Hi,I put my akorn together and did the sealing mods.added the pizza stone diffuser,fired it up at 7am,I'm holding steady temp of 328 at grate level,I'm holding steady temp of 250-253 at factory thermometer level with no water pan .those temps are checked using a type k thermocouple dual probe from thermoworks ,my factory thermometer is showing 250 deg. So I'm guessing I got lucky and got a accurate thermometer .this thing rocks.FYI I'm not cooking I'm just reading posts from this site and learning how to use it first before I start my cook tomorrow .GREAT site lots of nice folks with loads of info