Temperature Adjustment Observations

[alseguin]

I am trying my first roast shoulder pork today and wanted to pass on some info that may help the other newbies such as myself.

I have not installed a digital controller yet for those who do not have one this info can be of help.

I gave smoked the roast (1.67kg) for about 2 hours so far and decided that I would just slow cook it the rest of the time till it reaches about 150 then I'm taking it out to see what it is like sliced.

I plugged the smoker into a power consumption meter and the readings from it helped me a great deal to control the wattage going to the heating element in the smoker. The heater for the smoke generator uses about 150 watts so when it is shut off the slider for the heat control has to be increased to compensate for that since it also contributes to the heat in the smoker. So when I shut off the smoke generator I just increased the heat in the oven part till the wattage was the same. If you don't have one of those handy gadgets then just be aware of this fact and watch the temperature until it stops dropping.
It was a good 1/2 inch adjustment on the slider to match the wattage of both the element and the smoke generator when the generator was shut off.

Where exactly to put the slider for temp you want will depend on the outside conditions .... but I was aiming for 220 deg. and everything stayed pretty stable after the adjustment.

Happy smoking!!

[TedEbear]

The power consumption meter is a good way to reestablish the same power after you turn off the 125W smoke generator.  Many people with the single 500W element just leave it on to aid with heat recovery on cool or windy days. 

I used to have to fiddle with the slider control on an overnight smoke.  Even if I had it set for the temp I wanted to smoke at the cabinet temp would drop when the sun went down and the ambient air temp dropped during the night.  A $45 internal Auber PID controller fixed all that.  Now it stays within 1-2 degrees of what I want, no matter what the weather does.

[alseguin]

The power consumption meter is a good way to reestablish the same power after you turn off the 125W smoke generator.  Many people with the single 500W element just leave it on to aid with heat recovery on cool or windy days. 

I used to have to fiddle with the slider control on an overnight smoke.  Even if I had it set for the temp I wanted to smoke at the cabinet temp would drop when the sun went down and the ambient air temp dropped during the night.  A $45 internal Auber PID controller fixed all that.  Now it stays within 1-2 degrees of what I want, no matter what the weather does.

Yup, I ordered the PID the same day I bought the smoker and will take a look at the how difficult it is to install on the generator itself. I agree that the extra power of the generator would help keep the smoker in temp on those days that are  a little cool, but with the idea of keeping wear to a minimum, I try to shut it off. I will do the wiring to accept another element after I'm convinced that I need one. In other words I'll put in a switch that bypasses the slider if I need it in the future.



Anyway, I just wanted to pass that on for those who don't have the digital controller or know the difference between a PID and a smoked salmon.



Thanks for your input