Temp of meat can’t be higher than temp of pit?

[Oneilln]

I’m certainly not a scientist but is it true that if your pit is set to a certain temp (say 180) that the meat cooking inside of it can’t possibly climb higher than that? I heard about that once and always thought about it.

 

[sparkyv]

That is correct. It's because of physics.

 

[Jimsmokes]

How could it not be?

 

[probak118]

Unless your ambient temperature probe is dirty / faulty and reading low, then your meat probe could possibly get higher than the supposed setting right ?

 

[sparkyv]

Right.

Unless your ambient temperature probe is dirty / faulty and reading low, then your meat probe could possibly get higher than the supposed setting right ?

 

[Redoctapus]

How could it not be?

When low temperature cooking, low and slow often times the meat IT will rise to the highest temperature swing of the oven ambient temperature. This happens particularly on long cooks.
PID controllers do a good job of limiting temperature swings as compared to analog controllers where burner is either fully on or fully off.