Issue or fluke? Super fast cook.

[Theslacker]

Hi folks. Quick one for you. Normally, I smoke 3-6 chicken breasts and it takes about 2.5 hours. On 4th of July I put 16 breasts in, came back a little over an hour later and they were already at temp!!! The rub didn't have time to get nice and dry etc... I turned down the heat and let them sit at temp for an hour and they turned out good.  Could the temp probe in back have been blocked by chicken causing it to not read right and to keep cycling the heat? Could the thermostat be broke or something else? Thanks for ideas! I'm cooking 6 breast tomorrow and hope it goes smoothly.

 

[SuperDave]

Food can block the probe for sure.  If it was the rheostat, that should be pretty easy to verify or duplicate with no food in the smokers.  Do you have a secondary thermometer that you can drop down the vent hole?

 

[DivotMaker]

Depending on the size of the breasts, an hour is not unreasonable, at 250.  (You didn't say what temp you smoked at, but that's where I do poultry).  Poultry doesn't benefit from "low and slow," so a higher temp is better.  It's already tender, and very lean, so no fat to render.

It is possible that one of them got against a box temp probe, which will cause a wide variety of outcomes!  In the future, when you load a shelf heavy, always do a once-over, before closing the door, to make sure you're not against the probe.  You also said you turned down the heat and let them sit at temp for an hour.  It's possible that your meat probe was either exposed or close to a grate (chicken breasts are hard to probe - too small).  That could have caused the high temp reading early, and then leaving them in for another hours actually finished cooking them.

 

[Theslacker]

Thanks for the ideas! I used a secondary Thermapen and confirmed on multiple they breasts that temps where past 160f. I then swapped the probe into another breast and lowered from 250 to 200 and let them sit at that for over an hour. I had a out 4-5 breasts per rack. Will keep you posted on tomorrows cook.