It's Done !

[GeeBee]

Went to the Columbus, Ohio Turkey and Deer Expo this afternoon. Met Steve and I think his wife (I forgot to ask). Picked up all my new gear and had a nice chat with him. Got everything home. I'm not sure how to put pictures in the body of the text, so the first picture is everything in the boxes. #2 smoker, cold plate, PID and jerky dryer. Steve threw in a camo cover and chip screen and some wood. Second picture shows everything unpacked. Third picture is the unit resplendent in it's new clothes. Tomorrow is bypass the cabinet controller and break in smoke.

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[DivotMaker]

That's one fine setup there, Gary!  Glad you got to buy direct from the owners!  Oh, the good times are ahead for you!!  I'm sure you'll have some questions with a war chest that big, so don't hesitate.  Congrats!!

[old sarge]

Sweet!

[GeeBee]

Got the baby broke in today.  Programmed the PID to do 250 degrees for 4 hours. Put 2 dowels in the wood box after splitting them both in half. They weighed a total of 4 3/4 ounces. Hit the on button and watched briefly. First noticeable smoke was around 75 degrees. Then I had to move on to other things. About an hour and 15 minutes later I checked on things. PID showed 256 degrees and smoking nicely. 249 degrees at the 2 hour mark. 250 degrees at the 3 hour mark. At the 3.9 hour mark I went out and looked at the unit. Temp was at 245 degrees, but while I watched it started climbing a degree at a time until it hit 250 right at the 4 hour mark, then the alarm went off that it was done. I'm impressed. Pretty stable temps for an empty box. Ambient air was 45 to 49 today with a pretty stiff breeze blowing. Tomorrow.......jerky. New post to follow. BTW, I forgot to mention, I did the factory control bypass first. Took about 5 minutes.

[DivotMaker]

Great, Gary!  Good first step!  I notice a couple of things in your "after" picture.  First, no need to foil during seasoning (for those watching that haven't seasoned one yet).  The foil is just during cooking to make cleanup easier. Save your money - that's stuff's expensive now!

Secondly, you had combustion in the smoke box.  Notice the black area on the door?  That's from the wood combusting.  I had the same thing happen in the #2.  I split the hickory dowels in my #1 (smaller element), but don't in the #2.  The element gets hot really fast.  One way to virtually eliminate the combustion problem is to "ramp" the temp with the PID.  Set your first step to C01 130     E01 t     t01 .5.  This gets the wood to 130, then lets it smolder at that low temp.  At the end of 30 minutes, the element kicks back on to climb to 225.  No more combustion, for me, with this trick.  Had been standing there watching it the whole time, you'd have seen the famous "smoke belch!"

[es1025]

that's a nice set up.  I have to get one of those camo covers.

[DivotMaker]

The camo covers are cool!  Steve told me they're better-made than the black ones.  In the picture, it looks like the seam tape is a lot stronger-looking.

[GeeBee]

Tony,
Thanks for the tips. I just went ahead and did the foil because I'm going to be doing jerky. I wondered about the black spot. Now I know. I split the wood so I would get complete consumption, but what you say makes sense.

[swthorpe]

Tony,

I am getting the combustion in the beginning of most smokes as well.   Are you suggesting starting the smoke with a low set temp (I don't have the PID) like 150F, letting it cycle at least once, and then raising the temp to 225F or whatever the desired smoke temp is?   

[DivotMaker]

That's right, Steve.  I've found no higher than 130 for the first half-hour seems to work well.  It gives the wood a little "rest" before blasting it again.  Especially in the # 2 and 3, that sucker gets pretty hot!

[swthorpe]

Thanks...I will try this out next weekend.