First run - no seat, barely cooked burgers

mtschirret · May 23, 2020

Hey folks, first post. Got an 820 Pro and fired it up with 8 burgers set on 450 degrees after burn in. 30 minutes later, one side was barely cooked. The flame vent was open; what am I doing wrong? The fire was roaring. I did notice a 40 degree difference between the led and temp gauge on the lid (led was higher at 455 vs 400 or so.) any help would be appreciated.

biffhero · Jun 19, 2020

Did you have any internal temperature probes, to tell what the temperature was via something that wasn't from Pit Boss? The gauge on the lid is higher up than the one on the side of my 700S.

Have you done a biscuit test? I haven't yet, either, but I plan to this weekend.

DaveXDm9 · Jun 20, 2020

mtschirret said:
Hey folks, first post. Got an 820 Pro and fired it up with 8 burgers set on 450 degrees after burn in. 30 minutes later, one side was barely cooked. The flame vent was open; what am I doing wrong? The fire was roaring. I did notice a 40 degree difference between the led and temp gauge on the lid (led was higher at 455 vs 400 or so.) any help would be appreciated.

The hood temp is cosmetic to me, but I may know the issue. When you have the sear plate open to allow the flame to come through you need to set your burgers over it and cook them and then flip them. What is happening is when the sear plate is open all the heat is coming into the grill it is not allowing the deflector to spread the heat.

So if you want to cook the burgers at 450 then close the sear plate and the close the lid the heat will distribute and cook the burgers completely. If you want to cook them over a open flame then you need to flip them accordingly.

BigO58 · Jun 24, 2020

Can you cook the burgers first with sear plate closed, then do a couple of minutes dear at end ?

BigO58 · Jun 24, 2020

*sear not dear?

biffhero · Jun 24, 2020

Certainly. I did that with hamburgers myself. Smoked for a while at a low temp, and then when I wanted to finish up, opened the plate. I intend to do a "cleaning rod mod", so I can open and close my plate without opening the grill.