First cook on new Traeger about halfway done....

[RonM]

Got a rack of baby backs out on the new Pro34. Looks like I also might have the screwy temperature monitoring. I started it on 180 and it seemed to hold it pretty well, between 178 and 185. I went out 30 minutes later and the display said 221! Then I came back down into the 180s. After another hour I turned it up to 225 - going to cook them until 160 IT, then wrap and cook at 250 to an IT of 205. I put a good oven thermometer on the grill right next to the sensor. Went out 15 minutes later to check it. The display said 227 degrees. The oven thermometer said 200! So the indicated temp is apparently about 25 degrees higher than the actual temp. I was hoping I got one of the "good" smokers that didn't have this termperature issue, but it's looking like I wasn't so lucky.

Anyway, I just turned it up to 250. Then I'll turn it to 275 after I wrap it. Guess I'll give Traeger a call next week. Weird - with SO MANY people having these issues, you'd think they would have fixed it by now.

Will post updates on the ribs in a while. I'm using Fiesta Rib Rub, cooiking with B&B Pecan pellets.

 

[RonM]

Going along OK so far. IT is up to 183 (according to the Traeger probe). What's interesting is that the indicated temp is consistently staying within about 5 degrees of the set temp. It's POSSIBLE that that oven thermometer is off - it's a cheap one, been in a drawer for several years. It's still reading 25-30 degrees less than the set/indicated temp. We'll see, shouldn't be too much longer.

 

[RonM]

Looking pretty good. Indicator said IT was 205, but an instant-read stick-in said it was 195. Turned the smoker up to 275, will go a little longer. Meat looks great, though. Even right now, I don't think it would pass the bend test. Probe is apparently reading about 10 degrees high. The other probe reads about 5 degrees high, might use that one from now on.

 

[Timmy]

On my Pro 780 set temp and traeger temp are spot on. But when I check with a 3rd party therm at the rtd, it’s actually 20 to 30 degrees colder the what the grill says.

 

[RayClem]

If you read the advice of many Traeger owners here, you will find that they put little faith in the Traeger RTD grill temperature probe or the internal meat probe. Get yourself good 3rd party thermometers and check them for accuracy.

I am not sure the inexpensive oven thermometers are accurate, so I would not put any more faith in them than I do the Traeger thermocouple.

You do not have to spend a lot to get accurate thermometers, but you do need to verify their accuracy. While a few degrees error in the grill temperature won't usually ruin a cook, a few degrees error in the internal meat temperature can turn a medium rare steak into a medium well steak or vice versa. Thus, check the accuracy.

 

[Lbeberdick]

Got a rack of baby backs out on the new Pro34. Looks like I also might have the screwy temperature monitoring. I started it on 180 and it seemed to hold it pretty well, between 178 and 185. I went out 30 minutes later and the display said 221! Then I came back down into the 180s. After another hour I turned it up to 225 - going to cook them until 160 IT, then wrap and cook at 250 to an IT of 205. I put a good oven thermometer on the grill right next to the sensor. Went out 15 minutes later to check it. The display said 227 degrees. The oven thermometer said 200! So the indicated temp is apparently about 25 degrees higher than the actual temp. I was hoping I got one of the "good" smokers that didn't have this termperature issue, but it's looking like I wasn't so lucky.

Anyway, I just turned it up to 250. Then I'll turn it to 275 after I wrap it. Guess I'll give Traeger a call next week. Weird - with SO MANY people having these issues, you'd think they would have fixed it by now.

Will post updates on the ribs in a while. I'm using Fiesta Rib Rub, cooiking with B&B Pecan pellets.

Traeger will send a new RTD a pain treplace. Won't be any better! Traeger accepts a 20 to 30 degree deferential between display temp and actual. Mine gets more accurate above 250. Good luck!

 

[RayClem]

Traeger will send a new RTD a pain treplace. Won't be any better! Traeger accepts a 20 to 30 degree deferential between display temp and actual. Mine gets more accurate above 250. Good luck!

Yeah! Every grill is different. Mine is 5 degrees off at 225F and 50 degrees off at 400 F. Some grills are closer at higher temperatures. You just have to figure out how your particular grill operates and adjust accordingly.

 

[Big Man Dan]

I don't even use the Traeger probe anymore. I bought an Inkbird 4-probe bluetooth temperature doodad early on and have had fabulous results. One of the features I like the most is you can watch a graph/trend of the probe temperatures with the Inkbird app on your phone (free download). If you use multiple probes you can graph them individually or show all on one trend (my favorite view). Everyone has their favorite equipment but, for the cost, I don't think you can beat Inkbird. If you want to go high end, a lot of guys rave about Fireboard. I don't have any experience with FB so I can only pass on the praise of others.

 

[midwest]

Also I see you are in TX. What was the outside temp like when cooking. Normally not much of an issue but often times people try to cook really low and get swings. If your in the TX sun and it 95 degrees outside you cooker may already be close to 140 degrees or so inside (maybe higher). It is almost impossible to add a fire to that equation and keep the temps at 180 degrees. If it's 50 degrees outside it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[RayClem]

Also I see you are in TX. What was the outside temp like when cooking. Normally not much of an issue but often times people try to cook really low and get swings. If your in the TX sun and it 95 degrees outside you cooker may already be close to 140 degrees or so inside (maybe higher). It is almost impossible to add a fire to that equation and keep the temps at 180 degrees. If it's 50 degrees outside it shouldn't be an issue.

I'll second that. I am in Northern Illinois near Chicago and have measured temperatures as high as 150 F in my grill without igniting the fire pot. I normally cook at 225F as that insures I will be burning a reasonable number of pellets even if the grill is in the sun. As the days get shorter and temperatures start to drop, that won't be a problem.