Inconsistancy and lack of confidence

[SuperDave]

That's pretty wild!  It looks like you are the title of my thread. 

[DivotMaker]

I thought my Auber problems were behind me.  Wrong!  Two months ago I had a bad Auber replaced and for 8 weeks I have been constantly doing test smokes and logging every aspect of my meat cooks.  Everything with the new Auber was perfect so I saw no need to continue hovering over the smoker to make sure the new Auber was doing what I paid it to do. Set it and walk away. Two weeks ago I even stopped putting my Maverick probe in to check smoker temps. 

Over the weekend I took a quick peek at the smoker 40 minutes into the cook and what do I see?  Same problem I had with the first Auber,  a temperature spike.  I ran inside and got my camera and filmed a 46 second video showing the climb all the way up to 451 degrees.  During this spike power is not going to the heating element (you can see this in the video) and the temperature showing is not accurate.  This explains why I noticed the temp rising on the Auber and my Maverick temp falling with my first bad Auber.

This time I let it run it's course to see what would happen.  Temp dropped down to 217 but would never lock on a setting , just kept going up and down.  After 3 1/2 hrs I turned the Auber off then back on.  This seems to be a fix if you happen to be home and watching your Auber during this period. It ramped up and locked on target temp of 235.

This is just my opinion but I feel that it is a problem within the Auber.   Maybe something in the  algorithm or possibly a bad component.  Way above my pay grade to figure out.  All I can do is gather information and pass it along.  Glad I caught it on video this time.

Dave, are you using the drop-in probe, or the wall mount?  Sounds like it's possibly a bad probe, or could it have dropped toward the heat source?  Do you know if Auber found anything wrong with the first unit you sent back?

[Carp210]

Tony,
I have had a wall mount probe from day one, make that day 2.  Auber said they found nothing wrong with the first unit. Not sure how they did the test.  I sent all the information to Steve yesterday along with the video.  I suggested the he forward my e-mails to some one at Auber  that understands and writes the programs and have them watch the video. It has to be something that they can fix on their end. I'll sit and wait to see what Steve can find out directly from Auber. 

[Carp210]

Tony,

I forgot to add about the probe.  I guess it is possible but why does it not happen during a cook after it locks?  Always starts when the Auber gets close to the target, then it goes off the rails.  Never in the middle does it start.  If it was a bad probe why does turning Auber off then on seen to fix the problem?  Why has it always been on a rib cook?  I don't think the kind of meat, or size, has anything to do with it.  Maybe the trigger is a cook that is programmed at 235 degree temperature and timed, not probed for internal temp.  Am I making any sense?

[DivotMaker]

I thought you had a wall-mount, Dave, but couldn't remember for sure.  Every unit that Steve replaces goes back to Auber.  Since they build them, I'm sure their testing is pretty thorough, although I don't know the exact procedure.  I've spoken with Steve and Ben about this, and I, too, will be interested to hear from Auber about the video.  This is an unusual case, for sure!  Obviously, if it's a problem, our goal is to help you solve it!  Be patient, and trust we're working on figuring this one out!

About the probe - being able to "reset" the unit, by cycling power, seems to eliminate a probe problem, in my mind.  The fact that this has only happened when you have only the box probe attached, and set to "time," makes me wonder.  Have you attempted a rib cook with the meat probe plugged in too?  You could still set your program to time, and just drop the meat probe through the hole a bit.  Might be worth a try, just to test if it has something to do with probe 2 not being attached.

[Carp210]

Tony,
I'll try to rule out the probe #2 not being connected.  I have a butt ready to go on tonight at around midnight.  I'll put the Auber meat probe in the meat but not into the Auber, set time to 8hrs.  Since I will know about a hour into the cook if it is going to lock or not.  If it locks I'll plug meat probe in and change to 195 IT for the remainder of the cook. I'll also use my Maverick.  I'll do this on all my temperature cooks for a while.  The next time I do ribs I'll do those with the meat probe plugged in from the beginning.    That way I'll be testing with every cook.

[DivotMaker]

Sounds good, Dave!  Sometimes, the "process of elimination" takes lots of meat!

[TmanEater]

Dave, I have a theory on this. You told me your issue seems to happen about 40 mins into the smoke? I have a heatermeter PID and have seen similar spikes of PID craziness around the time the smoker gets in the 160 degree to 180 degree temperature range. You can see the spike in my PID graph attached by looking at the orange line near the left side of the graph.

I believe the problem here is that the heating element has been on full power since starting at time 0 and it gets so hot that around 160 to 180 degrees the wood catches fire causing a very fast spike in temperature within the smoker. This wreaks havoc on the PID controller because it doesn't expect to see that fast of a change based on the prior data it has been collecting and monitoring. This spike throws off the PID algorithm because the error goes from something small to immediately something very large. It then takes the PID controller a very long time to re-calibrate and stabilize. I believe you are watching it very near the "combustion" event. I'm betting it would eventually stabilize if you waited a few hours before looking at it again? I don't have an Auber so I cannot confirm.

I would recommend you do some tests to ensure your wood cannot combust during the initial ramp up period. This could be achieved multiple ways (or combinations) such as buying moist wood and ensuring it maintains high levels of moisture content in storage, foil boating wood, creating a Auber ramp up profile that brings your smoker up to operating temperature in stages so that the element don't get so blazing hot that it causes the wood to burst into flames, or possibly soaking your wood so that during the ramp up period it's just getting the water dried out rather than igniting it.

I'd also believe that you'd never see this issue if you didn't have wood in the smoker? Have you tried just using dummy smoker loads of bricks/sand and no wood to see if the problem still triggers?

[Carp210]

Dave, I have a theory on this. You told me your issue seems to happen about 40 mins into the smoke? I have a heatermeter PID and have seen similar spikes of PID craziness around the time the smoker gets in the 160 degree to 180 degree temperature range. You can see the spike in my PID graph attached by looking at the orange line near the left side of the graph.

I believe the problem here is that the heating element has been on full power since starting at time 0 and it gets so hot that around 160 to 180 degrees the wood catches fire causing a very fast spike in temperature within the smoker. This wreaks havoc on the PID controller because it doesn't expect to see that fast of a change based on the prior data it has been collecting and monitoring. This spike throws off the PID algorithm because the error goes from something small to immediately something very large. It then takes the PID controller a very long time to re-calibrate and stabilize. I believe you are watching it very near the "combustion" event. I'm betting it would eventually stabilize if you waited a few hours before looking at it again? I don't have an Auber so I cannot confirm.

I would recommend you do some tests to ensure your wood cannot combust during the initial ramp up period. This could be achieved multiple ways (or combinations) such as buying moist wood and ensuring it maintains high levels of moisture content in storage, foil boating wood, creating a Auber ramp up profile that brings your smoker up to operating temperature in stages so that the element don't get so blazing hot that it causes the wood to burst into flames, or possibly soaking your wood so that during the ramp up period it's just getting the water dried out rather than igniting it.

I'd also believe that you'd never see this issue if you didn't have wood in the smoker? Have you tried just using dummy smoker loads of bricks/sand and no wood to see if the problem still triggers?

At first I thought it may be wood catching fire also.  In the past I have seen what you are talking about with wood combusting but in this case I'd have to rule that out.  For this smoke I used new wood from Smokinlicious, a great company to deal with.  Wood was placed on foil. Hickory 2 oz with a moisture content of 33.5%.  Cherry 2 oz with a moisture content of 23.3%.  At the time I went outside no smoke was present from the wood.  Immediately after the 5 1/2 smoke I pulled the wood box out and took these pictures.  I also weighed the charred wood.  I started with 4 oz total and ended up with a total weight of 1.4 oz.

Maybe just to rule the wood I'll do three test smokes.  I have some very dry wood left over from Home depot that I'll load up with no foil, let it rip,  and log the results until the Auber locks on a 235 target.

Does anybody know what the temp is inside the wood box when the heater is running 100% on?

[DivotMaker]

Dave, TMan (the other Tony) has a great point, and a logical assumption, especially considering this happens 40 minutes in.  I agree with you that the Smokinlicious wood is not likely to combust.  I have used it on several smokes now, without foil or "ramping" temperature up, with no problems at all. 

Just to completely rule out the wood, I would load the smoker with bricks or sand (like an autotune setup), without wood, and run your rib program.  No need to use meat - just do a dry test.

[Carp210]

Tony, 
I will try that in a few days but in the mean time let me post my smoker log for two rib cooks that I was able to observe the Auber spike.  One is with my first Auber with very dry wood and the second one is the replacement with the wood mentioned above.  Maybe a fresh set of eyes looking over my log will show something that I may have missed.  I'll also e-mail them to Steve in the morning.

[DivotMaker]

Thanks Dave!

[Carp210]

Not sure if this will work and be viewable but here it is.  These are the two log sheets from two different Aubers.  First Auber was with very dry wood and the second was the replacement Auber with the wood described above.

[TmanEater]

Did you return your auber probe when you swapped units?

[SuperDave]

Did you return your auber probe when you swapped units?

If he didn't, using the meat probe for the box probe in a test should work, I would think.  Steve gave me both versions of the box probe when I got my smoker so I'm set with a back up if my permanent probe was to start acting up.