I hear ya Ben! the discrepancies in temp is easily explained by the laws of thermodynamics. Heat transfer occurs by higher heat to lower heat, which from the element to the meat. The first law of thermodynamics relates changes in internal energy to heat added to a system and the work done by a system. From this we go straight to the second law thermodynamics, but now we are just getting too crazy
The real downside is compensating for these effects, and the PID is our compensation. If I had done more research I probably would have come to these conclusions sooner rather than later.
Have you gotten around to your PID, I think I saw somewhere on here that you were making your own? That sounds like a lot of fun. If I had the time I probably would do that but I gotta get this thing running up to 250 with 40 pounds of pork butt stat
I am going to do another run with 2 chickens this weekend. I am going to place the probe as close to the SI probe and do calculations from there. I will just add a rack to hold the probe in close proximity.