dwfisk
Quintessential Chatty Farker
Been following a very good new build thread by bfraze99 and rather than hijack his thread I though I would start a new one to explore a couple questions.
How do you measure variation across the cook chamber in an offset stickburner, either traditional or reverse flow? I do a couple of things with mine: I have a dial thermometer at about the center and I usually make one of my 2 iGrill probes and ambient cook chamber probe. Fortunately they agree within a couple degrees. To measure variability across the cook chamber I wait until the pit has been up to temp for a couple hours and then I using my infared thermal gun I check temp at 6-8 spots on the outside of the cook chamber. What I'm seeing is when I'm holding my target 250* in the cook chamber based on the dial and iGrill ambient probe, the temp measured on the outside with the infared gun is a few degrees cooler and only varies 5*-10* across the pit, say from 230*-235* or 240*. I'm assuming I have a comparable 5*-10* variation inside the pit. Do you think this method is giving me viable data?
That begs a second question: what is meaningful variation when it comes to making decisions relative to cooking strategy? I think I would argue different devices varying by a couple degrees is irrelivant and temp variability across an offset stick burner of 5*-10* is no big deal.
Bottom line for me is the Q I'M getting seems to confirm I'm cooking at target temps I have pretty consistent temps across the pit (no super hot or cold spots).
What do y'all think?
How do you measure variation across the cook chamber in an offset stickburner, either traditional or reverse flow? I do a couple of things with mine: I have a dial thermometer at about the center and I usually make one of my 2 iGrill probes and ambient cook chamber probe. Fortunately they agree within a couple degrees. To measure variability across the cook chamber I wait until the pit has been up to temp for a couple hours and then I using my infared thermal gun I check temp at 6-8 spots on the outside of the cook chamber. What I'm seeing is when I'm holding my target 250* in the cook chamber based on the dial and iGrill ambient probe, the temp measured on the outside with the infared gun is a few degrees cooler and only varies 5*-10* across the pit, say from 230*-235* or 240*. I'm assuming I have a comparable 5*-10* variation inside the pit. Do you think this method is giving me viable data?
That begs a second question: what is meaningful variation when it comes to making decisions relative to cooking strategy? I think I would argue different devices varying by a couple degrees is irrelivant and temp variability across an offset stick burner of 5*-10* is no big deal.
Bottom line for me is the Q I'M getting seems to confirm I'm cooking at target temps I have pretty consistent temps across the pit (no super hot or cold spots).
What do y'all think?