Pit Boss Actual vs Set Temps

[Trky Chsr]

I'm also new to pellet grills and what I have found is at the lower temp settings (250 or so) the temp will vary around 20 degrees either way and at the higher end (350-400) it can vary around 30 degrees. I believe this is the nature of the beast. You are burning wood and as such don't have the same control as with gas. I did a cured pork belly, some call it bacon, and the trick I used was to set the P setting to P5 and kept it on smoke. The temp varied from 180 to 200 which was perfect for my use. I would like to do some rainbow as well and will probably use P6 or P7 to try and get the temp a little lower. I always use a grill temp probe along with the meat probe. One thing I did find was the PB thermocouples are way off from reality, usually at least 20 degrees. TC

 

[GeekChef]

Hey team, I apologize in advance if this horse has been beat to death and there is likely a ton of information on here but I cant find what I am looking for with a search … so I will likely ask a question thats been answered a hundred times (be gentle lol).

I finally got a smoker this summer, I bbq a lot and don't have time to smoke everything and my bbq was wore out anyway so I got a Pro 1100 combo bbq /smoker unit. Cool little unit, bbq works great with 3 burners in a relatively small area and the smoker works great for ribs, tenderloin (those easy cook things) but man am I having trouble with brisket.

I have done 2 now (~6 pound brisket points … I am a newbie so trying to give myself the best chance of success) and had a real challenge with both of them. First one was taking forever, I decided to put my second meat probe on the top grate beside the meat … well wow … set temp at 230 and actual temp on the grate at like 180 … I read thats normal? I cranked the heat up and finished the cook but it took like 4 extra hours (midnight brisket lol).

My question for the pros (again, I’m a newb … be gentle lol) Should I cook to set temp or actual temp on the top grate with the second probe? And is it normal to see like a 40 to 60 degree difference between set and actual temp? Seems excessive … ?

I did my second one yesterday and tried to “split the difference” with the set temp and actual temp (on the far right side of the top grate) - set temp between 230 and 250 actual temps between 190 and 230. Seemed ok, took about 7 hours to get to the stall (low stall at 155), tallow, wrap and back on. Of course I had a pellet jam up right at this point and had to reset my smoker … got really hot after that (that’s another thread likely). I couldnt get the piece of meat to get through the stall so after about 3 hours I turned up to 270 set which got my actual to about 230 that got it moving (maybe it was just an ornery piece of meat…).

My 2 brisket cooks took substantially longer than anticipated and I am thinking it’s the set and actual temp differential - could use some help from the pros here. Thoughts?

Both briskets (although late) were absolutely delicious so there is that!

Thanks team

Maybe move the temp probe to the center of the grate? Buy a spare probe and just wire it in and put it where u cook.

The reqteq controller that I installed in my pitboss PB4 Vertical allows you to enter an offset…..so I measured the center grate with 3 probes from front to back and put in the average as the offset. Then the controller sees the grate temperature instead of the back of the smoker.