Hi all,

I'm still very green when it comes to pellet smoking and my Traeger Pro34 is only about 2 months old. My question is when I pull a recipe and/or going from general guidelines even while cooking in the summer heat, my cooks take much much longer than expected. For example, 2 nice racks of back ribs from Costo. At the 6hr mark they are barely starting to pull back from the bone where you should see a good 1/4 to 1/2 inch of bone at the ends and they should almost be over done by then. I start the cook on smoke setting which is approx 180 then move up to 230 after that.
Any suggestions?
Thanks so much
Eric

Check your grate temps to see if they are somewhat accurate, i'd go buy some inexpensive oven thermometers they are less susceptible to sudden highs and lows and will generally give you a good idea of your grate temps.

Hi all,

I'm still very green when it comes to pellet smoking and my Traeger Pro34 is only about 2 months old. My question is when I pull a recipe and/or going from general guidelines even while cooking in the summer heat, my cooks take much much longer than expected. For example, 2 nice racks of back ribs from Costo. At the 6hr mark they are barely starting to pull back from the bone where you should see a good 1/4 to 1/2 inch of bone at the ends and they should almost be over done by then. I start the cook on smoke setting which is approx 180 then move up to 230 after that.
Any suggestions?
Thanks so much
Eric

Are you using the shrinkage from the ends as an indicator of doneness? I can honestly say I've only done one rack that had any appreciable shrinkage.
I have a traeger Jr and do pretty much what you do. I smoke for two hours (130-160), flip at the 2 hr mark and turn up to 225. At the 4 hr mark, I flip again for another 2 hours. Done to perfection +/- 30 minutes. Use the bend test, not the bone test.

Ok, will pick up an oven thermo today and give the bend test on the weekend. Doing salmon tomorrow and ribs on Sunday. It's actually more like summer up here than it was all summer so will be a hot weekend

Thanks

I use the Thermoworks Smoke digital thermometer.  I have one gauge setup to check temp off my great right by the food and then the probe in my food.  I would probably just set the temp to 225 and then do the 3-2-1 method and you should be good to good.  When you wrap during that 2 hours of wrapped is when it really cooks when its wrapped in the foil.  If you do smoke first then I would more than like expect some extra time in the grilling process.  Not sure if that is what your looking for or not but maybe it will help.

I always go by what my temperature is by the meat and don't care what my grill temp is set for.  If I have to set my grill to 275 to get 250 by the meat that is fine.  I just adjust accordingly.  Someone told that too me on another site and I never looked back and never worried too much about my temp setting on the grill itself again.

I would highly recommend getting a remote read thermometer like a Maverick. It will have 2 probes. One for the meat, and one for the grate temp.
They're one of the cheaper models but usually work quite well. Mine reads 4-6 degrees off, but in 99% of my cooks, that is insignificant. You can do 2 tests (ice water and boiling) to know what the accuracy is. Then just cook accordingly.

My smoker is on the deck of my 2nd floor condo, and it will read when I go get the mail (100' or so). And that's going thru 3 walls, a floor, and my covered parking spot. My desk is 2 walls and a brick fireplace away. Never had a dropped signal in 4 years of regular use (other than battery failure).

I learned in short order that I couldn't trust the lid thermometer or the erratic changes on the digital controller. Who wants to keep going outside every 15-20 minutes to check up on their smoker?