First overnight cook had an issue


 
J

Jeff Fasbender

New member
I did my first overnight cook with my Stoker last night and something somewhat surprising to me happened. I started the cook at about 2:30am, (Yea, I'm a night owl and my neighbors think I'm crazy) at about 6:00am (sunrise) my temps started to run away on me. I woke up about 7:00am and noticed that I was running around 300 degrees. So, I added cool water to the water pan, opened the top vent fully and over about 3 hours the temps stabilized to around 260. In hind sight, I could have probably just opened the cover and let the heat escape then let the Stoker recover. Short of using a water pan in the future, any idea on how I prevent this?
 
Originally posted by Jeff Fasbender:
I did my first overnight cook with my Stoker last night and something somewhat surprising to me happened. I started the cook at about 2:30am, (Yea, I'm a night owl and my neighbors think I'm crazy) at about 6:00am (sunrise) my temps started to run away on me. I woke up about 7:00am and noticed that I was running around 300 degrees. So, I added cool water to the water pan, opened the top vent fully and over about 3 hours the temps stabilized to around 260. In hind sight, I could have probably just opened the cover and let the heat escape then let the Stoker recover. Short of using a water pan in the future, any idea on how I prevent this?
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were you running Stokerlog?
 
Usual cause of this is air leaks or upside down blower making its gate not work. In other words, your fire needs air. If the temp is above target,then stoker will turn off the fan so the only cause is some other source of air.

Was the stoker fan running when it was at 300 degrees?
 
Amir,

Your logic makes sense, but is it possible that the actual daytime heating could have caused the cooker to increase in temp? I know I have some vents that are a little sloppy, and the fire box cover is a little loose also. I'll try to shore those up and see what happens. The Stoker seemed to respond appropriately for the whole cook. The fan did not run when the cooker went above the set point.
 
I don't think daytime heat can make that kind of difference.

Here is another factor. Stoker has no real control over the fire. It only regulates the air. It is possible that it blows for a while and a big flare up occurs and even though stoker shuts off, you get a big overshoot. Adjusting your vents to be smaller controls this.

In general, you want to give the smoker just enough venting but no more. That way, the system is more under the control of Stoker than natural draft. So even if you have cracks here and there, keep closing your vents. On my ceramic cooker, I have the top vent open less than 1/4 of an inch and that is it. it is just a crack. If I open it just a bit more it upsets the balance and I get more spikes.
 
What was your top vent position? Also, I've had this issue when I've used a large piece of wood, it would catch fire, get stoked-up and really overshoot my temps.
 
Larry,

For the majority of the cook the top vent was just slightly cracked. I would say maybe 1/8 of an inch or so. I actually opened it fully when trying to cool the cooker.
 
Originally posted by Jeff Fasbender:
Larry,

For the majority of the cook the top vent was just slightly cracked. I would say maybe 1/8 of an inch or so. I actually opened it fully when trying to cool the cooker.
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like opening the vent fully was the culprit in rising temperatures. You added oxygen to the system, which is no way to cool a fire! You want to do the opposite- close the vents, and starve the fire. Let the stoker inlet be practically the only source of o2.
 
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