Temperature Control Issue

[gmbrown]

Yesterday I was smoking a turkey breast in my #3 (analog) and I had an ambient temp probe in registering temps in the 300s. As many of you know, the max setting is 250 and typically I’m lucky if the temp stays within 10 degrees of where I set it especially in cold weather. Temp never dropped even when I dialed it down. Door was closed shut and drip pan was in place. Am I possibly dealing with a blown temp control module? I will try running it again to see if it happens again. Smoker is about four and a half years old so not outside the realm of possibility that stuff is wearing out but wondered if anyone else had this issue or if there’s something else I might be missing.

Thanks!

 

[LarryD]

Did your wood catch on fire?  A +/- 40 degree swing isn't out of the question.  Couple that with the possibility that the analog nob isn't precise in the first place and your 250 setting could really be 260 and you can easily hit 300.  If you're at or close to 300 and your wood catches fire then that could really pump a lot of extra heat into your smoker and give you the reading you saw.

When you say the temp never dropped, how long did you wait?  Being insulated it's going to retain its heat for a long time...  if your wood was burning then it wouldn't even try to drop until the wood/fuel was exhausted.

Of course, you could be correct that the rheostat is malfunctioning and is the cause.  Let us know what you find out. 

 

[gmbrown]

When I say 300s, it approached 400. Never had temps like that in it before. And it’s always been fairly responsive when I changed the temp control but yesterday it never dropped below 350 even when I backed the thermostat down to 200.

If the wood caught fire that might explain things though. Strange. I’ll try a test run and see what happens.

 

[gmbrown]

As an update, I ended up getting an Auber Wifi controller, and installed the wall probe. Temperature problem solved!