Smoker running too *hot*

Mysticl · January 12, 2012, 01:28:54 PM

Trying to smoke my home made sausage in my Bradey Original Smoker today. I wanted the cabinet to be between 120-140 degrees. In the past I have had a lot of trouble maintaining a steady temp ... cabinet always seems to slowly climb into undesired temperature range, so today I took special care. I started my smoker early and waited until it seemed stable at 125' ... I had previously air dried my sausage for about an hour and a half with fan before putting them briefly in a very low temp over to warm them up a bit beyond room temp rather than having them in the smoker for an hour at 110 to dry cause that would make stabilizing the cabinet temp prior to smoking too difficult.

Then I put them in my supposedly stable smoker and began to apply smoke ... of course the cabinet temp had fallen while I put the sausages in but I did not adjust the temp and watched it ever so slowly creep back up .. so far so good. I was confident THIS time was going to be cake ... so I went away for 20 minutes ... when I came back the temp was 150 and climbing .. huh? I am using 2 separate probe thermometers to monitor the temp ... one with a wire hung through the vent to just above the sausage .. they are on the 3 lower racks and a fixed probe inserted also through the vent but measure the temp at the top of the cabinet ..

Turned the heat down .. still kept climbing .. turned it down again and opened the door .. still kept climbing ... eventually after any repeats of the above procedure ... I turned the cabinet heat off entirely. Temp finally stabilized at 145 -150 ... which is ok I guess BUT it's 3'C outside ... that's very nearly freezing and I am still running hot with the cabinet off ... what am I going to do in the summer? I bought this unit so I could enjoy home smoked sausage year round .. I thought it was reliable.

Seems to me there must be a problem ... I have only had the smoker since last summer but I've smoked about 6 large batches of sausage and about as many pulled porks as well as a few trial with turkey, cheese etc so it's well used ... I don't remember the temps running this hot initially but it's been an issue for some time and I have to monitor it VERY closely if I want to make sure things are proceeding according to plan ... maybe I just didn't notice it in the beginning cause I was new to smoking.

Does the smoke generating heat source make that much heat? I've been having an issue with the temperature selector not seeming to engage (light doesn't go on) until it's almost all the way to the right (fully on) but since I have turned it off completely at this point that isn't what's causing the current problem ... unless the cabinet heat is still on ... even though the light is out and the slider is off? Not sure what to do. :'(

FLBentRider · January 12, 2012, 01:31:19 PM

Welcome to the Forum!

Is the element still glowing red even though you have the slider all the way off ?

Mysticl · January 12, 2012, 01:41:41 PM

Thanks for the quick reply!

Nope it's not glowing at all.

Habanero Smoker · January 12, 2012, 01:42:04 PM

Hi Mysticl,

Welcome to the forum.

You should move your cabinet probe to below the sausage, the temperature will be hotter in that area.

As for the indicator light, that dims as you move the controller to the left, so sometimes it is hard to see in daylight.

Mysticl · January 12, 2012, 01:47:27 PM

Thanks I'll do that. I was aware that the temp might be a bit hotter at the top but the heat has been off for some time and the temp in the top third of the cabinet is still reading 150' ... seems to he holding steady at that temp with no application of heat ...

I'll re-position the probe and see what kind of reading I am getting in the bottom third. Thanks again .. I'll keep you posted.

Habanero Smoker · January 12, 2012, 02:00:20 PM

You may have to occasionally open the door to cool the cabinet down.

What is your vent setting? If you are using a small vent setting, try fully opening it.

Mysticl · January 12, 2012, 02:19:43 PM

Nods .. I've been doing that (the door that is)

The vent is fully open. Just rechecked the probes and oddly the lower one is reading 154' and the upper 151' ... reverse what I thought I'd see, but I suppose still within the margin of error. Seems fairly consistent throughout the cabinet which may or may not be a good sign ;) I am done the smoking phase for my sausage now however, so I'll be raising the temp to finish them off. Thanks again for the help, even though I am still not sure why the cabinet is too hot I do appreciate your suggestions ... I guess I can sit beside it and keep opening the door next summer but I was kinda hoping I wouldn't have to monitor things quite that closely.

It might be a challenge ...

Mysticl · January 12, 2012, 02:55:55 PM

Hmmm one interesting development you might be interested in ... I waited a bit to raise the temp cause I wanted to re assess the temperature in the lower third of the oven and noticed that once pucks were done and there was no smoke being generated the temperature dropped to 135 ish both at the top and the bottom probes ... seems like the presence of the smoke itself has some effect on keeping the temperature elevated ... all else being equal ... not sure how reliable that fact is but I thought it interesting ... and will investigate further next time I smoke.

beefmann · January 12, 2012, 03:28:29 PM

welcome to the forum

mikecorn.1 · January 12, 2012, 04:38:26 PM

Welcome aboard

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Habanero Smoker · January 13, 2012, 01:22:50 AM

Quote from: Mysticl on January 12, 2012, 02:55:55 PM
Hmmm one interesting development you might be interested in ... I waited a bit to raise the temp cause I wanted to re assess the temperature in the lower third of the oven and noticed that once pucks were done and there was no smoke being generated the temperature dropped to 135 ish both at the top and the bottom probes ... seems like the presence of the smoke itself has some effect on keeping the temperature elevated ... all else being equal ... not sure how reliable that fact is but I thought it interesting ... and will investigate further next time I smoke.

I'm glad to see you are getting better control over the temperatures. Before purchasing my temperature control device, my sausage smoking experience was similar to yours, and the sausage can out fine.

The temperature dropped, even with the bisquette burner still on? That would be unusual.

watchdog56 · January 13, 2012, 03:33:11 PM

You will get some heat help from the smoke generator. Getting a PID is well worth the money when making sausage. It will hold temp +/- 2 degree.

Smoker running too *hot*

beefmann

Smoker running too hot