You are new to the forum and presumably fairly new to Traeger. While the Traeger is capable of producing some marvelous meals, there is a learning curve involved. It is not like cooking a frozen TV dinner in the microwave where you can follow the instruction on the package. Recipes you find for BBQ are only guidelines for planning purposes. The actual cook times will seldom match. Every cook is different. You have to adjust accordingly.
When you are cooking brisket, pork butt, pork or beef ribs, your final temp is going to be somewhere around 200-205F. That is the most critical temperature, but even that can vary. What happens in between is of lesser importance.
When Traeger says the 1st part of the cook should be until the temperature reaches 165F, that is what is known as the stall. However, the stall can occur anywhere from about 160F to 170 F depending upon the amount of moisture in the meat, the size of the meat, the humidity in the environment, the moisture in the wood chips, etc. The stall occurs when the amount of heat being generated by the fire is sufficient to evaporate moisture from the meat, but not enough to cause the internal temperature of the meat to increase. On a larger piece of meat like a brisket, the stall can last several hours.
When you say your temperature probe seems fine, which probe do you mean? Are you talking about the RTD temperature probe that provides feedback to the controller to maintain the temperature of the cooking chamber. Or are you talking about the temperature of the internal meat probe?
What was the temperature of the cook chamber as measured by the Meater probe?
What was the temperature shown by the internal Meater probe when it was in the stall phase?
While it seems that a difference of 5 degrees F might be inconsequential, depending upon the situation, it might not be. For example when cooking steaks, a 5 degree difference in internal temp can differentiate a steak that is perfect and one that is undercooked or overcooked. You really need accuracy of +/1 degree F on your internal meat probe. If you have one of the Meater Probes that measures both internal temperature AND cook chamber temperature, remember that the cook temperature sensor is so close to the surface of the meat that the reading will be affected by moisture evaporating from the meat. Thus, it might not be accurate during the stall phase of the cook. You are really better off with another thermometer a few inches away from the meat, but not touching the metal grates.
When you reach the stall phase of the cook, there are three options:
1. You can just wait, which seems to be what you did. Eventually, the heat will evaporate the moisture from the meat and the cook will proceed, but this can add hours to the length of the cook as you have observed. If your cook temperature was below 225F, this might take many hours as the boiling point of water is 212F at sea level.
2, By the time you reach the stall phase, the meat will have absorbed essentially all the smoke it can absorb. Thus, you can boost the cook temperature to speed up the evaporation process. For example, if the initial cook temperature was 225F, you might boost the temperature to 275F or even 325F. More heat will be available to evaporate water and the cook will proceed more quickly.
3. You can also wrap the meat in aluminum foil or butcher paper. That will seal in the moisture so it will no longer evaporate. The trapped steam will rapidly cook the meat.
Although the final temperature of the meat is likely to be in the 200-205F range, do not rely on temperature alone to determine whether the cook is completed. Some rib experts evaluate the way the ribs bend. You can also cook until the protein is "probe tender". It is similar to cooking a cake in the oven until you can insert a toothpick and it comes out clean. You can't ever cook a cake by time and temperature and expect a perfect result. You always have to check it. The same thing is true of BBQ. You cannot cook based on time and temperature. You have to evaluate the results at different points during the cook and adjust either the time or the temperature as needed to achieve the right result.
If you do wrap the meat (some people do not), then you will need to remove the meat from the foil and allow it to cook about an hour longer to dry out the bark that was softened by the steam.
