Smoker selection questrions

[DaWiz]

I have been reading posts for a couple of days now while trying to decide on upgrading my smoker system.  I am getting close to a decision but have a couple of questions.  I am leaning towards the BDS and the Cold Smoke adaptor.

My current "system" involves the use of a Brinkman offset smoker converted to Propane and a cold smoker constructed from plywood.  I primarily do "low and slow" smoking 120 – 150 degrees in the cold smoker (I know that is not true cold smoking but I have to wait for winter weather for cooler temps here in Colorado).  I have a 25 foot flexible hose I use to pipe smoke from the Brinkman (where I generate the smoke) to the box.  I have an Auber plug and play 1500 series PID for the box.  I smoke a lot of bacon – both slab and Canadian.  I am about to start making sausage as well.

The questions:

Bacon is a long slow process; usually 15 to 20 hours.  Would I be correct in assuming that I can unplug the tower from the SG and plug it into the PID without needing additional modifications?  I would like o be able to use the SG at times and the PID at other times.

Temps are a bit of a concern for me – I think the PID will help on fluctuation but am curious about temp spread from top to bottom.  Has anyone measured differences at each rack position?

I have seen quite a bit about dual 300 watt elements.  From the information I have found in the forum it looks like I can wire 2 elements parallel with the second element on a switch so I can use dual with the PID and single with the SG.  Is this correct?

Are there any issues I should be aware of with long smoke times?  How aout long hold times – I have some procedures that call for 24 hours or more at specific temps.

[DaWiz]

Ordered the BDS 6 rack.

I received the BDS a couple of days ago and have done some testing f it.

Overall the smoker looks nice and seems to be well constructed.

Tested temp and am a bit disappointed with the results:

The specifications brochure says the temp range is ambient temp to 250 degrees.  The SG unit will not set a temp below 120 degrees.   I called customer support and was told to turn off the element and use the SG element and open and close the door to control the temp.  This is a poor solution – especially when doing sausage that has long drying times at lower temps (current project calls for 12 hours at 100 – 110 degrees.

Temp control is very poor.  Using 120 as the target temp for a test gave the following results:
Turned on smoker – internal temp was 68 degrees.  Set target to 120 degrees.
Temp climber to 147 degrees.
Dropped to 106 degrees.
Climbed to 137 degrees.
Dropped to 106 degrees.
It settled into the 106 – 137 – 106 – 137 cycle.

A 31 degree spread it quite large.  I suspect several causes for this.  First would be the temp sensor being affected by the cabinet wall.  I suspect that the element is slow to heat and slow to cool because of the mass.   Lastly I suspect that the control program has not been tuned to take into account the operating parameters of the element.  It acts like it is turned on until the target is reached and then turned off.  Carryover causes a large rise and then it cools until the target is reached on the way down at which point it turns the element back on.  This would account for the wide temp swing.  I would think with a bit of effort and testing the control program could be tweaked to reduce the spread considerably.   

Since I have an Auber WS-1500DPM Plug-And-Play I decided to do some testing with it.

Ambient temp was 35 degrees.
I set the PID to a target of 130 degrees.  U went through an Auto-Tune cycle.  The AT routine uses On-Off processing to determine the parameters for the PID settings.  First thing I noticed was that the PID, just like the Bradley, went 17 degrees past the target.  This reinforces my thought that the Bradley does not use anything other than on-off.  After the AT completed the PID maintained temps of 129 – 131 degrees.

The next observation was that the BDS temp lagged way behind the Auber.  When the Auber reached 130, the BDS read 78.

Heat loss through the cabinet walls is very low – 6 – 8 degrees on average.

The smoke generator worked perfectly.

I have no regrets about the purchase and will recommend it to others – along with a PID mod.

[mikecorn.1]

Ordered the BDS 6 rack.

I received the BDS a couple of days ago and have done some testing f it.

Overall the smoker looks nice and seems to be well constructed.

Tested temp and am a bit disappointed with the results:

The specifications brochure says the temp range is ambient temp to 250 degrees.  The SG unit will not set a temp below 120 degrees.   I called customer support and was told to turn off the element and use the SG element and open and close the door to control the temp.  This is a poor solution – especially when doing sausage that has long drying times at lower temps (current project calls for 12 hours at 100 – 110 degrees.

Temp control is very poor.  Using 120 as the target temp for a test gave the following results:
Turned on smoker – internal temp was 68 degrees.  Set target to 120 degrees.
Temp climber to 147 degrees.
Dropped to 106 degrees.
Climbed to 137 degrees.
Dropped to 106 degrees.
It settled into the 106 – 137 – 106 – 137 cycle.

A 31 degree spread it quite large.  I suspect several causes for this.  First would be the temp sensor being affected by the cabinet wall.  I suspect that the element is slow to heat and slow to cool because of the mass.   Lastly I suspect that the control program has not been tuned to take into account the operating parameters of the element.  It acts like it is turned on until the target is reached and then turned off.  Carryover causes a large rise and then it cools until the target is reached on the way down at which point it turns the element back on.  This would account for the wide temp swing.  I would think with a bit of effort and testing the control program could be tweaked to reduce the spread considerably.   

Since I have an Auber WS-1500DPM Plug-And-Play I decided to do some testing with it.

Ambient temp was 35 degrees.
I set the PID to a target of 130 degrees.  U went through an Auto-Tune cycle.  The AT routine uses On-Off processing to determine the parameters for the PID settings.  First thing I noticed was that the PID, just like the Bradley, went 17 degrees past the target.  This reinforces my thought that the Bradley does not use anything other than on-off.  After the AT completed the PID maintained temps of 129 – 131 degrees.

The next observation was that the BDS temp lagged way behind the Auber.  When the Auber reached 130, the BDS read 78.

Heat loss through the cabinet walls is very low – 6 – 8 degrees on average.

The smoke generator worked perfectly.

I have no regrets about the purchase and will recommend it to others – along with a PID mod.

Yeah, there are some of us that use a PID to keep temps. Mine say within 1* all the time. I also have two 500 watt elements and a 2" fan in mine.


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[KyNola]

Welcome to the Forum.  I hope you enjoy your BDS.

[muebe]

Welcome to the forum. You appear to have answered your own questions already ;)

[GusRobin]

The temp swing is due to, as you said, it turns on until it reaches the temp and then turns off. So you will get swings like you would see in your oven.

If anyone asked me for a recommendation, I would recommend avoid the extra cost of the BDS and get the OBS, a dual PID, add a second element, and a maverick 732. Shopping a round you can get all that for a little more than the BDS.