watch know when your food is done :laugh:

Frustrating Temp/Time Question

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