Best way to reduce cook temp

[nafod81]

Not a problem or complaint thread by any means.

I jumped in with a RT-700. Assembled it by myself and had a friend come over to stand it up and wheel it out back the next day. I did the 1 hr 400 degree burn and then dropped the temp to 225 to smoke some bacon for seasoning.

The ride from 400 to 225 seemed rather difficult. Opening the lid produced temperature spikes.

I'm a rookie for sure, but I'm curious. Are you better off turning the grill off and letting it cool down then restarting it or just setting the temperature lower and letting it do it's thing? Granted this is a odd scenario. With other grill mediums and even deep fryers I tend to cook items at required temps as they are reached as opposed to the other way around.

Thanks!

 

[navydroid]

What is your feed rate set at? If your running the 6.5% out of the box, you may need to drop it to hit that 225° range. What part of the country are you in? Hot? Humid? I set my feed rate to 3.5% for low and slow and crank it up to 6.5% when I'm going 500° for searing.

 

[wildblue]

680 here - I tend to just change the temp and let it do its thing. I'm usually going from ~ 350 down to 225 (crank to 350 to 'burn off' the last cook) but just letting it coast down there works fine for me. Opening the lid tends to make it try to 'catch up' ... the box, grates, pan, etc hold some heat, so opening the lid is going to let the immediate out, but all the latent heat is going to hop it back up when the feed tries to catch up.
I'm in Ohio, and usually at least in the shade, YMMV.