My Thermometer is a Liar!

  Posted on February 16, 2009

Do you have a thermometer on the lid of your grill?  Do you trust it?  Can you?  Well, judging by the title, you can tell I don’t think you should trust it.  When I was grilling a beef roast the other day, I noticed that it was taking an awefully long time to reach my desired temperature with the meat thermometer.  My lid thermometer on the grill told me I was right in the zone to roast that bad boy, around 300 – 325.  Just out of curiosity, I went in the house and got the oven thermometer and stuck it on the grill right next to the beef roast.  I lowered the lid and peaked in at the thermometer through the hole in the side of the grill and to my amazement, it read 165 degrees!  I ended up having to pump the burners up to almost high to get the oven thermometer up to 300 degrees.  Once I hit that termperature around the roast, the lid thermometer was reading 450 degrees, which would be no good unless I wanted to cremate that poor roast.

So moral of the story, get a cheap oven thermometer like this one and use it right next to your meat while  indirect grilling.  That lid thermometer is not to be trusted!