Stick burner (Workhorse) learning curve

[moniz15]

Despite a bit of snow up here today, decided to fire up the 1969 to cook up some pork butt I had leftover from previous cooks. Fired her up, got temps to settle at 250, then threw the butts on. After 1 hour of holding temps pretty steady between 250-275 on the stack side tel-tru, I noticed the bottom side of the butts were getting pretty charred (see 4th pic below, charred on edges). After also charring the bottom side of a few wings and burnt ends a few weeks ago, I decided to stick my fireboard probe at grate level to see what was going on. Turns out grate is running about 60(!) degrees hotter than what the tel-trus are reading. I flipped the butts over and adjusted my temps to tel-trus would run closer to 210-225 to maintain a grate temp of 275ish. 5th pic is where I'm at now, they are not quite as dark as they look and ready to wrap. Is this difference normal with a stick burner? Could the tel-tru's just not be calibrated correctly? Obviously I can work with it if I know the temp difference but its just annoying that right out of the box the thermometers are off. Anyone else with a workhorse notice this? This is not a knock on the pit at all, I love it so far, more so the gauges themselves.

 

[okiej]

I don't have a 1969. But the gauge on my smoker was off by 50 degrees when I first got it. I was cooking way hotter than I thought. I calibrated it to my wireless gauge and all is good now

 

[gtsum]

Try and calibrate the tel tru’s and see if that helps. I wouldn’t think the bottoms would get that hot (my workhorse 1975 hasn’t been delivered yet so I don’t have first hand experience with workhorse yet)


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[gtsum]

How is your fire burning? A not so clean fire will darken the meat also (that is different than burning it obviously)


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[moniz15]

How is your fire burning? A not so clean fire will darken the meat also (that is different than burning it obviously)


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Fire is burning clean. Thin blue or even just straight heat coming from the stack. I'll have to look in to how to calibrate the tel tru... just annoying that they're supposed to be precalibrated, and clearly they are way off. I trust the fireboard is right, especially because multiple items now have burned up a little on the underside when I thought I was cooking at 275, but was really cooking at 350 or so with tons of convection.

 

[zippy12]

I put a grate clip on probe 7in away from the meat on the fire side....

them lid temp reader lie like a dog

 

[robertm]

I am by no means an expert but a few thoughts come to mind:

1) Calibrate your gauges. Boiling water is easy test
2) It makes sense the temp at the grate is different than some other place in the pit. On my pit the upper and lower grate are 50 degrees apart from ea other and 25 higher/lower than temp gauge.
3) Is there a deflector plate? Possibly need to adjust those for the hot spot?
4) keep the meat far from were the heat source coming out of the box as is practical.

Some of this might help, or might not. Your butts end up looking pretty awesome!

 

[KevinJ]

I put a grate clip on probe 7in away from the meat on the fire side....

them lid temp reader lie like a dog

They don't lie, they're just reading the temp where they're at, well unless they're Weber lid gages. :razz:

 

[moniz15]

No deflectors or anything on workhorse pits... Not worried about temp fluctuations across the grates or on the top grate I just didn't know if that a normal thing on stick burners, grate temp being very far off from a tel Tru. Final product below... Still came out great

 

[Lynn Dollar]

How long are the stems on those Tel Trus ?



I use 4" in my Brazos. I saw that Franklin puts 6" in his smokers.

 

[104timberwolf]

Do you have a heat diffuser plate in the cook chamber? I put a big aluminum pan full of water on the diffuser plate and below the cooking grate to help regulate the heat near the firebox.

Of course, this was before I bought my Assassin GF17 and learned the joys of set and forget.

 

[ruger35]

Use smaller splits and keep the fire closer to the door. Even if it was actually 275, 275 radiant vs convective heat is different. Small fires in smaller pits are the keys to getting convection and cooking like larger pits.

 

[SMOKE FREAK]

How long are the stems on those Tel Trus ?



I use 4" in my Brazos. I saw that Franklin puts 6" in his smokers.

Indeed the temp near the edge of the cooker might not be as hot as in the center of the grate.

4" in my Longhorn reads very near the probe that is just below my cook grate...

To me temp readings are just guidelines...Not absolutes...

 

[Callahan-que]

A temp gauge on a stick burner is there to let you know when to add another split.

 

[Smoke5280]

Glad to see a post on a 1969, Getting mine in April! Maybe the picture is deceiving but that looks like a lot of wood. That much in my LSG would be well over 325.

 

[Cook]

You may notice flipping to be something you have to do on that pit...don't know as I've never even seen one until now. The reason I mention that is because the exhaust collector seems to be just below center of the pit. If the grate is at door level, then the heat is probably greatest just below that...meaning you're hot on the bottom.

It's just an observation from the pics. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

[moniz15]

Glad to see a post on a 1969, Getting mine in April! Maybe the picture is deceiving but that looks like a lot of wood. That much in my LSG would be well over 325.

Yea it's a little deceiving. I had no lump left so had to build a coal bed first... That was when I first lit it with no coals yet when I was trying to establish the coal bed... Usually there's only 1-2 small splits in there at a time. Like I said it's a learning curve, as long as I know what to look for it'll be fine.

 

[Smoke5280]

Yea it's a little deceiving. I had no lump left so had to build a coal bed first... That was when I first lit it with no coals yet when I was trying to establish the coal bed... Usually there's only 1-2 small splits in there at a time. Like I said it's a learning curve, as long as I know what to look for it'll be fine.

Have you called JD? I’d love to hear his thoughts