Cooker Hot Spots
 

Hey guys-

We are preparing for our first competition in September. I was curious as to how each of you have tested the hot spots on your smoker. Other than moving the meat around and seeing how it turns out, what are some good methods for checking this?

Would purchasing several oven thermometers and placing in different areas of the smoker be an effective method? I would think eventually these glass would get smoked out...

Thanks!

By the cheap canned biscuits and put them around your smoker and see which biscuits gets done first. It won't tell you the temps, but it will identify where your hot spots are for cheaper than buyinga bunch of thermos.

Simplest most effective method IMO...
Buy a few tubes of cheap, pop-open biscuits.
Get smoker up to temp.
Place raw biscuit dough on each corner, in the middle, etc of each rack.
After 15-20 minutes (or more) open it up and look at your biscuits. The darkest ones are your hot spots, lightest ones your cooler spots, etc. Easy visual indicator of what's happening in your smoker, top to bottom, side to side, temp wise.

Canned Biscuits or eggs in the shell. If you are careful you can stick a probe in the egg and it will give you a temp.

Very interesting. I don't think I ever would have thought about that.

My particular smoker has a fire box underneath "the belly". It has a steel plate also that runs along most of the bottom underneath the grill grate (a little like a reverse flow but not really...). I am thinking that after the smoker heats up pretty good, that middle section is considerably hotter than the rest.

The "biscuit" test is an age old indicator and very good technique; glad to see the posts above.

The biscuit method works great. They do taste like chit after taking on smoke...I tried one once but never will again. Another method is to use cheap hotdogs or wieners and see which ones pop first.

Along that line they are also quick indicator if any mods you make to your smoker worked and/or how much.

The dog that pops 1st may have more chicken lips in it. :laugh:

In your trailer smoker I would use the oven thermo idea. In your ECB, well, I wouldn't worry about it.

HA HA I don't lose any sleep over my ECB. I bring it along only for the sake of having something else - usually for some dogs or sausage!:boxing:

Thanks for all the info.