Lower Temperatures while Smoking

The prime rib turned out beautifully. How did you do anything wrong?

I use Smokin's method all the time. Usually smoke at around 200* then finish with an oven sear.

I am concerned for future efforts which will include sausages and other such, where lower temperatures are also suggested. I would be quite happy if I could get to a stable 180F!

Sounds like that PG1000 might just be to well insulated. I will try to maintain 180F on my PG500 and see what happens.

Hey Frank- Had another thought. What about the warming tray temp? Isn't that the place we are supposed to cold smoke? I wonder what temp is in there with your settings.

You could try cooking it down in the warming drawer area, it will be markedly cooler there. This is a common issue with the PG1000... it's insulated too well.

Here's some thoughts... 1)Regardless of ambient temp keep the PG in the shade. Just the heat it gains from the sun can be remarkable. 2)Take the flue cap completely off... no restriction = dump more heat... 3)Crack the warming drawer... this will change airflow somewhat... but again will dump more heat.

Be careful running a fire that lean... It'll usually work... but can have fire issues. However just remember your HHT can be whatever you want because with a pit temp of 199 and a set temp of 180 it's never getting out of LHT mode.

Being not insulated the PG500 tends to run lower temps better... Honestly though even running at 200-250 the PG1000 puts out plenty of smoke to get some flavor in a prime rib.

Nordy

I will profile the warming drawer this weekend. Removing the flue cover will be tried as well. Thanks for the reminder about the HHT settings under these conditions. Should have realized that from the start! I have no complaints about the smoking level of the PG1000, except perhaps for the need to be able to see when I have the top up!

SOLVED! Yesterday I again fired up the PG1000 to do a 9.5 pound standing rib roast! The prime rib turned out perfectly, and I solved the problem of the PG1000's reticence to stabilize at lower temperatures. I tested the approach of opening the cold smoking drawer by 1 inch and found no performance effect, other than smoke everywhere. I then began varying the height of the flue cap relative to the top end of the flue pipe. When I had adjusted the bottom of the cap to be 1/4 inches above the end of the pipe, the pit temperature (indicated by the controller dropped and stabilized at the set point of 180F. With an LHT setting of 05 and HHT at 40I had an overshoot of +10 degrees and undershoot of -5 degrees. Placing the bottom of the cap at the same level as the top of the pipe gave the original performance as described above. Dropping the cap level still further seems to have no further effect. I will try raising the cap above the 1/4 inch level in the near future, but for now, my objective was achieved! From these limited and therefore anecdotal experiments the critical parameter to achieve lower temperatures is the position of the flue cap relative to the end of the pipe. This will probably effect the upper temperature as well.

BTW, I observed no flame out of control problems with the setting of LHT at 05 for the 5 hour smoking period.

I'm a little late to the party, but your last post sounds reasonable to me. I set my flue cap as high as I could get it when I first got mine and have never had a problem with low temps.

I don't own one but I can tell you this, the insulation on the 1000 has nothing to do with achieving lower temps. I know this won't be received well but I would submit to you that the pellet consumption of a 500 and 1000 are almost identical. People talk about the insulated hood being the holy grail. I've seen this fanaticism a thousand times in countless products only to find out later it was unwarranted. I get the enthusiasm but I like to see hard facts and not blinded by loyalty to a company or product. For the record I believe both are great grills and I'm almost ready to purchase but the primary reason to buy the 1000 would be because you prefer the design better, otherwise it doesn't make sense to pay more. I'd be willing to bet the price of the 1000 is not based on increased material costs but more so based on the desirability factor.