Post your live HeaterMeter Cooks


 
Smoking a pork shoulder on the BGE.

P.S. If you ever can't figure out why your temps keep climbing after you put your meat in, check your top damper. Mine must have swung open when I opened the lid and I mistakenly didn't check it until after my pit hit more than 25 degrees over setpoint.

http://heatermeter.kolenet.com/
 
No. I just have the ball valve at about 50% open and fan set for 30%. I had some old charcoal in my basket and I put new charcoal on top and I think about 30 minutes ago it must have transitioned to the older charcoal, the temp was on a free fall for some odd reason. I had to open a side vent for a few minutes.
 
Still a pretty nice plot. I added the roto damper before my last cook. It took quite a while to get things leveled out.

Before the damper, I could get really good control except for flare ups. Hopefully the damper solves that problem.
 
I have used the HM on my UDS for about 3 or 4 years now, so lots of practice lol. I use a pretty powerful fan about 28cfm. The first thing I did with the ball valve fully open, with the blower at 10%, I then gradually up its speed until the UDS started to heat. Depending on blower size, the blower you can actually get a cooling effect if the blower is set to high and then when then when enough coals become lite, it will heat very quickly and overshoot. I came to a setting of 30% is the maximum blower setting in my setup.

The ball valve setting can change with temp but I usually leave it set in one spot regardless of temp(under 300) and on mine about 50% on 3/4 inch ball valve maybe a little less, it would give me point where the UDS would not hold temp without the blower attached.
 
:mad: Dam my weber lid was not the best at sealing the top, and it became really windy, so that was a problem. I added some tinfoil around the edge. Hopefully that will settle things down a bit, lol
 
Try putting something heavy on top of the lid....

well its a dome so would be kinda hard, but I used tinfoil on the edge, it works good. Now, I believe and know so, I knew better. I usually start with a new bag of charcoal and clean out the ash on the bottom, when I do long pulled pork smokes. But, the deck was to dangerous to walk in 2.5 feet of snow with a basket of charcoal or a 55 gal drum, so I just got most of the ash out and filled up the basket with newer charcoal on top of the old. The temps started out great and stable and now im regretting my decision.

edited: plus it was not windy this morning, :)another excuse lol, anyways I don't need it finished until Monday morning so I don't mind the lower temps

Edited: 940am-Finished after 24 hours on the smoker, the temps settled down again around 9pm and stayed good until I upped the temp to 250 and then 300 to finish before leaving for work
 
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Just put on a couple of racks of ribs for dinner.

http://bbq.converged.ca

I'm also trying out my new fire grate and because I'm a glutton for punishement, also trying out some Fogo brand lump.

Pic of the new fire grate:
20Y1fSTl.jpg
 
Getting a lot of spikes happening with this Fogo lump. Will have to see how it behaves over a few cooks.

Also, looks like my PID settings were way out. Lets see how the last 2.5 hours go compared to the first 2.5
 
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So that was a pretty decent run!

Start time ~5pm. Maintained 225F for around 15 hours.

Image notes:

1 - BPID changed from "0, 3, 0.01, 8" to "0, 3, 0.008, 8" - I should have changed it after it had recovered to 225F, not while it was below.

2 - Changed the blower max speed from 100 to 0. It recovered briefly, but ultimately, all the lump had pretty much been consumed at this point.

 

 

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