first stoker cook


 

D Casten

TVWBB Member
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Both connection losses were self inflected when I killed the power. The blower worked great at keeping the temp up as the coals cooled. But my fire box (Kingfisher backyard Bonanza) is not closed off enough to suffocate the coals when the blower shuts off.

Understanding I do not use a Weber. But I would appreciate any input regarding the size of the opening between the firebox and cooking chamber. I'm think of making it an adjustable damper.
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Ok, I closed off the opening in the picture above. Then loaded up the firebox with a full bag (18lbs) of charcoal. Set the stoker to 220.

You can see it did great up to and right at 220 degrees. But the temps did rise up to 230 for about an hour, which I can work on.

second-burn.jpg


My question is as the temps lowered from a high of 233. It went down past the target temp of 220 and the blower did not kick on until 211.

Did I have a glitch in the stoker? Or is there a reason the temps would fall past the target setting without the blower kicking on?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by D Casten:
Ok, I closed off the opening in the picture above. Then loaded up the firebox with a full bag (18lbs) of charcoal. Set the stoker to 220.

You can see it did great up to and right at 220 degrees. But the temps did rise up to 230 for about an hour, which I can work on.

second-burn.jpg


My question is as the temps lowered from a high of 233. It went down past the target temp of 220 and the blower did not kick on until 211.

Did I have a glitch in the stoker? Or is there a reason the temps would fall past the target setting without the blower kicking on? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've noticed that in the past myself and even wondered if there could be a programming error. I was told that this was typical of these temperature controls. Good news is, that it will catch up and has little effect on your overall cook. There are some post on this forum about that very topic.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I've noticed that in the past myself and even wondered if there could be a programming error. I was told that this was typical of these temperature controls. Good news is, that it will catch up and has little effect on your overall cook. There are some post on this forum about that very topic. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

My thought is that the Stoker realizes that it went over the 220 value and that turning off the fan was not working. So it thought that by bringing it lower then your set point for some time would even out the end cook.

In this particular cook it looks like you have lots of fuel for the amount of time you are cooking. I think what happened is the stoker started one end of the fire at the start then 15 mins later another portion caught fire perhaps due to a input leak into your cooker. No problem though as the stoker is still monitoring the cook and keeps the fan off. The stoker realizes it's too hot for X period of time and decides to delay applying heat until it the temp goes down by the same amount of time. If you look at the average pit temp over the time you cooked I bet it comes pretty close to your set point.

This is most interesting. I still have yet to log a smoke but I'm all rigged for the next one.

-rob
 
Damper if it not to much of a problem.With the weber I adjust the top vent depending on the temp and if I want to raise the pit temp, sometimes to speed the process I open a bottom vent for a few minutes
 
I’m carrying on this conversation on another site as well so excuse me that I left out some info. This was a test burn and not an actual cook, the 3 hrs was how long the coals lasted not when the food was done. The grates were empty and the water jacket (the Kingfisher has a water jacket over the firebox that absorbs a lot of heat) was empty. And the temperature that night was in the high 20’s.

I am over all pretty happy with the heat stabability. It is much better than before the stoker when I was tossing coals on every hour and a half. I would have spikes like in my first post.

However what I was envisioning was something more like the 17:35 mark. When the blower kicked on .. temps rose 2 degrees .. blower kicks off … temps fall 2 degrees … blower kicks back on … etc.

Interesting concept that the stoker is adjusting for temps above the target setting … I will open the dampers and raise temps then see if the stoker adjusts before it kicks the blower on.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I’m carrying on this conversation on another site as well </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

May I ask where?

BTW: "A Test burn"???? You could have thrown a fatty or 2 on there. Or even smoked some kosher salt for your rub mixes. What's up with that?

-rob
 
Brings back memories! I was at Sayville too and my stoker stopped functioning because of an almost hurricane like storm getting something wet.

I compete on a Caldera Tallboy and a WSM with a Pro-Q insert. Brisket and shoulder was loaded on the Caldera and it was being controlled by the stoker. The WSM has a guru attached. We loaded everything on the WSM and finished out the night on that with the guru.

We (Green Mountain Smokeshack) took 5th in brisket and 6th in pork at that event. That was our grand exit for the 2008 season.

BTW: Forgot to tell you about the damper/fan position thing.

-rob
 

 

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