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Question on cooking turkey with BBQ Guru

I cooked my first turkey using the BBQ Guru for temperature control on my XL. After reading on the forum I decided to cook it at 325*. The turkey was placed on in cooking pan on a V rack. Though the Guru was set at 325 degrees the dome temperature was close to 400 degrees. The turkey tasted great but was done a lot quicker than I expected. I have two questions. Will the turkey be actually cooking at a temperature closer to the dome temperature rather than the grate temperature because of the size of the turkey? Should I have reduced the Guru setting so that the turkey was actually cooking in an environment closer to 325-350? 

Comments

  • Mickey
    Mickey Posts: 19,768
    IMO you are so over thinking this. You do not need any of the wires to cook a turkey. I use 400 direct spatchcocked and raised grid. But others do whole and indirect/direct..... What i am saying is pick your temp (recommend you get the temp higher) go off your Egg gauge (no wires) and start checking your bird with a poke type gauge starting after an hour.The best type is a Thermapen (the Eggs best friend).
    Salado TX & 30A  FL: Egg Family: 3 Large and a very well used Mini, added a Mini Max when they came out (I'm good for now). Just given a Mini to add to the herd. 

  • RRP
    RRP Posts: 26,455
    I've used my BBQ Guru to baby sit my turkey cooks for years. Typically my dome thermometer runs 20º higher than my Guru setting. Keep in mind that the Guru will come up to your set temp and maintain it, but can not bring a temperature down if you grossly overshoot your temperature. IOW you baked your bird at 400 and the Guru had little to do with your cook. The idea is to sneak up on the temp you want. Welcome to the forum BTW!
    Re-gasketing the USA one yard at a time 
  • I did the same this year but used the Guru CyberQ.  Grate temp and dome temp differed by about 30 degrees (dome higher) at the start.  Came closer together about 3 hours into the cook.  As for the CyberQ, it let me monitor the temp from a Thanksgiving football game!
    South Jersey / XL Egg
  • tksmoke
    tksmoke Posts: 776
    Most of the recipes posted here reference dome temp.  A really easy way to have the BBQ Guru match the dome temp is to clip the Guru probe to the dome thermometer probe.  Otherwise it is not uncommon to see a 30-50 degree difference, and then you're subject to the "which is right" conundrum. 
    Santa Paula, CA