Shees Alive She is ALIVE


 
A

Andrew-Dollins

TVWBB Member
I assembled my first Heater Meter, and it fired right up without any issues! I was nervous at first everything lit up but the LCD wasn't visible. However a couple tweaks on the lcd contrast pot and there it was the IP address looking me in the face! Thanks Bryan and the Heater Meter community, I am into this project a whole bunch as I used it as an excuse to buy a 3d printer. However when you see the unit fire up on the first go it brings a smile to the face. I can't wait until tomorrow to cook up some ribs and pork butts! While I drink tons of beer and not worry about babysitting my pit. :cool:
 
That's awesome. I had the exact same experience with the display when I first plugged mine in. What kind of smoker are you hooking it up to?
 
Chargriller Acorn, I have a seal kit that I have yet to install, been busy getting my heater meter ready to go. However I am going to smoke a whole chicken this afternoon for the maiden cook. I want to get my PID tuned and my grill dialed in. I have a Partyq that I was using but it wasn't as accurate as I like. The Partyq is so slow to respond by the time it stops the fan correctly the pit is 15-75 degrees overshooting. The Acorn is quick to heat up but once you get her hot it takes an act of congress to cool it down. With the heater meter I will be able to tune the PID, I really need some derivative action, and a low proportional gain to control the Acorn. I suspect the Partyq is a pi controller or maybe even just a p controller. There is no derivative action on it. Plus it's completely pulse modulated with a 5 second period, that is to long for the Acorn. I bet the Partyq would do just fine on a bullet a drum or a kettle style gril. I started having some luck with the Partyq when I controlled the potential burn by employing the fuse method. However the fuse method doesn't allow for enough fuel to do the really long slow smokes. Also several times the Partyq let the grill flame out because it overshoot so much that it snuffed out the fire before stoking the coals again.
 
One method I have had good luck with for low and slow on the acorn is what I call the "ring of fire" method. I constructed a metal mesh ring that goes in the pit, then lined the coals on the outside of the ring all the way around the pit. Light one end and let the coals burn around the ring for a long low and slow cook. It's basically a take on the minion method.
RingOfFire.jpg

You can also use this to turn the Akorn into a water smoker by putting the coals inside the ring, then put a steel bowl on top of the ring and fill it with water. Both of these methods work real nice for low and slow cooking on the akorn. However, I tend to just put a smaller pile of coals on the back side of the burn pan and cook the food on the front side of the grate in an offset type setup (out of laziness I guess). A small pile gets me through sorta long cooks, like 6 hours or so... The ring of fire would be better for a really long cook like a brisket for 15 hours or whatever.
 
I have employed the burnin burnin ring of fire the ring of fire. That seems to work the best right now I have a volcano and tunning it is a *****.. It lights to much up then takes forever to cool off. I am having a hell of a time tuning... I just sealed my acorn and it's being very temperamental. I am chasing the temperature right now I think I will snuff the coals and go ring of fire. That is the best config for the acorn, it seems, plus with this method you can plan your smoke profile to a tee!! We need to figure out how to control the smoke lol I wish I had a PID for that also, but alas they is where skillz come in when Bbquing. Well time to quit fn around with proportional, intergrals, and derivatives, and time to start smoking some meats!!!
 
Ok I got my first smoke done, and on the maiden voyage I figured out a couple things. First the servo damper was rocking, my fan hardly ever ran, instead the servo did all the work!! WHOOO HOOOOO, I sealed up my Chargriller Acorn and it paid dividends last night. I was hoping that I could get the servo to control the fire. The fan is too much I did a dry run on Saturday night and had the fan coming on at 0 - 100% I changed that yesterday to 15-50% and wow the controller almost locked right in. I'm still having an overshoot problem, but as I fine tune the PID on startups I will get that taken care of to much P and allowing the fan to go full blast is probably what is killing me. Once the fire gets to dT of 5 that is too much on an Acorn they take forever to cool off. However watching the servo control the pit was worth my investment. That drop in temp was me opening the grill my lid open was set to high.

Does any one else run a Chargriller Acorn, and have some possible PID Settings?
I'm using right now
P = 1.0
I = 0.0001
D = 6.0

Fan 15-50% Startup 50% ( My fan is 10cfm which is too big for the Acorn)

Here is my results from last night's cook (did some braughts gonna cook a whole chicken today)

Heatermeter location is http://24.215.106.78:8080
You can log in this afternoon firing off the grill at 11:00 am MST.


XN4k35w.png
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top