Fire Brick
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Anyone have any insight into whether or not adding some fire bricks would help regulate temperature swings in electric smoker?
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I don’t have an electric smoker, but I do have them in my pellet grill, I feel it helps hold heat. I don’t think you’d have anything to lose trying it with an electric smoker.
Isaiah 5:22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks
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I don’t have an electric smoker, but I do have them in my pellet grill, I feel it helps hold heat. I don’t think you’d have anything to lose trying it with an electric smoker.
Tex_77 thanks for the reply! I figure the preheat would take longer but was looking for a more steady consistent heat was my thinking. Do you find placement of the brick to be significant or just anywhere in the smoker works equally well?
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Tex_77 thanks for the reply! I figure the preheat would take longer but was looking for a more steady consistent heat was my thinking. Do you find placement of the brick to be significant or just anywhere in the smoker works equally well?
iowa arborist In my pellet grill I have one on each side of the firebox. I’d say just put them as close to your heating element as you can without touching the actual element.
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iowa arborist In my pellet grill I have one on each side of the firebox. I’d say just put them as close to your heating element as you can without touching the actual element.
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dbueling the bricks you line wood stoves with
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dbueling The bricks I have are just old street bricks, its what I had so it’s what I used.
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iowa arborist It might help, depending on your smoker. For anyone who doesn’t know what he is referring to is the wave-like heat pattern of an electric smoker. If you set your electric smoker to 150° it will normally heat it up to about 165 then shut off then not kick on again until it is around 140, then it will heta it back up to 165 and so on and so on. This, obviously can create a little problem though not too much. The bricks would hold heat but I think that might just mean your smoker is going to keep its heating element off more.
Obviously this depends on your smoker and how it works, some do the on/off cycle on timers. If you do this try to place the bricks farther away from the thermosensor and let us know how it works!
Get more help with your processing questions and learn more about processing meat by subscribing to our waltonsinc.com youtube page at https://wltns.link/waltonstv I am a Gorilla, love yourself
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iowa arborist It might help, depending on your smoker. For anyone who doesn’t know what he is referring to is the wave-like heat pattern of an electric smoker. If you set your electric smoker to 150° it will normally heat it up to about 165 then shut off then not kick on again until it is around 140, then it will heta it back up to 165 and so on and so on. This, obviously can create a little problem though not too much. The bricks would hold heat but I think that might just mean your smoker is going to keep its heating element off more.
Obviously this depends on your smoker and how it works, some do the on/off cycle on timers. If you do this try to place the bricks farther away from the thermosensor and let us know how it works!
Jonathon I built my smoker with a PID controller so once it’s up to temp it intermittently cycles the element to keep the temp steady, which it does well, so I guess I was thinking more along the lines of after I open the door or when I first load 25lb of cold meat into it and how long it takes for it to rebound back to temp. Thought was if I increased the heat mass then maybe it would rebound very quickly and make for a more accurate smoke schedule? But then my question or experiment would be where best to place them kinda thing.
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iowa arborist It might help, depending on your smoker. For anyone who doesn’t know what he is referring to is the wave-like heat pattern of an electric smoker. If you set your electric smoker to 150° it will normally heat it up to about 165 then shut off then not kick on again until it is around 140, then it will heta it back up to 165 and so on and so on. This, obviously can create a little problem though not too much. The bricks would hold heat but I think that might just mean your smoker is going to keep its heating element off more.
Obviously this depends on your smoker and how it works, some do the on/off cycle on timers. If you do this try to place the bricks farther away from the thermosensor and let us know how it works!
Jonathon my thinking was along the lines of my garage is forced air heat and takes awhile to reheat the air after opening the doors but my shop is in floor heat and with all that concrete warm it seems to be back up to temp extremely quickly after opening a door.
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iowa arborist Then yes, it would absolutely help with bringing it back up to temperature from the door opening as it will have something in there radiating heat directly into the enclosed space. Also, it sounds like your controller will take care of my only concern! Also, for anyone without a way to control your system lik you can, I am not saying this isn’t a good idea, I think it definitely could keep your smoker in the goldilocks zone for a longer time! In fact, I am going to buy some firebricks and do some testing on with my PK-100 and see if it helps level it out. Won’t be until the new year but i’ll let everyone know!
Get more help with your processing questions and learn more about processing meat by subscribing to our waltonsinc.com youtube page at https://wltns.link/waltonstv I am a Gorilla, love yourself
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iowa arborist Then yes, it would absolutely help with bringing it back up to temperature from the door opening as it will have something in there radiating heat directly into the enclosed space. Also, it sounds like your controller will take care of my only concern! Also, for anyone without a way to control your system lik you can, I am not saying this isn’t a good idea, I think it definitely could keep your smoker in the goldilocks zone for a longer time! In fact, I am going to buy some firebricks and do some testing on with my PK-100 and see if it helps level it out. Won’t be until the new year but i’ll let everyone know!
Jonathon awesome I’ll be keeping an eye out for your results!
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iowa arborist Okay, I went and bought some and did this testing the results were…confusing to say the least! I am attaching a screenshot but to say I am shocked is an understatement. The first 4 peeks were from before we added the bricks, then when we added the bricks the wave increase! I would also argue that the waves angle increased, not decreased! I added 12 bricks to the smoker too, so it wasn’t an issue of too few bricks.
Get more help with your processing questions and learn more about processing meat by subscribing to our waltonsinc.com youtube page at https://wltns.link/waltonstv I am a Gorilla, love yourself
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iowa arborist Okay, I went and bought some and did this testing the results were…confusing to say the least! I am attaching a screenshot but to say I am shocked is an understatement. The first 4 peeks were from before we added the bricks, then when we added the bricks the wave increase! I would also argue that the waves angle increased, not decreased! I added 12 bricks to the smoker too, so it wasn’t an issue of too few bricks.
Jonathon Do you know where the built-in temperature probe is located on the PK 100? It would seem that you could get those results if the fire bricks were placed close enough to the built-in probe such that the steadier temperature of the bricks could “fool” the thermostat.
I’m just speculating, but that is one way I would try to reproduce those results (except that I don’t know where the built-in probe is).
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Okay, found the thermal sensor and as it turns out it was right around where I put the bricks, so test#2 starts now with the bricks all the way down on the grease tray.
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Jonathon Where is the sensor? It’s good know that it’s not near the heating element (as that would be a bigger problem), but I also want to place my probe away from both the heating element and the native sensor.
Thanks!
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TexLaw The sensor is on the back wall about 3/4th to 4/5th of the way up, right around where the second rack would go.
Get more help with your processing questions and learn more about processing meat by subscribing to our waltonsinc.com youtube page at https://wltns.link/waltonstv I am a Gorilla, love yourself
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