Having a rough start with my pulled pork smoke!!

  • Some of the links on this forum allow SMF, at no cost to you, to earn a small commission when you click through and make a purchase. Let me know if you have any questions about this.
SMF is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

pandemonium

Master of the Pit
Original poster
Aug 4, 2009
1,983
14
Florida
Well i have 2 digital thermometers and two analog and none are reading the same, have tried calibrating with boiling water and all seems good till i put in smoker so im pretty sure ive been cooking the butt and not slowly  dont know what temp to believe. i mixed reg coals and lump for the first time and i must have made the smoke gods angry? ive never had such a time with temps like this!! the damn things will read 212 and up but when left on table at room temp they read like 150 wth? these analog ones have a nut on the back so i think their the type you can calibrate? it turns the dial when  turn the nut, just doesnt seem right.
 
Last edited:
How much of a difference? Are you talking grate level temps or internal meat temps, or both?
 
just grate temps and im talking like 50 or more degrees off im looking for the manuals for the digital weekend warrior ones and cant fing them i havent tried calibrating the digitals yet ok guess you cant calibrate the digital ones?
 
Last edited:
on my big rig, I put cheap dial thermometers on the lids and they are about 50 degrees off then a digital sitting in a wood block right on the grate.  I tested the dial therms and they are close to right but don't read well on the smoker.  They are just there for looks now as I don't use them.
 
If this is on your UDS make sure your probes are in the center of the grate and not close to the barrel wall, the radiant heat will cause that.
 
yes they are in middle of the drum, i gotta go with the analog ones the digital must be off grrr so much for pulled pork its gonna be jerky damnit, every since i redid my intakes and now only have one ball valve its been bs
 
Fortunately butts are quite forgiving. As long as you can keep grate temps under 250 you'll be fine. I guess I have been lucky with my digital therms, knock on wood! Hope it works out for ya.
 
Remember butts are very forgiving get one of the thermos calibrated or know how much its off by and get it as close to the butt on the grate as possible, get the temps adjusted and smoke on and you should be ok
 
cool.gif


Well if t means anything it's pretty darm hard to dry out a butt now. You just need to get one of theoses thermo-meters reading the correct temp and then use that one for this butt. Then you can re-test everything and start over again.
 
If your worried about it becoming dry foil it at 165-170 with a little juice in the foil
 
Well i have 2 digital thermometers and two analog and none are reading the same, have tried calibrating with boiling water and all seems good till i put in smoker so im pretty sure ive been cooking the butt and not slowly  dont know what temp to believe. i mixed reg coals and lump for the first time and i must have made the smoke gods angry? ive never had such a time with temps like this!! the damn things will read 212 and up but when left on table at room temp they read like 150 wth? these analog ones have a nut on the back so i think their the type you can calibrate? it turns the dial when  turn the nut, just doesnt seem right.
Any chance you got water down the wire and into the probe tip last time you cleaned your digital probe?

First time I cleand a probe I didn't realize you couldn't just wash it. Dunked the entire thing and scrubbed away, then two days later when I went to use it the ambient air reading in my kitchen was supposedly 148°!! So I swapped the probe with another and it read normal 68°.
 
I fried my wally world cheapy   seems to read correctly after the rain lastnight but I now have to convert to celsius!!!  Good luck gettin that figured out man, I know how frustrating it can be not to have good info....hmm..kinda like my post
PDT_Armataz_01_04.gif
 
i dont know if i got water in the probes or not but they read accurate in boiling water so i dont know? i do know that when i first tried using one of these 12" long deep fry therms it was almost perfect with my digital and now they dont read close at all, they are about an inch from each other as far as up and down from each other so i wouldnt think they would read that far off, anyway i just foiled it its about 165 internal so it should be ok its just like lately i cant control this damn uds that was always easy before. thats what i get for braggin on my ribs i guess lol
 
Any chance you got water down the wire and into the probe tip last time you cleaned your digital probe?

First time I cleand a probe I didn't realize you couldn't just wash it. Dunked the entire thing and scrubbed away, then two days later when I went to use it the ambient air reading in my kitchen was supposedly 148°!! So I swapped the probe with another and it read normal 68°.
Yep, just learned this over the weekend!  Someone here...I won't mention my wife..lol...tossed my new maverick probes into to the sink Saturday and when I discovered them nearly an hour later I pulled them out and found out yesterday the water must have ruined the food probe because it registers 163* just sitting on the counter and my A/C is working!! lol
 
 
i always get them wet but not soaking in water guess i better quit doing that if its not too late
 
Sorry to hear about the troubles pan. I mixed half and half not to long ago and didn't like the results. It was almost like the fire would get to the lump and fire up then to the briquetts and calm down again. Who knows, maybe it was just me.

Good Luck< I hope ya get it firuger out.
 
well here it is 1105 pm still waiting on my delicious pork sammiches um any minute now im sure lol its at 195 and i am not letting it rest haha no deal!! im gonna pull at 200 and chow down!!

ohh and by the way walmarts baked beans are pretty damn good!! the ones at the deli, or is it because i havent eatin since well probably ten this morning lol but looks like all will be good still after the temp problems
icon_smile.gif
 
Glad to hear things are moving along more smoothly now don't forget the Qview tho
biggrin.gif
 
SmokingMeatForums.com is reader supported and as an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases.

Latest posts

Hot Threads

Clicky