[The Big Pig]

Step 6 – Install the Pit Thermometer & Lid Handle
We used the step drill bit to drill a hole in the lid for our pit thermometer. Some people mount the thermometer on the side at the grate level. Both locations have advantages and disadvantages and some folks mount probes in both locations. Our plans use a large fire basket and we didn’t want anything longer than 1 ¼” sticking in from the side that might make removing the fire basket difficult. So we choose to use the lid for our thermometer.

The temperature at the lid is 50F lower than the temperature of the center of the grill. During our test burn and seasoning, we mounted a digital thermometer probe in the center of the grill and calibrated our probe on the lid to match the digital read out so now our lid probe reads grill temperature. We used a $30 Horizon pit thermometer. We could have scavenged or even purchased a suitable one for less. Some UDS cooks don’t use a thermometer at all and still turn out great food. One thing to note is that our lid mounted thermometers are calibrated for an empty grill. During a cook, the lid will still read 25F lower than a full grill. Not a problem, we get the smoker up to temperature when starting and just add 25F to the lid reading when cooking.

Placing the handle in the center of the lid, we drilled holes sized for the bolts used to secure the handle to the lid. After adding a washer and nut and tightening both bolts, the handle was mounted.



Assembly done! Below is a picture of our assembled cooker. The second picture shows the 30” x 36” universal grill cover from Home Depot.