During my first smoke, I noticed my temps were running kind of low, I ended up cranking the temp to 250+ for the last 6 hours trying to get it up to 200.
I noticed how you auto tune your PID's, and wanted to try the same technique to see how my smoker was calibrated.
I got a 9x12 aluminum pan and filled it with 7 lbs. of river rock as I didn't have a brick or sand and figured it would work OK.
Foiled the bottom and smoker box as normal.
Placed 24 oz. of water in a disposable bread pan and placed it on the bottom.
Put a shelf on the top rack position and placed probe 2 there.
Put a shelf on the 2nd from top position and placed the rock pan and a probe on there.
Started it at 200 degrees, and started plotting once it topped out and the temp started to fall.
Plotted the temp every 5 minutes for 2 hours.
Max temp hit was 196, low was 165, average was about 183, 17 degrees below set temp.
This would seem kind of low considering the temp is set on 200.
Turned it off, and weighed the water, just to see how much was used, it was 22 of 24 ounces, so 2 ounces of water was used.
Next, I refilled the water to 24 ounces again, closed it up and turned temp to 225.
Waited until temps started to drop and started plotting again at 5 minute intervals.
After 2 hours, High temp was 219, low was 196, average was around 207, 18 degrees below set temp.
Again this seems kind of low.
Looks like it is running around 18 degrees below what the set temperature is.
Has anyone else plotted their temperatures without a PID?
Can the knob be moved and calibrated some how, or do I have a defective temp control unit?
Attached are the readings I plotted.
