So with my first smoke under my belt I am looking for a little advice regarding the ET-732 with this Smoke Hollow smoker.
The only easy way I could see to feed the probes into the smoker was to fed them through the vent at the rear of the smoker. If I close them in the door it looks like I'd be pinching the probe leads pretty hard. Feeding them through the back of the smoker was a bit of an adventure when it came time to remove the meat probe, bring it in the house to clean it (so I could switch from the meatloaf to the chicken), and then feed it back in to the already hot smoker. Those racks get hot! :)
Looks like it would be real convenient if there was a hole in the side of the smoker for this. A hole in the side, about 1/3 of the way down from the top and almost to the front edge of the side would seem to be pretty convenient. Do you guys drill holes in your smokers? :) I know the idea is to keep heat and smoke in and that drilling holes sounds a bit count productive, but feeding things in through the vent kinda makes it harder to actually USE the vent adjustment and ..... those racks are HOT! :)
I'm thinking a 3/8 inch hole would be plenty big enough. I might even look at some off that high temperature silicone they use for spatulas and fasten a piece of that over the hole with a slot in it to pass the probes through. That would minimize heat/smoke loss and I think it would stand up to the relatively low temperatures of the smoker.
Am I over thinking this? (I do that a lot) or..... what are your thoughts? I'd really like a quicker way to set up the probes, remove and reposition them. Feeding from the back when the probe ends seem to be at the front also makes the short standard probe leads on the ET-732 even shorter. :)
The only easy way I could see to feed the probes into the smoker was to fed them through the vent at the rear of the smoker. If I close them in the door it looks like I'd be pinching the probe leads pretty hard. Feeding them through the back of the smoker was a bit of an adventure when it came time to remove the meat probe, bring it in the house to clean it (so I could switch from the meatloaf to the chicken), and then feed it back in to the already hot smoker. Those racks get hot! :)
Looks like it would be real convenient if there was a hole in the side of the smoker for this. A hole in the side, about 1/3 of the way down from the top and almost to the front edge of the side would seem to be pretty convenient. Do you guys drill holes in your smokers? :) I know the idea is to keep heat and smoke in and that drilling holes sounds a bit count productive, but feeding things in through the vent kinda makes it harder to actually USE the vent adjustment and ..... those racks are HOT! :)
I'm thinking a 3/8 inch hole would be plenty big enough. I might even look at some off that high temperature silicone they use for spatulas and fasten a piece of that over the hole with a slot in it to pass the probes through. That would minimize heat/smoke loss and I think it would stand up to the relatively low temperatures of the smoker.
Am I over thinking this? (I do that a lot) or..... what are your thoughts? I'd really like a quicker way to set up the probes, remove and reposition them. Feeding from the back when the probe ends seem to be at the front also makes the short standard probe leads on the ET-732 even shorter. :)
