Stoker Operation - Intuitive or Simple ?


 
J

James Harvey

TVWBB Pro
Hi All,

I have the Stoker Black Box and have used it a few times so far. I have 2 racks of spares on right now and happened to be outside when it just came to temp.

I was wondering whether it worked on a simple Below Temp On, Above Temp Off principle or whether there was some intuitive process that allowed for tighter reactive control. More simply put, does it recognize a quick rise/slow rise increase and adjust the blower accordingly? From the 5 minutes I watched while hitting initial temp setting, it was just an on/off control. After watching for a few minutes an hour later at set temp it came on very briefly below setting and shut off right at setting. I'm curious as to whether these small blower on periods are what keeps the temps stable.
Perhaps I answered my own question above but I'd appreciate input from those with a better understanding.

JDH
 
Further to my above post, I was just outside again and the blower seems to be simple. It comes on for a few seconds below, waits until the temp reaches setting and goes off. Smoker temp rises a few degrees and then drops after a few minutes and the blower repeats. It's a cool night in Toronto, around 10C right now and we have some winds but nothing serious.

I have noted that Rock's suggests closing the top vent (I have an 18" WSM) to around 25% but on the few cooks I've done I've always left it at 100% with no noticeable issues.

I'd still welcome any user feedback from those with more experience under their belts.

Thanks,

JDH
 
From what I've read they are intuitive and "learn the pit."

On their site they talk about how it takes 3-4 cycles for the stoker to settle in and nail the temps. They also have a "open door" function where if the stoker detects a sudden drop in time it will gives the pit sometime to recover before turning on the fan. This helps prevent a major overshoot. I know the Guru has this and I'm pretty surer the Stoker does also.

BTW, I don't have a Stoker yet, mine shipped today!!!!, so I'm just speaking from what I've read.
 
Yes, the more you use the Stoker, the more it "learns" and will keep the temp more stable.

The Stoker does have a "lid open detection" that will set the target temp to 32 for 5 minutes when it "senses" you have the lid or door open. I don't like this feature because sometimes I'm not done in 5 minutes and then the fan kicks on while I still have the smoker open -- this causes an overshoot in the temp.

If you use StokerLog, you can just turn the Stoker off when you are going to have the door open. After closing the door, you can wait a bit for the temp to recover naturally. Then when the temp starts to settle, you can turn the Stoker back on and it will reconnect automatically with StokerLog.

I usually just set the pit temp in StokerLog to 32 before I head outside to the smoker. Then when I get back inside, I'll watch the pit temp in StokerLog and when it settles in a bit, I set the target temp in StokerLog back to my cooking temp. I'll even set it 10 degrees below my target and let it get back to that temp. Then I'll increase it again till I'm back at my target cooking temp.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">The Stoker does have a "lid open detection" that will set the target temp to 32 for 5 minutes when it "senses" you have the lid or door open. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is actually a StokerLog feature. The internal Stoker software does not have a lid detection feature. However, in the Blower menu, you can manually turn the fans off for a period of 5 minutes.

If you are using StokerLog, I believe the lid detection feature allows the user to set the amount of time that the fan will stay off after the software has detected an open lid.
 
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