regulating temp

Unknown

Cooking first turkey on medium egg and having trouble regulating temp, I try with the lower and then shut upper damper a little, temp sometimes goes up and others times down, I can't seem to get the steady temp, outside its 45 degrees with a slight breeze. Any suggestions from an old hand ?

JimE

Bob Ogden,
I keep my lower one at about 1" open..then adjust temp with top only. Mine is @ 325 right now and the daisywheel is almost closed... Only time I ever had temp problems is when i had not enough coal and /or the ash in the bottom was too full not allowing constant air flow. Other than that, I dont know what to tell ya. Minor changes make a difference...it was a big deal for me to finally figure out the bottom vent thing...open wide to light and then close to only 1" open and use the top vent for tem regulation.

Unknown

jim,
Thanks for the tip, I may be opening too wide a the bottom
and sucking out the temp, I will try 1 inch and work with
Daisy.

RRP

Bob Ogden,
another old trick is to sneak up on your desired temp by starting your regulation of air flow when you are about 40 degrees under it. Also that is the more stablized temp - what I mean is in just the first ten minutes you may see 350 or more - but that is flame produced and is not the temp of coals where you want to be. Today I discovered a 470 dome 12 minutes into prep time, but I knew that was nothing to worry about as it couldn't be temp from coals. Within 3 minutes of closing my damper down to 1" and placing a Mickey T's #5 ring on top it was down to a humble 260° so I tweaked it from there and soon locked on 325. It's just a matter of practice and you'll get it soon.