This is graph of approximately the first 30 minutes.  You can see how it drops and then goes back up.  Grill temp is set to 350°

This is graph of approximately the first 30 minutes.  You can see how it drops and then goes back up.  Grill temp is set to 350°

Is your MAK clean, especially all vents? RTD probe clean? Assuming internal parts are all set in place correctly. With rare exception, these are the things that I have seen play havoc with performance. Or bad pellets.

I opened the grill and removed the covers over the drip pan.  Let's see if that what may have been causing the issue.

Grill dropped down to about 265° while I removed the covers.  Got up close to 300° and then dropped back to 275°.  Now it is working its way to 350°.  Will see if there are any drops again.

This is a great (but frustrating at times) exercise.  Glad I am doing it.  I may have learned something about the pit i.e. the drip pan covers and higher heat temps.

Keeps going back and forth between 340°-350°.  I am going to let it go for about 30 minutes before taking the set temp higher.

The FZ covers should not be the determining factor of whether or not you can hit your desired temp. I have cooked at 425-450 many times with the FZ covered (indirect heat). Are all of your vents completely clear, including the vents that enter/exit the cold smoke box?

I just scraped off some creosote from the left side vents and fully opened the vents on the smoker box chamber on the right side.  The grill had been stable at ~350° for about 30 minutes so I just turned it up to 400°.

 Took about 7 minutes to go from 350° to 400°.  I will let it sit there for 15-30 minutes before going to 450°.  Will do the same once it stabilizes at 450° before setting at HIGH.  I have never run the grill at high so I have no idea what temps it will get to.

Any chance you’d be willing to fire up your Elite and just set it to 500°? Would love to see the preheat time.

Any chance you’d be willing to fire up your Elite and just set it to 500°? Would love to see the preheat time.

I will do that one day.  I want to smoke some tri-tips and a bacon wrapped pork loin on it today before the snow starts to fall so I won't do a test today.  I will have to use my Thermoworks Smoke wifi to graph that.

Fairly stable at 400° so I am going up to 450° now

Looks like it took about 10 minutes to get that extra 50°

The MAK should have no issue cruising at 450° all day long

I put the sear grate on the grill.  Waiting for the grill to heat back up to 450° and for two steaks to thaw out.  Then I am going to throw them on the sear grate.

I put the sear grate on the grill.  Waiting for the grill to heat back up to 450° and for two steaks to thaw out.  Then I am going to throw them on the sear grate.

Cook em’ from frozen. Takes a bit longer to hit desired internal temp and will give the steaks more time to develop nice sear/crust. Just my opinion...lol.

Bently: As a new member of this forum, I was hoping the you'all would not revert to personal insults.  I guess I'm wrong.  As the apparent Administrator of the Pellet Fan forum, part of your job is to set the tone for the postings.  If your comment reflects how this forum operates, it's not for me.
Adios

Bently: First, my apologies for a snarky reaction to your posting.  What you'all saw was a combination of having the flu, and a long frustrating day and generally a bad attitude about everything.  For sure, this exchange points out the need to not react quickly to what is often an innocent comment.  At my age you'd think I would have learned that lesson long ago.  Fortunately the flu hasn't killed me yet, and I haven't p issed off too many people while trying to recover.
After I'm able to shovel the snow off the patio, I'll be back at the MAK Grill and trying to learn how to use a pellet cooker.  That'll be a bit more "fun" when I can take off the parka and gloves!  Burr... it's starting to get cold, 15 below zero this morning (but, it's a dry cold) .
MTBob