Gots me the #3 Digital, but temps don't line up

[Beef Rockmore]

Hi. Loving my #3D.
I got a challenge with the temp probes. The normal box temp one (impossible to clean with the guard in there) has one temp, but another probe has a very different temp.
"Probe 3" is just laying inside on the top grate and shows 15 degrees lower than the built-in probe.
Ideas?
Which do I trust?
Do you clean your built-in temp probe?

 

[LarryD]

I believe there are some differences in how an ambient temperature probe and a meat probe behave.  (Happy to be educated to just how wrong I am   I'd trust the built-in probe.  Unless it's just absolutely caked up dirty I wouldn't bother cleaning it.  If I couldn't touch the dirty and have it fall off then it's not dirty enough for me to care.

Otherwise, for my purposes 15 degrees is just 'noise' and it would have to be some fringe case for it to matter in the slightest.  When I ran the analog #2 I had temperature swings of +/- 40 degrees and it never mattered once.

I hope this comes across reassuring and not as dismissive.  Your questions are totally valid.

 

[Beef Rockmore]

I believe there are some differences in how an ambient temperature probe and a meat probe behave.  (Happy to be educated to just how wrong I am   I'd trust the built-in probe. 

I had not thought about that.

Otherwise, for my purposes 15 degrees is just 'noise' and it would have to be some fringe case for it to matter in the slightest.  When I ran the analog #2 I had temperature swings of +/- 40 degrees and it never mattered once.

The precision is why I bought this brand and digital. I was tired of my pellet smoker grill fluctuating wildly. I figure if I'm trying to get to a certain internal temp, but the cooker keeps dropping temp or going high, then I'm spending time either not cooking much or over heating. I'm a software engineer and value consistency.

Thank you for your reply. I will look into the probe types.

 

[LarryD]

The precision is why I bought this brand and digital. I was tired of my pellet smoker grill fluctuating wildly. I figure if I'm trying to get to a certain internal temp, but the cooker keeps dropping temp or going high, then I'm spending time either not cooking much or over heating. I'm a software engineer and value consistency.

Welcome fellow professional computer geek.    I totally understand where you're coming from.  If you see the built-in probe bouncing around by 15 degrees then there might be an issue.  Do make sure you have some kind of mass in the smoker (even if it's a couple bricks) or all bets are off as the temperature will be all over the place for an empty smoker.  I'm just saying that the end of the day that if it's staying close to your set temp (+/- 2 or 3 degrees) [consistency] then it won't matter if the reported temp and the "true" temp are off by 15 degrees [accuracy].  I'll also agree that you didn't get what you paid for if it can't be consistent and restate that ultimately it won't matter as far as the food that comes out.  (I'm stating that as a fact based on lots of practical experience.)  That level of consistency is highly overrated.  I've even posited that there might be advantages to fluctuation in many cases.  That's probably just me ignorantly rationalizing, though. 

For my purposes, I'm not that impressed with Auber software (they're the ones who make the controller).  As bad as they are, I don't know if they have any meaningful competitors.  I mostly using my 3DW as a 'dumb' smoker programming it to ramp up the temp and then just stay that way until I turn it off.  I use a Thermoworks meter for all of the food probing.