Why does nobody talk about how much heat you lose opening the lid on a kettle

Tbh I was cooking some ribs last weekend in Nashville and I opened my Weber kettle maybe 6 times during a 4 hour cook to check temps and spritz. Each time I cracked it I watched my thermometer drop 30+ degrees and it took almost 10 minutes to recover. I learned that all those little peeks added up to almost an hour of lost cooking time. Has anyone else tested how much their cook time gets stretched out by constantly lifting the lid?

2 comments

2 Comments

anthony_lane552d ago

Thirty degrees sounds about right. I ran a test once with a digital probe hanging off the grate. That steam cloud that blasts out when you open the lid is all your heat leaving. You're not just losing temp, you're losing all that nice smoke too. Those 10 minute recoveries really add up over a long cook.

the_jesse2d ago

Whoa, hang on a second. @anthony_lane55, you actually ran a probe test on that steam burst? That's wild, I never thought to measure it like that.