Meat thremometer question

[rbranstner]

I have several wireless meat thermometers but only one of them has the dual probes one for the meat and one that monitors the heat in the smoker. I have a Redi Check. The question I have is does the meat probe need to be stuck in a piece of meat to get a real certain accurate reading? The reason I ask is I always put both my smoker temp probe and my meat probe in the smoker so I have two sources of of smoker temp. I put them smoker probe in the metal clip that it came with and holds onto the grates and I put my meat probe through a piece of wood. Well my smoker probe always reads higher than my meat probe. Just currious if I wasn't getting a true reading because the meat probe is ment to be stuck into a piece of meat? I don't think so becaus people use their meat probes all the time to monitor their smoker temps. I am smoking on a UDS so maybe I just have hot and cold spots depening if the probe is closer to the middle or closer to the outside. They are both at the same level and I usually try to put them at the same distance from the middle but they are off some time and then some times they are right on to. Just wanted to get your thoughts.

 

[acemakr]

I have the same thermometer. I've not tried using the meat probe to measure the smoker temperature. As a matter of fact, I only calibrated the smoker probe figuring that both use the same 'innards' to measure heat. I wonder if that's the case?

 

[graybeard]

I'm thinking your actual gauge is a bit off. Basically a probe is a probe. How far off are they?

beard

 

[uncle_lar]

It could be the metal clip vs the wood block
tyr switching and see if the temp switches
or put them both in wood blocks.
they are both type k thermocouples so they should read pretty close to the same temp

 

[mike in denver]

I have a digiq II and when I calibrated the two probes I found that the meat probe was bad could not get it up to 202 for Denver.
The other thing I did to find the hot spots was to bake bisciuts in different parts of the smoker. that has helped a lot with my cooking as I could not figure out why thing were over done.

Mike

 

[rbranstner]

Yea the trouble I have in the UDS is I have the two digital ones and one analog one on the side of the smoker which is lower than the digital ones by a couple of inches. At one point my digital smoker probe read 275, my digital meat probe read around 230 and my analog one read around 200 all at the same time. Three different readings drives me nuts. I am going to calibrate all three of them after my smoke today to double check that they are all correct. But get this after a few hours of smoking they usually all usually start reading the same temp. Rigt now they are all reading around 215 because I am trying to bring my temps down so I can open my lid up. This happens just about every time. All three will be totally different and then around 2-3 hours in they all read about the same. Some of it may be that the two digital probes are some what close to the meat so maybe they are getting some mixed readings because of the colder meat being by them and once the meat heats up they start reading higher. Just looking to see what thoughts you have.

 

[ddave]

Maverick probes are not thermocouples. They are thermistors. And according to Maverick Customer service, the inside of the probes are the same whether they be meat or smoker temp. The only difference is the shape of the outside.

I use 2 meat probes for smoker temp occasionally on the SnP. If there is ANY distance between them at all they tend to read differently. Trying to get consistent readings at different places in a smoker at the same time will drive you nuts.

Dave

 

[meateater]

Well the way I do it is I use my Weber style wireless meat therm and get it right in the middle of a loin or whatever I'm smoking at the time. My therm on my lid I basically use for temp flutuations monitoring. I know my UDS runs 250* with valve wide open and 350* with door cracked open at the lid. This is a tried and true constant with my UDS. I also double check my smokes with a analog therm, I have 3. I still need a Thermapen someday!

 

[rbranstner]

I am going to install a second analog thremometer in my UDS but this time it will be a turkey fryer one so I can get the probe further into the smoker. I think I may be getting varying temps because some probes are closer to meat than others. I was looking at one of my pics and I noticed how close some of my CSR's were to my probes so they are maybe giving my probe a bit of a false reading. I am going to clip my metal clip under the grate instead of on top of the great to get it away from the meat and see how it compares to two analog thermometers. If they are pretty close I think I may have solved the mystery.

See what I mean my probes may be too close to the meat?????? What do you think?