Huge discrepency between grate and dome

Greygoose

I recently purchased the maverick 732.  Pretty slick little unit. i'm cooking a 9 lb butt as i type and noticed a huge descrepency between my grate temp and dome temp. i thought there would be a 25 degree difference, but i've got a 75 degree difference. Maverick is showing me 225 while dome is at 300. I did an initial calibration test when i got my egg 4 months ago, and it was accurate. I never did a check on the maverick (dont know if  you can adjust the unit), but i've never heard of one being off much. 

Please advise,

thanx

GreyGoose

fishlessman

 a man with two temp gages never knows the real temp
)it balances out the longer you let the cook go on, will never be the same but gets closer. take out the inderect setup and its hotter at the grill than the dome

Greygoose

sound like you guys think that i'm somewhere in between (which should be about right for a low and slow butt cook). 

that about right?

Grey (the lump crap king) Goose

Little Steven

Where are you measuring the dome temp?

fishlessman

if you put a butt in there tems differential can be even greater, i once had a 1000 degree fire with a dome reading of 190 before i figured what was wrong. dome gage too close to cold meat, grate gage too close to cold meat, fire inder stone glowing orange inferno

Greygoose

Where are you measuring the dome temp?

from the green egg temp dial.

greygoose

Little Steven

Sorry,

I thought you had a Maverick with two probes. Have you tried clipping the maverick to the dome thermo?

Greygoose

Sorry,

I thought you had a Maverick with two probes. Have you tried clipping the maverick to the dome thermo?

not sure how to do that, i just place the BBQ probe on the rack next to the butt thats roasting and put the meat probe into the butt. is there a way to clip the BBQ probe to the dome thermo?

Greygoose

Little Steven

Now I'm really sorry. When I read Maverick, I think of the two probe unit with the thermocouple leads. If the thermometer has a solid probe you can pull the BGE thermo and stick the probe in the hole to get an accurate read. This is assuming your Maverick is digital and likely accurate. I have run without dome thermometers for a long time and just used the thermapen. Once the temp is set you don't need a continous reading. I switched to Tel Trues and they seem to be pretty good. 

Greygoose

Never thought of replacing my dome guage with the maverick, but thats a good idea. Since starting the thread, the grate temp and dome temp have now stabilized to approx. the same temps. Not sure why, but i like the idea of using the maverick in place of the dome thermo for these types of cooks. Just makes sense and is easy enough to do. 

Greygoose

Little Steven

I did it for a while after trying to keep the bge thermos calibrated. I've had eggs for a long time and I pretty much know where my settings should be. Also I'm not nearly OCD so I figure close is good enough. I did replace with the BGE length TelTru and they have been fine.

Greygoose

Never thought of replacing my dome guage with the maverick, but thats a good idea. Since starting the thread, the grate temp and dome temp have now stabilized to approx. the same temps. Not sure why, but i like the idea of using the maverick in place of the dome thermo for these types of cooks. Just makes sense and is easy enough to do. 

Greygoose

maybe its not so easy. the gauge does not fit in the hole. i think little stevens right, close is good enough.

Greygoose

SmokeyPitt

The original ET-73 would fit through the hole, the new thicker probes with the ET-732 will not (on my large anyway).  

ChokeOnSmoke

For anything cooked at the lower end of the cooking temperature spectrum, it makes no sense to measure the dome temp IF you have a choice between dome and grid.  The meat is on the grid, not up in the dome.  Measure the temp where the meat is.  Now if you're cooking something "high-heat" (steak, pizza), the dome is fine and will give you a general idea of what the temp is down at the grid.  At those high temps, it doesn't really matter.
So when you're using a probe at grid level, just make sure it's not touching the meat and not in direct flow between the edge of the plate setter and the edge of the egg where the heat blasts through.  Somewhere in between will give you the best temp reading.

Greygoose

removed post

The Naked Whiz

If you are following a recipe that says "use this setup and this dome temp", then if you want to recreate their results, the best plan is to "use this setup and this dome temp". 

stike

yep.  if someone says "i do my ribs at 250 dome" and you want to follow their method, it likewise makes no sense to assume the grid level therefore must also be 250.

because their grate temp at dome-250 isn't 250

smoke_monster

Calibrate all of your thermometers in boiling water (the Maverick, the dome, and any instant read ones).  When I first calibrated mine, the dome thermometer was 30 degrees too high and I found my Maverick was 7 degrees high.