Vertical Smoker Temps

[Torquin]

My PBV4PS2 never gets to the "set" temp. If I set to to 250, it will get to maybe 230, then drop off to 220 or around that. It's like the smoker just can't keep up. I know that is can, though, because if I set it to much higher, the max of the control, it will go ahead and heat up. This doesn't make sense to me. If I set it to 230, I expect it to heat to 230 before it backs off and maintains the temp. I have attached a screen shot of the temp history.
Note: P1 (blue line) is just sitting on the same shelf as what I am cooking. P2 (green line) is submerged in the water tray. The spike in the gray line, the "set temp", is when I set it at 420 to get the smoker to heat up. You can see it began to heat up then (orange line), but when I put the temp back down to 230, the actual temp dropped to 30+ degrees below that.
The spike up in the green line is how I know my water was gone from the pan, and the spike down of the same line is when I refilled with water.
I monitor the meat temps with a separate thermometer setup.

Does anyone have any ideas about what's wrong here? It's like the control gives up when it gets within 30-40 degrees of the goal. You can see by the "grill temp" (orange line) and the P1 probe (blue line), the temps are close, so the temperature gauge in the controller is displaying the correct temp, but the controller is not telling the smoker to heat it up the set temp as it should. It does seem like a software issue to me.


Thanks,
Chris

 

[sparkyv]

How close are you measuring temps w.r.t. the controller T/C? Temps vary significantly from one measurement location to another.

Once I figured out where the hot (and cool) spots were on my grill, I just focus mostly on the internal meat temp.

 

[Torquin]

How close are you measuring temps w.r.t. the controller T/C? Temps vary significantly from one measurement location to another.

Once I figured out where the hot (and cool) spots were on my grill, I just focus mostly on the internal meat temp.

As I said, the temps the controller states and Probe 1 states, are very close. This can be seen on the cook history in my original post. In this case, I had probe 1 on the second shelf from the top, very near the controller probe.
To me, the fact that both of these read close to the same temp suggests that the controller logic is not figuring out that the temp is nowhere near the same as the "set temp" and therefore not triggering the auger to add more pellets.
It's curious though, that later, when I bumped the temp up to 300, it did seem to try to get the temp up close to that. I have not yet tried each temp to see how close it gets to the set temp.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[sparkyv]

Got it; thanks for the clarification.

In this case, I had probe 1 on the second shelf from the top, very near the controller probe.

Next question: what is the ambient temperature and the "P setting"?

 

[Steve In Pa]

My PBV4PS2 never gets to the "set" temp. If I set to to 250, it will get to maybe 230, then drop off to 220 or around that. It's like the smoker just can't keep up. I know that is can, though, because if I set it to much higher, the max of the control, it will go ahead and heat up. This doesn't make sense to me. If I set it to 230, I expect it to heat to 230 before it backs off and maintains the temp. I have attached a screen shot of the temp history.
Note: P1 (blue line) is just sitting on the same shelf as what I am cooking. P2 (green line) is submerged in the water tray. The spike in the gray line, the "set temp", is when I set it at 420 to get the smoker to heat up. You can see it began to heat up then (orange line), but when I put the temp back down to 230, the actual temp dropped to 30+ degrees below that.
The spike up in the green line is how I know my water was gone from the pan, and the spike down of the same line is when I refilled with water.
I monitor the meat temps with a separate thermometer setup.

View attachment 10322
Does anyone have any ideas about what's wrong here? It's like the control gives up when it gets within 30-40 degrees of the goal. You can see by the "grill temp" (orange line) and the P1 probe (blue line), the temps are close, so the temperature gauge in the controller is displaying the correct temp, but the controller is not telling the smoker to heat it up the set temp as it should. It does seem like a software issue to me.


Thanks,
Chris

Similar here for that model. This coming up after I recently updated the software. I have only done a couple cooks since the update, so I’m keeping an eye on things to see what my new “normal” is. Then I’ll go from there.

 

[Torquin]

Got it; thanks for the clarification.



Next question: what is the ambient temperature and the "P setting"?

Ambient temp was around 48, and the P setting, well, I'm not sure what you mean. If you mean the probe setting, I did not set any temp for the probes. I only use them to monitor internal temp and water temp, since I don't trust the controller temp.
I will say that i experience the same thing if the ambient temp is 70 or 80, also.
Thanks,
Chris

 

[sparkyv]

Some PB models have a P setting to adjust the temp response sensitivity via the auger feed rate.

 

[Torquin]

I ran a test yesterday and took screen shots from the app as I heated to various temps, changing the temp at the time of each screen shot, to the next higher temp. The chimney cap was at its lowest level for the entire test. There was no food in the smoker. The time between temp changes was at least 10 minutes, but in many cases, 15 minutes or longer.

Thanks,
Chris