I just did my first long cook of a 7 lb pork butt on my new Searwood and I noticed a couple of anomalies. Initially I started it at the 180 degree Smoke Boost mode and left it for an hour before turning it up to 225 degrees. I left it there for most of the rest of the day but I noticed the butt really had trouble increasing its temp so I gradually turned it up to 250. The grill was having some temp swings including two times when it shot up in to the upper three hundreds for several moments. One of these was associated with me checking how many pellets were in the hopper and the other was not. I did not hear any big flame up inside when it happened but I did not open it to check. Later in the night around hour 13 I felt the temp was not rising so I put two of my MEATER probes in to get a sense of how much longer it would take. It continued to cook at the set temp of 250 but the MEATERs were reading internal ambient temps of around 215 with similar meat temps as the wired grill temps. I only opened the grill about 2-3 times during the entire cook and don’t think that was the issue. I was never able to get the meat to 205 on the grill before it ran out of the 20 lb pellet bag (Weber brand) and I had to take it out and finish it in the oven at 350. The entire cook took around 22 hrs with about 2-3 in the oven. It came out a bit dryer than I would have liked but was still absolutely delicious. The only cooks I did previous were the burn in and some burgers and I cleaned it in between.
by jbkelly
3 Comments
There is definitely something up with the grill temps I just cooked 33lbs of pork shoulder last weekend and running at 200-230 ( the temp swing I was getting it was windy) the last 9lb shoulder came off at hour 18. I’d recommend getting a wired ambient prob testing it it boiling water and using that for pit temp.
I’ll tell ya right now, the ambient temp you are getting from Meaters is almost definitely way off. The ambient sensor is too close to the body of meat which acts as a heat sink thanks to the evaporative cooling zone around the meat. You’re likely reading anywhere up to 75° off the true ambient temp of your chamber.
I use a ThermoWorks Smoke with a wired ambient probe that is a few inches from my meat, and typically my grill (Searwood) runs about 10° hotter than shown. Obviously, that temp difference won’t be the same for everyone, but I have found the unit to be fairly accurate.
The below pic is a graph from a 12lb pork butt I did overnight on Friday. There are swings in temp, as the machine isn’t perfect at maintaining the same temp all the time. It does eventually need to add pellets, and this may increase temps higher than anticipated for a short period of time.
Of course there are some lid openings here (the huge temp drops).
My advice would be to get rid of your Meaters. They are overhyped and overpriced inaccurate and disconnecting pieces of junk (IMO).
https://preview.redd.it/etpifjvoio7f1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1aa31a5fb2d89eba9e639408292e1689f9214450
250° no wrap. Try that and see if you get the same situation. 250° no wrap has been my go to the past 4 years. Average 9lb butt takes about 12.5-13.5 hours