Hola fellow smokers….
Curious how y’all handle temp readings on your Joe.
I’ve got a Chugod wired thermometer setup and usually dedicate one probe to ambient temp right at the grill grate level. Pretty consistently, the Chugod reads anywhere from 10 to 30°F hotter than the built-in dome thermometer. I know the dome probe sits higher and should be cooler than the grate, especially with indirect setups — but 30 degrees feels like a lot.
Is that pretty normal for most folks here?
Do you rely more on your own external thermometer setup, or do you mostly go by the dome gauge for cook temps? Would love to hear how others have calibrated or if I might have an issue with one of the thermometers.
Thanks in advance and happy grilling!
by vilibara
17 Comments
I use the Meater Pro, which is pretty accurate. I don’t use the dome at all and have never calibrated it.
Assuming your probe is just above the grill it should always be hotter than the dome, since it’s closer to the heat source.
Both should be accurate, they’re just measuring different areas.
I don’t use the dome thermometer at all. If I’m under 300F it shows 0. I use a separate grill level ambient thermometer as well as a MEATER probe in the food.
Does anyone calibrate their thermometers and hygrometers before they get on Reddit and ask why they are not reading right?
Hells to the no.
I trust that it is accurate for where it is measuring but also know that it’s not very useful to know the temperature 6 or more inches ABOVE my cook surface
My MEATER is usually 100 degrees lower temp than the dome, especially for rotisserie with it closed, so my dome is way off. Doesn’t make sense the heat source further away would be that much hotter but meat comes out beautiful.
I have never seen my dome thermometer with a lower temperature than my grate, and both the dome thermometer and probe are calibrated in boiling water several times a year. I usually see 50-75 degrees higher in the dome than at grate level. This is on a Big Joe. This was also true with my large BGE I used to have.
I know others see what you do all the time and it baffles me. I have to ask, where are your grates and deflector plates on the D&C rack? Big Joe or Classic? Is the grate probe directly over the deflector plate (near’ish the middle), or way off to the side where it could pick up the heat coming around the deflector plates? There has to be something different in our setups that causes this.
In my Big Joe, the deflector plates are on the very bottom and the grates on the very top of the D&C rack. The probe on the grate is at least 2 inches away from any meat and usually about midway from the very center of the grate to an outside edge, very much directly above a deflector plate and not at all close to the edge.
I sometimes use a drip pan with water in it held slightly above the defector plates with 3 very small balls of aluminum foil. You would think this would have a big effect on the grate temp, but I still see 50-75 degrees hotter in the dome.
Being hotter in the dome makes sense to me. Heat rises, so the higher up you go the higher the temperature should be. This is true unless you are getting convection heat from the fire, which shouldn’t be happening if you have a proper indirect heat setup.
But to answer your question, I only care what the temperature is at grate level when cooking/smoking low and slow. If I’m grilling burger and brats kind of stuff with no indirect setup, I just use the dome temp as a general guess of the grate temp because it just doesn’t matter that much on that type of cook.
Looks about right. Without any food loaded, low deflector position, grate temp is typically 20 to 30 degrees higher than the dome in mine.
You can test the dome thermometer and recalibrate if needed.
I use both but only trust one.
Not at all. It read correctly for about the first season and never again. I use INKBIRD’s auto smoker probe to get the temp on the surface.
A man with a thermometer always knows the temperature.
A man with two thermometers is never sure.
30° makes no difference.
No. Even calibrated it’s off probably 20+ deg
Dome temp and cooking surface temp aren’t going to be the same. But with experience and knowing where to keep your dome temp then you can just cook based off it and know what it will do for your meat.
I have a 4-probe thermometer, I have one hanging from the top vent and one about edge of the cooking area for when I’m doing low and slow. I take the average between the built-in dome, top vent, and cooking surface. Had my built-in thermometer read 100 under true temp after a season without use, so I’m a bit paranoid when it comes to using it (even after calibrating it.)