There is a post on FB where someone cooked ribs on both upper and main grate and said the upper grate ran 20 degrees hotter than the main grate. Another person chimed in and said that's because heat rises. I was under the impression the main grate ran hotter than the upper grate. Is there a difference between grate temp and the air temp around main and upper grate?
Would the upper grate cook food quicker than food on the lower grate? I know, this is a general question because I don't know if the ribs cooked on the upper rack were smaller than the lower. Thanks in advance for any clarification.
Empty, the upper grate is normally up to 25 degrees cooler than the bottom grate, with the exception of next to the chimney which can be a tad warmer.
Yes, there is a difference in the lower shelf, between the grate temperature and the air circulating in the cooker. Put a probe right on the grate, then mount it 1" above in a probe holder, and you will see a 10 to 15 degree cooler temperature difference.
No, the upper grate will not cook food any faster than the lower grate. The upper grate normally lags behind the lower, as it is normally cooler. Competition cooks like to use the top shelf so that the bottom of what they are cooking doesn't get too dark.
I fill the cooker up and vacuum seal what isn't immediately eaten. When I do this, I do rotate meat from the ends to the middle on both levels, and normally what ever is on the upper level gets rotated to the bottom as what's on the bottom finishes and is taken off.
Probe placement is key here. Probes within 6" of anything, especially meat, will show skewed readings. On the lower shelf, the probes need to be on the grate surface, not above it. When placing probes past the heat diffuser plate on the lower grate (chimney end), they will read much hotter than the rest of the grate surface. The same is true for probes at the extreme right (chimney end) of the upper grate.
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