Temperature problems

[Hopeful]

OSB inside heated building, vented outside
Summer Sausage in smoker this morning at 7:00
Program Auber PID (brand new) so max temp is 180 to finish cooking after drying, smoking etc
At 9:00 p.m., PID shows cabinet temp at 166 and sausage has been holding at 148 for about 4 hours.
Cabinet temp and sausage temp will not move.
PID has gone through the various temp changes that I had programmed expect for the last step
Now have sausage in oven to finish to 155.

In the past I have had the same problem where the cabinet will not get hot enough to finish the product out to the required temps.  I have replaced the heat element once already 2 -3 years ago, can anyone help me out.  Thanks.

Hopeful

[HawkeyeSmokes]

How are you venting your smoker to the outside? And how much sausage do yo have in it?

[Hopeful]

I have PVC pipe from the top of the smoker out through the roof of the building.  There was 27 pounds of sausage in the smoker.  Thanks.

Hopeful

[HawkeyeSmokes]

Do you have a gap between the pvc and the smoker? If not it might be drawing the heat out of the smoker. And 27 lbs is is a pretty large batch.

[Mr Walleye]

Hopeful

Just a few questions come to mind...

When your tower temp was 166 and you sausage temp was 148 for 4 hours, what was the PID set to?

Was the element glowing red?

Did you try manually bumping up the PID?

If your PVC vent is sitting directly on the tower it could be vacuuming out the heat from the tower as Hawkeye has indicated. 27 lbs is a good sized load for sure. I also have mine in a heated garage and vented. I have added a 2nd element to it as well as a circulation fan and PID. Certainly with the 2nd element it has no problem reaching, maintaining and recovering temps with a full load.

Mike

[Mr Walleye]

Also... is you vent powered?

Mike

[Mr Walleye]

Here's a picture of how I notched the PVC on my vent in my original setup to stop the fan on the vent from sucking out the heat in the tower...



Mike

[Hopeful]

PID was set to 180
Did not try to manually bump the PID
PVC is setting on top of cabinet, no gap
Circulation fan installed last year
When I opened the door a couple of times the element was red
No powered vent

[Mr Walleye]

I wouldn't be surprised to hear a 27 lb load of summer sausage would take 10 or 12 hours, maybe even more especially because of the sausage being larger diameter but what is strange is the tower temp staying at 166.

Did you try opening or closing your vent to see if either helped?

Mike

[Hopeful]

I had the vent closed, when I opened it to about 1/2, I lost almost 5 degrees within a couple of minutes, closed the vent back up, cabinet went back to 166.  I also tried unplugging the fan, had about the same results.

[Mr Walleye]

I probably wouldn't run it with the vent closed but you've been using it long enough you will already know that. Although once the sausage has reached 148 degrees you may be able to close it down to 1/4 or so.

Man... ya got me puzzled for sure... you could add a 2nd element!  ::)

Mike

[JGW]

Strange.  

You said you unplugged the fan....not sure what you mean by that.  The picture shows the smoke being routed via a oven hood....was that fan on?

I can see a couple of potential problems with this setup....

1)  Hood fan sucking out heat

2)  Hood not venting smoke properly (no fan)

3)  27 pounds seems like a lot for the Bradley

Even with the above potentials....check your PID.  It should be taking the smoker up to whatever temp you set and cycling down from there (I would think).  Having said that, if you were running fans and whatnot, you might have exceeded what it's capable of.  

Just spit balling here.

[Hopeful]

Did some sticks today.
At noon programmed the Auber to preheat to 130, went back out about 45 minutes later, cabinet temp according to Auber sensor reads 130.  The sensor is hanging through the top vent about an inch from the top of the cabinet.  Put about 12 lbs of sticks in, did 130 for an hour to dry, then bumped the temp to 150 for 3 hours while smoking, then bump the temp to 180 to finish cooking to 155.  Temp never changed from 130-132.  After pucks were gone, reprogrammed for all cycles at 180.  As soon as the Auber reads 150 or 151, temp immediately starts to fall and will stop about 135.  Element is glowing red when I open the door.  I do not have the circulation fan running, damper is about 1/2 open.  Temp on the sticks is holding at 139.  At this point I unplug the Auber so it has no effect on the smoker.  I start the fan and within about the next two hours, the temp of the sticks reach 155 and i pull them from the smoker.  After I looked at the Auber, the plug on the back for "Output" is very loose and I can pull it out from the box 1/8" to 1/4".  Something is kicking the Auber unit out when the temp reaches about 150, could it be the fact that this plug is not secure in the back of the unit or is it something else?  Thanks to all the folks out there that are trying to help someone that is not very technically inclined.

Hopeful

[Mr Walleye]

Just a couple thoughts...

From your post it appears the TC for the PID is located at the top of the cabinet. You should have it somewhere around the lowest level of the load (meat). You want to regulate the temp that the meat is exposed to. By having the TC at the top of the cabinet the meat or sausage is giving off moisture and influencing the temp readings.

I would give Auber a call and let him know your having some problems. They have really good customer service. You could try to open it up and see what the problem is but I would probably give them a call first.

Mike

[Hopeful]

Thanks Mike, I will give that a try tomorrow on the next batch of sticks and see what happens, if that does not help, then I will give them a call.

Hopeful