Permanent Stalls?

bigeggdan · August 2020

My last few low and slows the meat appeared to hit a stall just as it was finishing up in the 190's and getting to temp. I would wait a couple of hours, sometimes more, to get past the stall to my final temp of 195. It would never get there. The stall would last and last never end. Eventually I gave up and just took the meat off anyway. The meat had been cooking OVER 2hrs a pound and it was way way way done - overdone usually. I actually did a post on this forum to see if anyone else had the experience of meat not getting past a stall temp even after several hours. No one had heard of this before and I thought it was just a new thing to deal with.

Well, guess what? IT WAS MY NEW TEMP PROBE!!!!! My new Maverick wireless probe does not go over 194. It appears to work fine, maybe a little off, up to 194. But at 194 IT STOPS. So here I am, watching this stupid temp gauge for hours at 194 wondering why a stall at such a high temp that lasts for hours.

I've never seen another post anywhere like this one. I've seen temps being off plus or minus, but never rising to a certain point and just STOPPING. Maybe is just my luck? Or can I blame it on 2020? At least I finally figured it out. My last few cooks have been frickin nightmares as the dinner hour passed, everyone else went to bed and I was up late waiting for the cook to finish!!!

dmchicago · August 2020

That’s totally on 2020.

Glad you solved the mystery.

The Cen-Tex Smoker · August 2020

Nice job digging in and figuring it out in your own! You learned something that will serve you well.

No matter what everyone says, It’s always the cook or the cooks tools that fail. 250 degrees is 250 degrees no matter what your thermometer says. Your egg or lump or meat are not special and do not defy the laws of physics just for you. It’s you

.

lousubcap · August 2020

Welcome aboard and enjoy the journey. Above all, have fun.
Glad you figured it out. Make sure your dome thermo is calibrated and do the same with any other temperature indications.
Gotta trust your calibrated indications. A good old analog oven safe long stemmed thermo is a great back-up to use if you have doubts about the digital equipment. FWIW-

bigeggdan · September 2020

Or even more obvious.... my thermo doesn't "stop" at 194 degrees, it is just off by 8 degrees. lol. I'm a dork. Doing a pork butt now and will factor that variance in.

Dondgc · September 2020

Always assume that a temperature problem could very easily be a probe/thermometer problem. I have had a probe fail in such a way that it would not read past a certain temperature. No explanation. Easy to check. A new probe solved the issue.

nolaegghead · September 2020

Using temperature to tell if a low and slow is done or not is the worst advice floating around.

I will use my thermopen to see if I'm in the ballpark, but once I'm over 190F I don't care about the temp. I probe for resistance. Once it's like butter, done.

SciAggie · September 2020

I'm glad you figured it out. It's interesting that a temp probe would top out at such a low number.

As for stalls, a second stall wouldn't seem reasonable to me. The first stall at around 165ish degrees happens because evaporative cooling is in equilibrium with heat absorption into the meat - the two offset each other and the temperature "stalls". Once enough moisture has evaporated the temperature will begin to climb until the meat ultimately becomes the same temperature are the cooking environment - equilibrium again. If you're cooking at 275 degrees the meat will eventually reach that temperature and become a blackened photo op, lol.

All of this you already know. I'm just bored and wanted to post a comment.

Permanent Stalls?

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